The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-08-11
BEHIND The TIMES.
New York City's Postal Facilities
Are Really Much Poorer Than
They Should Be.

| w. E. Curtis in Chicago Record Herald.
The local mail service about New
York city is very much behind the
times. The people Of London, Berlin,
Paris, ST. Petersburg, Rome Vienna
and other European cities have a de-
cided advantage of US in this respect
| Over there the collections and deliv-
| cries are so frequent that person can
get an answer to letter the same day
| that it is written. You can write from
any place in London to any part of
that city, and if your correspondent
answers promptly the reply will be re-
ceived within six hours. The same is
true in all Of the other cities 1 have
named. Housewives order their mar
keting by post card. If they mail an
| order to the butcher or the grocer be-
fore 8 o'clock in the morning the goods
will be delivered before luncheon. This,
of course, is great convenience and
economy, which we do not enjoy in
American cities, and during my pres
ent stay around New York I have been
struck with the delay and inefficiency
of the service here. A letter mailed in
Washington any time before 9 o'clock
in the evening reaches New York by
| Z o'clock the next morning, but it not
delivered north of Twenty-third street
before II O'Clock, and in the residence
district uptown, not until after noon.
A letter mailed at Washington with a
special delivery stamp upon it will
reach it's destination perhaps an hour
earlier.
| Oyster Bay is an hour and twenty
minutes from New York, yet a letter
posted there by the Ala train, with a
special delivery stamp upon it, is not
delivered at the New York Herald
building earlier than 9.30 A passenger
| can make the trip from Oyster Bay to
the New York Herald building in an
hour and half, but it takes letter
five hours and half, by actual expert
| ence. Therefore the newspaper corre-
spondents at Oyster Bay are compelled
| to hire a messenger and send him to
| New York with their dispatches be-
| cause they dare not trust the mails.
The same Is true of letters from Man.
haitian Beach, which is only forty min
utes from New York city and fifty min
utes from the New York Herald build
| ing. A letter mailed at the Waldorf
| Astoria in the afternoon will not reach
| Oyster Bay or Manhattan Beach until
| the next morning, although the former
is only an hour and a half distant and
the latter fifty minutes. The trains run
| frequently up till midnight; to Man.
| haitian Beach they run every hour. A
| letter mailed in Atlantic City at 3
| o'clock in the afternoon reaches New
| York about 6. If it has a special deliv-
| cry stamp upon it it will be delivered
somewhere about 10 o'clock at night. If
it bears the ordinary stamp it will not
| be delivered until the next morning.
| This is my personal experience, and
| the local deliveries in New York city
are even slower. If letter addressed
| to any place in the city reaches it's des-
| tination the same day 1t Is mailed 1t Is
| fortunate, but that does not occur fire.
quently. Not long ago mailed letter
at the Waldorf hotel about O'Clock in
the afternoon to a book store within
five minutes walk. 1t was not deliv-
cred until the early mail the next
morning. 1t was taken up in the 4
| Office, three or four miles away. and
then brought back the next morning.
The postoffice authorities explain that
they cannot deliver mails any more
promptly, because they lack the facil-
tiles, but congress appropriates some-
| thing over $100,0O0,0O0 year to provide
| facilities, and the money is all eXpend-
| ed. Postmaster General Payne should
| send Postmaster Van Cott of New York
| to England, Germany or France, so
| that he can learn how to run a post
Office.