Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-08-11
TO CUT EXPENSES
NEW DEVICE FOR CATCHING MAIL
MAY DIsLoDGE THE RURAL
MAIL CARRIERS.

L
ems to Limit Presidents Appointive
Power-Device viii Deliver Mail at
Farmers Door.
>Des Moines. Aug. 7.-Nelson S. How
ell of Cumming has just established
an automatic suburban mail delivery
| apparatus built according to device
which he recently patented. on farm
in Madison county about twenty miles
south of Des Moines. 1t is eight rods
long and is designed to illustrate the
! working of the system which can be
extended to any distance up to thirty
miles. Persons from Des Moirfes who
| have seen it say that it works per-
fectly.
| The apparatus which Mr.. Howell has
patented and perfected is designed
to do away with the rural mail car
rier in its ultimate application it
may do away with the rural postmas-
ter.
| Simple and Cheap.
1t is simple and cheap of /construc-
ton. Officers of the United States
government have evinced a desire to
know something about it. The eighty
rod sample which is doing business
on a Madison county farm is achieving
such perfect results that Mr. Howell
believes that Uncle Sam may want to
make a deal presently. Ordinarily
the employment of rural mail carriers
is an efficient way to give political
positions to friends, but the postal
/ department has been running on bust
ness rather than political lines in re-
cent years and 1t has not lost much
time in acquiring the devices which
save time and cut down expenses.
The Howell Scheme.
The Howell apparatus consists of an
endless cable, carried on poles and de-
/ livering and collecting mail by clock
work. The cable is line thirty miles
long and can be moved by one and
one-half horse power gasoline engine
and goes at speed which will per-
NIT as many mail deliveries in day
as are desired. With thirty mile
J. line working satisfactorily, there is no
reason why the same principle cannot
be applied to line of indefinite
length which means the consolidation
of the mail handling business in
large postoff1ces and the elimination
of railroad and team transportation of
mail.
The cost of the apparatus is small
because it is extremely simple. Tele-
phone or telegraph poles can be used
to carry and support the cable. If
they are not to be had cheap poles
/ may be erected at distances not great
err than that separating telephone
poles. The power is supplied by a
drum at any station which may be
selected as convenient. The devices
which Mr.. Howell has patented are
1 those which release the mail at the
4 different stations and collect 1t auto
matically.
Clock Work Regulation.
/ The deliveries are regulated by
clock work. If there are fifty persons
on the endless chain route, the mail
/ of No. 1 drops at his mail box at his
door while the other forty-nine pouch
es are carried on, each dropping at the
place fixed. The apparatus, while au-
tomato and of an appalling scientific
/ description, is not intricate, is not
easily put out of order and works
perfectly on the eighty rod cable
| which has been erected on Mr.. How
ellis farm south of this city.
Weather No Barrier.
Muddy roads will not affect this ru-
raj mail carrier; nor billiards.. Rain
or shine, muddy or dry, holidays and
4 Sundays, this apparatus could work
without thought being given to horse
i feed or the hardships of the mail car
rier. In pioneer days the mail coach
or mounted mail carrier delivered the
mail. Then came the railroad and the
4 postof1ice box. Then came the city
/ carrier; now the rural mail carrier
stage is being gone through with. re-
! vival of the pioneer stage mail or
mounted carrier period. This, of
course is bound to give way to some
mail carrying device which will not
he affected by the weather, which will
deliver mail without delay or failure,
and which will reduce the cost of the
rural service to minimum and guar
antee to every resident of the coun-
try instead of favored few,
the modern necessity of daily mail
delivery.
May Displace Officials.
In it's final development, it is esti-
mated that this device will displace
the rural postmaster For instance
mail for every resident of Polk county
would be as easily operated from Des
Moines by properly equipped plant
of this character as line thirty miles
long. That is, the thirty mile cables
would be SO extended and so increas-
ed in number that every resident of
the county might be served quickly out
of the Des Moines jostofice instead of
being compelled to wait for such
transfers of his mail as the railroad
companies and postal clerks might
deem essential. 1t would simplify the
work of the mail clerks enormously,
also, If they were compelled to throw
mail only to the county seat towns
in Iowa instead of the $500 towns In
fact the Howell device is capable of
astonishing extensions. almost endless
For if an eighty rod apparatus works
perfectly, why could not all the mail
of the west be delivered from the
Chicago postoffice to individuals?
ARE UP AGAINST 1T.
Muscatine Owns Water Plant Which II