The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-12-27
POST MAIL EARLY
AND AVOID DELAYS
Postmaster Arthur l. Thomas
Gives Business Men Some
Sound Advice.
TIGHTEN CLERKS BURDEN
ADOPTION OF PLAN WILL AID IN
QUICK DELIVERY.

If you want your letters to leave town
the same day as posted, mail them early,
If only a small majority of the letter
writers of Salt Lake held their mail
until just before the last collection before
dropping them into the box, no trouble
would be experienced, but business men
seem TO have all fallen into the late
habit, with the result that the collectors
make their weary rounds ali day to the
chutes and boxes OF the business build
lHgs, ana come back with only a few let
tefs from each one Then, as early as
the pOstOtfice regulations viii allow, they
get out for the collections between about
4 and . o'clock in the afternoon, know
ING what is awaiting them. Every box
ana every chute IN not only the office
buildings but on the street corners and
IN the hotels, are found filled almost to
capacity. The collectors reach the office
with their wagons and mail sacks packed
with all they viii hold, and the result in
the postotfice is confusion among the
clerks who find it the next thing to a
human impOssibility to get all the heavy
trains, which nearly all leave town be
tween the hours of 6 and clock in the
evening
According to Postmaster Arthur L.
Thomas, this system is the cause of prac-
tlcdIly all the delays that occur in the
forwarding of mail not only for outside
points, but city deliveries as well. He sug-
gests that the various business men
should instruct their clerks and stenE-
rapherS to get into the habit of posting
what mail is on hand several times dur
ing the day, This, he says will cause
little or no inconvenience, as in most
cases the mail chutes are only a few
feet from the office doors. and the result
would be that the collectors would get
the majority Of the mail matter into the
postotfice during the early hours of the
afternoon, where the clerks could get it
sorted and separated. and no trouble
would be had in getting everything off
on time.
Unlike great many large business
houses, where the force of clerks is
added to or cut down as occasion de-
mands, and without any effort at scientific
measurement of what each man should
be able to do, the pOstOffice department
has had 1t figured out for several years,
almost to a single piece, the exact
amount of mail each clerk can handle,
and it is on this basis that not only the
clerks and inside force of pOstOffice en-
plOyes, but the carriers as we'll are en-
ployed. The postmaster says that if the
mail was posted in anything like equal
amounts, instead of a very large percent
age being dumped into the office at 6
CLOCK the present congestion and de
lays, which occur in all seasons of the
year as well as in the busy holiday sea-
son, would be done away with autOmati-
cally.
Another way by which the business
men or the town can materially assist in
llgE hing the burdens Of the clerks and
carriers, and do away with errors and
delays resulting in hard feelings some
times on both sides, is for them to have
the janitor Of the building in which they
are quartered collect mail for the build
ing on Sunday. While this practice is
carried out to a great extent here, it
could be much more general, and the
postmaster believes that if the business
men Of the town would stop to think ii
over every man jack who could posi-
bly, spare the time would see pers0nallv
mat his Sunday mail was collected, thus
practically cutting the Monday deliveries
of the carriers en- half