The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) 1901-1902, 1901-08-18

department first required the railway
companies to carry the postal cars on
their fastest trains. Then each rail-
way postoffice made up mails direct for
other railway postoffices with which it
connected and to which they were
transferred without any intermediary.
The next step was to establish eXclu-
sive mail trains going faster than any
passenger train. These were intro
duced on the main lines, and have been
carried to the highest point of speed
and efficiency, the trains often reach
ing speed of sixty to seventy miles
an hour. An important feature of this
service is that, by means of catcher
pouchec.' mail bags are caught with
out slowing the trains, so that inter
mediate points have the advantage of
fast mails. This train service is very
hazardous. as may be realized from the
fact that, within the past ten years,
sixty-nine clerks have been killed and
1924 injured by accidents while they
were at their post of duty.
To reduce still further the time of
the transit of mails between the send
er and the receiver, the department
took up the question of anticipating
local work and prearranging distribu-
ton in the principal cities by transfer
ring city distributors directly TO the
railway offices, where they separate the
mails for carrier routes and branch Of
fees, thus enabling them to be sent di-
rectly to the branch offices or placed
in the hands of the carriers immedi-
ately upon arrival without the delay
of going through the central office.
This system has proved very satisfac
tory in its practical operation, and has
materially expedited delivery.
In connection with the transportation
of the mails, it is interesting to know
how the bags and pouches used in car
rying billions of pieces of mail matter
deposited in more than 10000 postoffices
and postal cars are distributed and
how they find their way back. Practi-
cally they are furnished under con-
tract, and nearly all of them, after in
specticn, are fed into the service
through the New York office The great
trend of the mail is from east to west,
and from the large commercial centres
to the less populous districts. How to
recover the mail bags sent to remote
sections and have them promptly re-
turned to the large distributing points
long since became q serious problem.
1t was finally solved by designating
certain cities, with adequate railroad
mr. s-tn {.
repositories for all surplus mail bags
finding their way to offices in the sur
rounding States. The bags thus ac-
cumulated are forwarded to the seat
of demand in their own territory, in ad-
dition to which two of the repositories
those at Cincinnati and st. Louis
are held in readiness TO supply at fire.
quent intervals from 5000 to 10000
pieces at a shipment. The repaired
equipment flowing from the great re-
pair shop is another large factor in the
scheme of distribution, and more than
l ESQ., of the repaired pouches and
sacks are fed into the service through
the offices in this city. Baltimore, Phil
adelphia, New York, and Boston.
In addition to the ordinary mail bags
so well known 10 the public, pouches
and sacks of special design are used to
meet unusual requirements. The
mountain carrier, who conveys the mail
on foot through the difficult passes, and
the runner in the extreme Northwest,
who skins over his route ON snow
shoes, need peculiar style, and for
their purposes a knapsack pouch is
provided. The Alaskan carrier, who
travels through the snow drifts and the
gulches and over the uncut mountain
road of an inhospitable ard sparsely
settled territory, needs still another
style. which can be packed singly and
not burden or hamper the dog team,
which is his means of transportation.
Yet another form, unfamiliar except in
remote and unsettled sections, is the
saddle-bag pouch comfortably carried
by the mounted mail rider, strapped to
his saddle. The latest application of
special equipment is perforated pouch
of new design to be used for mailing
live queen bees from the Pacific Coast
sometimes as far as the Philippines.
Heretofore bees have been carried in
ordinary sealed sacks with other mail
matter. and they can thus cross the
Atlantic in perfect safety. But the
voyage across the Pacific is so much
longer that the bees are often suffo-
Gated, and the new device has been
adopted to meet this difficulty. In the
mail bag repair shop in this city there
is an old woman, stone blind. who has
worked upon pouches for over forty
years.
Such are a few of the points in the
of the great postal system
Of our country. Could one get at the
human interest contained and hidden
in the mechanical routine of the mann
moth machinery, could the contents of
one days mail be revealed, there would
be furnished material for countless
stories for the novelist and dramatist.
ON GIBRALTAR ROCK.