Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-01-04

ING.
 ance companies make it almost prohib- ! itiye for him to obtain insurance. He comes under the extra-extraordinary . risks. You are aware, are you not, that in railway wrecks it is ever the mail cars that suffer most, their place close to the big racing locomotives not the most enviable. But reforms are in progress that will lessen the dangers appreciably, give the mails, to say ] nothing of the the clerks. a better show in the way of protection. Vari- ous styles of. new cars have been put on; one road has ten new cars ribbed with steel and iooreG with mineral matter; another road is experimenting with car built entirely of steel and riyeted like locomotive: another is using new cars stouter built than Pull mans. Presently the railway mail men may get into the regular accident insurance companies. Now they have company of their own; a member pays s10 year, gets s15 a week in case of accident and s3,000 for perma- nent disablement.
 One of the appliances used on mail cars is the safety rod. In case of wrecks the floor of a car is the first to go. it splintering up in a most re- markable fashion. When the tre- mendous speed of the mail train comes suddenly to .standstill, the emer- gency brake acts, the experienced men in the car seize hold on the safety rods, and swinging from these are not in such danger from the smashing around of movables. have some preparation for any further shocks. ..
 There are 13,000 railway mail clerks in the United States. Their salaries range from s900 to $500. The..w work. is of an intense sort, and no small overtime required. An interesting ar- ticle in the New York Tribune says: They work six days on and six days of, but about a half of their vacation must be spent in studying their scheme books or post offices and routes in or uEl tD pass AHr held at frequent intervals. Every man of the crew must have from 12.000 10 15 900 post offices in his head. He must know their locations just as he knows that Roosevelt is president of the United States. He must be famil- jar with hundreds of train schedules. for some of the offices are reached by two lines. and he must know which train gets there first All things con- sidered. it Is little wonder that many of those who pass the civil service ex- animation cannot stand the strain on their memories and have to leave the service"
 The distribution of the mail takes place with train going at full speed, and a railway clerk has to learn the trick of keeping on his feet when swinging round sudden curves. when going at bounding pace; also he must possess deftness and precision of toss. for on this depends the success of get ting the mail sorted ere the station is reached where il is to be thrown out Sometimes. when there is great load of some popular periodical, the work hangs over. fl is impossible to get all the matter sorted in time for scheduled delivery.
 A saving is made in city delivery when the mail matter is properly ad- dressed: then it does not have 10 go down 10 the general post office. but is sent to sub-stations. The sorting in the car goes on with wonderful rapid ity and sureness, letter and parcel is glanced al and tossed into it's proper receptacle. nsyhsp distance of 3e feet or sO. If a train has been late. if there is extra heavy mail. then there is a race that calls for all a mans ability. These men work while they Eork. there is no doubt about that