The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-07-17
WEIGHING THE MAILS.

The railroads are paid for carrying
the mails on the basis of a contract
running four years. Once during
this period additional men are put on
the mail cars, whose duty is to weigh
all mail received and delivered at each
station.
The figures thus received are as
sumed to represent an average of the
amount of mail carried on that route,
and become the basis of the contract.
-Four years later new period of
weighing is begun, and the contract
is revised in accordance with the new
figures.
The United States is divided into
four contract districts, says System,
and the weighing is carried on sim
ultaneously in all parts of district.
The following year some other dis
trict is weighed, and thus the circuit
of the country is covered in the four
year period.
Each district contains several
weighing divisions. For example in
the district which comprises the
North Central States, weighing will
be conducted simultaneously in the
divisions centering at Chicago, Cleve-
land and Cincinnati.
It is in the tabulation and cpmpila-
tion of the reports sent in by these
official weighers thatthe system devils
ed by Carle c. Hungerford of the
railway mail service is employed.
"The weighing of the mails for
the purpose of awarding the contract
is not a new departure" said Mr..
Hungerford. "That was part of the
old system. The mail weighers have
cards on which they record the weight
of mail taken at each station on the
route, and also the weight put Oft.
Another card records the weight on
the return trip between the same
points.
"This process of daily weighing is
kept up for ninety days, and the to-
tails must be footed at the end of each
week and the end of the whole peri
cd. Formerly each days report was
entered by the clerks on large tab
ulating sheet three feet long and two
feet wide, and figures had to be to-
tailed vertically and horizontally.
"The size of the job can be seen
when T fell Won that the report of
just two trains on long run for the
period of ninety days took up thirteen
Of these large sheets.
"The work kept twenty-five men
busy in the Chicago headquarters
during the time of the weighing and
for three months afterward. Then
there was liability of error in the
footings.
$50 we developed the plan to doing
away with the tabulating sheet alto
gether. We used the adding ma
chine and make its record strip the
permanent record of the weights.
Instead of first entering the figures
on the large sheet and then transfer
ing them to the machine, one man
reads the amounts from the weighing
report and another operates the ma
chine.
"The figures for week are kept
together, and totals taken for each
town. At the end the totals are taken
for the whole route.
The cipher in the middle of the
column marks the dividing line be-
tween the columns for mail put off
the train and mail taken on. At the
end of the weighing period the totals
for the various weeks are footed on
the machine.
We can do the work with half the
clerks that were formerly needed.
1t takes three months to finish the
reports after Weighing closes. Here
tofore we had to keep twenty-five
men at work tabulating and adding
now half the number can do the
work"