The Saint Paul globe., 1905-02-05
HON. UNCLE SAM
HANDLES THE MAIL


7 cogs in the machinery of a vast bu
! perfectly directed engine.
There is no hurry apparent, and al
uniformed person might we'll thinl
| that not much mail was being handles
when, in fact, the force was working
at tremendous pressure.
But one look at the canceling ma
chine which places the voiding mari
across the faces of the stamps of tn
letter mail shows what is being done
and after that look, if any one doubts
that the clerks are working he woult
surely be very hard TO convince of any.
thing.
Clerks Wonderful Accuracy
1t is a marvellous sight to see a great
armful of letters slip into the machine
and run automatically across the face
OF the postmark in a constant stream
SO fast that the eye follows them with
difficulty. 1t is a marvellous sight tc
see slow moving clerk throw pack
ages of letters half way across a big
room and into the mouths of bags SET
up on frame work. The marvellous
part of this is that he never misses
the bag he throws at, although there
are hundreds of them standing side by
side, one destined for the Hawaiian
islands and another for the Minnesota
towns south of Anoka on certain lit
tie strip, of railroad, while Chicago and
New York are in front and st. Louis
just back of them.
He lands his packages right in the
mouths of the appropriate pouches
with half swing of his arm, and then
reaches for another package.
A sharp glance at 1t and another
swing follows within the second, and a
little bundle of letters destined 100 or
10000 miles away goes plunk into the
right pouch
1t is all done gracefully and deliber-
ately, and there are no mistakes.
1t is all part of the great system
which was described as follows:
In order TO show how the government
handles its mails the department chiefs
were first asked to suppose the case of
letter mailed at 3 o'clock in the
afternoon Of Feb. 1, at Spokane, Wash,
and addressed to a commission house
in South Water street, Chicago, and to
trace its course and tell what hap
pened to it.
The letter is dropped into one of the
receptacles for first-class mail. and
within half an hour a gray suited col
lector opens the box with a complicated
and heavy key and sweeps all the con-
tents into his leather shoulder bag.
All the notice he takes of the letters
is to see that he has them all. Then
he locks the box and starts for the next
one. When he has made his rounds he
goes to the main postoffice and dumps
his load on a distributing table.
He rapidly straightens the letters so
that they face the same way and are
right side up. The only sorting he does
is to pick out and throw to one side the
pieces that appear to be too large to
go through the canceling machine. He
pays no attention to correctness of ad-
dress, or the fact that a letter is heav-
Ter than the stamp upon it seems to
warrant. He merely stacks them up as
described and carries them to the can
ceiling machine.
Canceling Machine
slow moving young man is in
charge of this, and he stands behind a
table that is practically waist high. In
the center of this table is a device that
looks as if it might be almost anything
from miniature threshing machine to
mysterious motor for the application
of wireless telegraphy.
There is a long goose-n -necked chute
al the right hand of the young man,
While running to the left is a series of
small steel cylinders belted and geared
to shafting somewhere below To the
left of the cylinders is the postmark
fitted on a long lever and geared so
that its action s'like that of a minute
trip hammer with a lateral movement.
Below the face of the postmark there
is trigger over which each letter or
postcard must pass, and in passing
register the fact that it has passed and
been impressed with the stamp.
The deliberate young man reaches
across the table and picks up long
armful of letters, including the one to
the Chicago commission man. He
places them on the goose-neck with the
addresses toward him, and then gently
starts them toward the cylinders.
These revolve in opposite directions
and seize the edge of the nearest letter
between them. and run it steadily but
with lightning speed directly in front OF
the postmark. 1t comes out on the
other side with the stamps Cancelled
and bearing the date, hour and minute
of its contact with the postmark While
this paragraph was written a full thou
sand letters could pass through this
process and be perfectly marked with
the stamp of the postoffice.
The stream is so swift that a bundle
of thousand letters placed in position
on the goose-neck begins to melt away
almost as soon as they are laid In
and the young man reaches for more to
take their places.
He was asked how fast the machine
was working and replied that it was
stamping at the rate of 10000 letters
an hour. He explained that the ma
chine could mark twice as many at a
pinch, but that the holiday rush being
over the necessity for real work had
passed.
On the left side of the machine the
letters come out in the same order as
was used in placing them on the goose
neck, and then they are seized by the
clerks who make the first sorting.
Separated by States
These are young men who are new In
the service. They are not familiar
enough with the various postal plans
of districts TO make a fine selection
and the first work done is to separate
the letters by states and big cities.
This work continues until ii is time
to prepare the mail for a certain train
when class of experts picks up the
work.
This happens to be the Eastern mai
train squad. They take the piles sort.
ed out by the first squad, and in al
incredibly short space of time have di-
vided the piles into packages for Ger.
tain comparatively small localities.
The heavy letters are laid to one sid,
so that the postage on them may b,
more carefully examined. If they ar,
fOIud to he oVerWeipht a pofo tio,, /,