The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-12-23
TARDY GIVERS
SAVED BY STAMP
SPECIAL DELIVERY USED.
ELEVENTH HOUR GIFTS KEPT
FROM BEING LATE.

POstOfice Receives Many Packages
on Eve of Christmas-Extra Work
Imposed ON Clerks Promptly Met.
Wrapping OF Bundles Has Much
TO DO With Speed of Handling.
Addresses often UninteIIigibIe.
Problems Clerks Contend with.
Eleventh hour Christmas gifts are
often dragged out of that category by
the swift and effectual work of Uncle
Sans postoftice clerks and carriers.
This class of presents is not includ-
ed in the regular list. They belong
to the uncontemplated offerings. The
average woman along about the holt
days, makes a list of all of the peo-
pie to whom she expects to give.
There are some whom she remembers
in her mind only for the limitation
of her purse or some other cause pre-
vents her going further.
Near Christmas time however the
carrier hands her a package. 1t is
from some city friend who was not
down on her list. She can't afford to
receive without having given. She
runs down to the corner drug store
or stationery shop and picks out a
little something. She asks the drug
clerk to do it up for mailing. Then
she buys special delivery stamp, and,
along with the regular postage, pastes
it on the package. She drops it into
the big postal package box out on
the sidewalk and the postoffice people
do the rest.
POstOhice Ready to Help.
The Savannah delivery system is
making special arrangements to handle
the largest eleventh hour business that
has ever been handled by the post
office. 1t has been growing every year.
People have found out what they can
do with the oblong blue stamp, which
means hurry"
There are a whole lot of people who
send nothing to certain persons until
going to send them anything. They
rely on the 10 cent blue stamp to help
them out if it becomes necessary.
The belated packages are to be given
the rush from the time that a glimpse
is caught of the elongated stamp. When
the eleventh hour packages are de-
livered and a receipt taken the recip-
or she having received it in fair time,
doesn't know that they weren't down
on the regular list. Uncle Sam clever
ly smoothed it over by swift and sure
work.
Blue stamp Saves Feelings.
BY the same machinery a person in
a distant city may be made to think
she has not been left off the favored
list and is saved from the injured feel
ings that an eleventh hour gift occa-
sions. BY the intelligent use of a spe-
cial delivery stamp a package may get
the impression of a dating stamp that
will save the package from conveying
an unwelcome piece of information.
Special delivery packages or letters
are picked out and separated. They
are the first to be handled. The clerks
put them on the top of everything
else.
Patrons of the mails at Christmas
time might aid materially in expedit-
ing the delivery of packages if they
would be more careful about the pack
ing. Hundreds of people pack a thim
BILE in a box six inches square. A pack
age may be much larger and contain
a pair of baby's stockings. One rea-
son why it takes longer to handle such
packages is that the packages are so
large that they fill up the pouches and
the racks have to be stripped so often
that much time is taken up in removing
one pouch from a rack to put another
one on.
Another source of lost time is that
numerous addresses are unintelligible.
The packages have to go to some one
who will try to figure out the adj
dresses which are not plainly legible.
Christmas packages are delayed from
this cause, and often, no doubt. it oc-
casions a belief in the recipients mind
that he is getting an eleventh hour
gift