Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-23
BUSY At POST OFFICE
Employees Putting in Hardest
Work of the Year.
CHRISTMAS RUSH APPARENT
Departments Asked to Hold Out Pub
lie Documents.
IN THE DISTRIBUTING ROOM
Extra Weighing Tables and Plentiful
Supply of Pens-Registry and
Other Divisions.

Just when the bulk of the population Is
settling down to a more or less well-earned
Christmas holiday there is one class OF
public servants in Washington putting in
their hardest work of the year making
other people happy. They are the postai
employees The butchers and BAKERS the
girls in the department stores. every one
almost, except the milkmen and the news
paper men, will take a little breathing
space for Christmas time. But the post
office men will work all the harder as the
holiday season draws nearer.
The postal clerks, the letter carriers, all
the drivers and other employees OF the Dig
department are just now putting in their
hardest ticks. There was nun force Oh
duty last night TIL midnight in the city
pest office, and wnen they went on uuty
they were relieved by fresh SHIFT that
will keep UP the work till after the hoh-
days.
One delivery will be made by the carriers
today and one on Christmas day. But in
addition to the mailmen the pubic sees
loaded down with packages and letters
there will be hundreds employed behind
the walls of the pest office, working like
beavers supplying the carriers with the
mail matter and handling the outgoing
mail.
On Duty at Main Office.
There were on duty at the main post
office last night about seventy-five clerks.
with half a dozen extra helpers There
were proba bly, 20 employees busy in the
building altogether. There were 800 car
riers on the routes all over town, and 1t Is
impossible to say just how many drivers.
laborers and railway mail clerks on the
trains running into and going out OF the
city. 80
This is not particularly busy holiday
season. either. OF course, till the rush or
{. will 1pnC
sibe to say just how 1t compares with
previous wears. The indication now is that
it is heavier than last year about in pro-
portion to the growth of the city. The
bulk of the mail matter handled at the
Christmas season increases vastly, but
proportionately diminishes in weight with
Christmas because of the immense num-
Der of big. light Christmas packages
and the reduction in government documents
in the mail. A week before Christmas no
tice is sent out to all the federal depart
ments that the post office will be suffering
a great extra strain, and the request ls
made that the weight of official mail be
kept down as much is consistent with
the dispatch of public business. Most of
the depa rtments heed the request. and the
result is that there is an immense falling
off in the weight of public documents to
be handled There are still things like free
seeds and that sort of congressional mail
sent in by the ton, but such matter is
known a a glance and last night there
a stack of mail sacks full of 1t as big
as a two-Story cottage piled in one corner
of the post office floor waiting to be ham
died after the more pressing Christmas
mail is out of the way.
On the average between twenty and
thirty-fiye tons of mail matter pass through
the Washington post office in twenty four
hours. This limit will, of course be eX-
ceeded with the Christmas mail, but how
much it will be impossible to say till the
smoke of battle clears away and the tally
m n figure results
Well Up With the Work.
The office is well up with its work for
the season. There is no unusual conges-
ton, and the chances are that the office
will be able to keep fully abreast of the
game till the rush is over. The bulk of
the outgoing mail has been received. Peo-
be covered farther off than, say. New
York. Packages and letters for more dis
tant points have already been dispatched
in order to reach their destinations by
will be to handle the incoming matter and
get 1t to the residents of the city.
This does not mean that there is not
some outgoing mail on hand, either. Up
to midnight the corridors of the big post
office building were filed with jostling
crowd buying stamps, having packages
weighed and sliding them through the Sits
and pockets into the big screened amphi-
eral public never looks and never seems to
care to look. There We're extra weighing
tables on all the corners of the outer CORR
doris. There was abundant supply of
pens and ink on hand at a score of desks
scattered through the halls so that though
there was an immense amount of business
done every minute nobody had to fret long
waiting for chance to be served. In
that respect the American post office as a
rule is far ahead of an office abroad, where
the service is slower and where there is
little or no preparation made for the in
creased rush of holiday times.
Scene of Real Work.
But it was inside the main office On the
floor that the real work was going on. The
whole floor of the immense handling room
is lighted by twenty three-foot incandescent
mercury tubes that give about three times
the amount of light with half the consump-