The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-09-13
RURAL DELIVERY GROWING
OVER TWO MILLION PEOPLE
SERVED BY IT.
Wonderful Development of the System
Since it Was Inaugurated Five Years
Ago-Some Features of it.

The wide discussion now being had on
the subject of rural free delivery makes
of especial interest at this time a report
made on the subject by Charles II.
Greathouse of the Agricultural Depart
ment to Secretary Wilson. The report is
very exhaustive and a part follows:
The system of free delivery of mail at
the farm homestead is developing in the
United States by great strides. The first
routes bearing the Lame rural free de-
livery" were established on October l,
1896, at Halltown, Uvilla and Charles
town, w. Va. Others followed at once,
and by the close of the fiscal years the
experiment showed satisfactory results.
There were Al routes il. the fall of 1897;
this number increased to 128 in 1898, and
on ANovemDer l. 1899, had jumped to ga.
These radiated from 1888 distributing
points and served population of 40, 73o
persons. On June 30, 1900, a little more
than six months later, the number of
routes had grown to 1,214 for a popula-
ton of $40, 127, and in the next four
months the system again more than
doubled its proportions, showing on
November l, 1900, 2,551 routes for 1901,
ga persons; and there were also at that
date 2,15S applications for the es-
tablishmenL of new routes. 4ne whole
of the United States is now laid out in
four divisions for the Inauguration and
maintenance Oh lnlS service, ana the
work is going forward with steadily in
creasng volume.
April IL, 1900, an important advance
took place. Rural carriers were au-
thOrized to receive and deliver register
ed mail. AS the law requires such mat
ter to be delivered personally, the car
riers are obliged to go o the houses in
stead of dropping the letters or pack
ages in the farm box. Rural carriers
or oil
plications for money orders and while
they cannot yet issue the orders tney
can save the farmer the trip to the
office by acting as his agent.
Another most satisfactory change
was made on July l, 1900, when an or
der was made under which postage on
drop letters on rural ee-delivery
routes was fixed at 2 cents per ounce
and carriers were required to cancel
stamps on all letters collected by them.
This order carried with it authority to
deliver drop letters without passing
them through the hands of postmas-
ter.
Rural free delivery of mails is scien-
tific. On purely theoretical grounds the
post office ought always to deliver the
matter intrusted to it at the door of the
addressee. The distance to be travelled
from the sender to receiver of mail is
precisely the same whether the whole
trip be made by the postal employe or
be met part way by the person for
whom it is intended. Furthermore the
cost of making the trip is always paid
out of the sum total of the nations
capacity to do work. 1t makes little
difference ultimately whether the labor
is paid for from government funds col
lected by the sale of stamps or other
wise, or is done by each man directly
without intervention of the United
States treasury at all; it all comes from
the people anyhow.
The only question that need be asked
is whether there will be more waste of
time, a larger number of empty trips by
the farmer who never knows when
there is mail for him, or by the postman
who always knows whether there is
something to deliver; and to this there
seems to be but one answer The num-
Der of times the farmer would be GO
ing to the post town for other reasons
and the times when several families
would send for mail by the same mes
senger enter into the calculation, of
course, but In general this would not
change the answer. And whether the
addressee may be a farmer or towns
man really is of no consequence, if free
delivery involves only a short trip for
the postman in the city, it also involves
only short trip for the citizen, and
the corresponding relation between
length of trips exists for the farm de-
livery.
The opinions of special agents engage
ed in introducing free rural delivery in
all parts of the United States, as shown
In their reports in 1851 and 1900, are in