Evening star., 1901-02-25
THE "R. VI. =" BOYS.
Interesting Facts Concerning Some of
Uncle SANS Employees.

1T Is singular fact in the makeup OF
the human mind that a man when dead
counts for so little, while an injured man
comes high In law suits and even has a
value in government employ" said a bright
young member of one of Uncle Sans
branch armies of civil employees, known as
the railway mail service force, as he
swung out of his ear al one of the railroad
stations this morning.
If a railway mail service clerk Is killed
in the line of his duty his family mourn,
his friends are sympathetic and the de-
partment regretful for two reasons. first, to
lose an experienced man, for in our bus
mess experience and merit alone count, and
second, because II cannot aid the faithful
fellows family or widow
Under the law and the rule of the de-
partment If a railway mail service empIoye
Is seriously injured, If the disability con-
tinues even up 10 full year, leave of alb
sence, with pay, is considerably allowed
him. If he is killed his pay stops from the
day of his death, and the government can
not make an allowance even for his funeral
expenses much less aid his family, who
may be in dire distress. If Congress would
authorize IL such an allowance WOu,d he
possible, but in the absence of an express
law governing the point there is nothing
for the department to do but to express
regret, though the dead man may have
given the best years of his life to the serv-
ice Of the government.
Shut up day and night in their mail
cars, which are often their collins the gem
eral pubic has little opportunity of seeing
class Of men who are indiSpenSa BILE and
of the greatest public service. Last yeaI
of our force were killed, 81 seriously in
Jured and 1ST slightly injured in the per-
formance of their duty. In collisions es-
DecldlIy head-On collisions. the mail car
Is generally wrecked badly sp!intered.
Their skill and accuracy in handling and
separating mail matter and in memorizing
post office names and locations is marvel
Gus.
There are S.79i of these men, and last
year they handed the bewi.dering number
of 1858 19l 800 letters and $50, ,415 500
pieces of other classes of mail matter max
Ing total of Il, TJ2, COZ 1fO pieces This
amount IN figures makes the public debt
look like 80 cents. In addition they handled
l9,NJo.uO other pieces. consisting of regis
tered matter. In spite of the total running
high into the billions there were but / 355 :
600 errors reported made by the clerks
In handling this stupendous aggregate or a
ratio of error to 1918.
''All of this is done In rapidly moving
swaying express trains. going at a speed of
from forty to seventy-five miles an hour
and all under unfavorable conditions as COM
pared with work upon d large floor as the
Washington city post office. for instance,
and mostly under artificial light In fact
no less than Sb per cent of all the mail
matter originating in the United States Is
sent direct 10 the railway mail service cars
to all this IA. 800. 900 pieces were thrown out
because they were addressed SO ilegib!y
that they could not be delivered, though
over 800 900 of these pieces were returned
TO the writers or forwarded TO destination
on corrected addresses. No less than 305,
100000 miles are covered annually by these
men in crews in 3.63S postal cars.
Naturally after reading these astonish-
ing facts and figures il is not TO be wonder
&c at that skill and experience and not
political influence is desired by these clerks.
The civil service rules strictly enforced
in this branch of the service which largely
accounts for its splendid record of efti-
riency. New and inexperienced men are
without practical value, and but for the
maintenance of the civil service 1t would go
to pie very quickly. There are over 76,OU1
post offices and thousands of routes on the
different railroads and steamboats, and
nearly every experienced postal clerk
has this enormous mass of names and To-
cations well in hand. Their capacity to
master and 10 remember names is truly re-
markable.'