River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-01-19
HURRlEs ALONG PRESENTS
Special Delivery Mailing Service Is
of Crest Value at Christ
mas Time.

Eleventh-hour Christmas gifts are
| often dragged out of that category by the
swift and effectuaI work of Uncle Sam s
! post office clerks and carriers.
! This class of presents is not included
in the regular list, says Chicago daily.
| They belong to the uncontemplated Of
! ferings. A Chicago woman along about
| the holidays makes list of all of the
people 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 prevents her
going further.
Near Christmas time, however, the
| carrier hands her package. 1t is from
some city friend who was not down on her
! list. She can't afford to receive with
out having given. She runs down to
the corner drug store or stationery shop
and picks out little something. She
asks the drug clerk to do it up for mail
ing. Then she buys special delivery
| stamp and, along with the regular post
| age, pastes it on the package. She
drops it into the big postal package box
out on the sidewalk and the post Office
people do the rest.
Col L. T. Steward, head Of the Chi
cago free delivery system, says that
eleventh-hour business has been grow
ing 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
they know whether these friends" are
going to send them anything. They
rely on the ten-cent blue stamp to help
them out If it becomes necessary.
Thousands of punches of flowers pass
through the Chicago post office during
the last hours of the gift-buying season.
| Thousands are delivered at night be-
fore the last minute Of the day has gone
A bunch of flowers seems to be favorite
| belated gift. The post office has pre-
pared extra tables to handle this class OF
packages for they take up a great deal
of room. The postal officers like to
meet such a tax ON their system. They
like to have it tested They want to
show that they can handle anything that
comes along. Special instructions are
given station superintendent, collect
Ors, and crews of street postal cars.
The belated packages are to be given
the rush from the time that glimpse
is caught Of the elongated stamp. When
! thousands of eleVenth-hour packages are
delivered and receipt taken the re-
cipient is saved from pain pang. He
Or she having received it in fair time,
doesn't know that they weren't down on
the regular list Uncle Sam cleverly
Smoothes it over by swift and sure work.
! BY the same machinery a person in
distant city may be made to think she
has not been left off the favored list
and is saved from the injured feelings
| that an eleVenth-hour gift occasions.
By the intelligent use of special deliv-
cry stamp package may get the impress
sion Of dating stamp that will save
the package from conveying an unwel-
come piece of information. Special de-
livery packages or letters are picked out
and separated. They are the first to
be handled. The street car crews and
others put them on the top of everything
else
Patrons of the mails at Christmas
time might aid materially in expediting
the delivery of packages II they would
be more careful about the packing. Hun
| dreds of people pack a thtnble in box
six inches square. A package may be
much larger and contain pair of baby's
stockings. One reason 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
thousands Of addresses are unintel-
ligible. The packages have to go to
Iome one who will try to figure out the
addresses which are not plainly legible
Tons of Christmas packages are de-
layed from this cause, and often, no
| doubt, it occasions belief in the recip-
ent's mind that he is getting an elev-
enth-hour gift.