Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1911-02-23


Than the Advocates of Par
GELS Post.
BY +. F. MATHEWS, MIMNEwAsHTA, MINI.
While much has been said on the
subject of parcels post there is going
to be lot more said before it is all
said. l will not attempt to cover it
all, as | do claim to know it all. |
will not attempt to figure it out how
the government is to reduce the pos.
tai deficit with parcels post when
it is fact, which the postal authori-
ties will not be honest and admit,
that the reason for the deficit is not
from lack of mail but because it
costs more to handle the second.
class mail on a whole than the de-
partment receives for it, while the
third and fourth class breaks about
even, leaving the entire burden on
first class mail. Any law that will
increase the amount of third and
fourth class mail and at the same
time reduce the rate so sweepingly
as the parcels post law proposes,
must increase the deficit.
AS the rural parcels post, l would
say THAI our rural carriers are the
poorest paid in the service, and at
the greatest expense by far. They
must own and feed two horses, as
one horse cannot possibly stand it
to make the trips they must make
make every day, regardless of the
weather or the condition of the
roads, and that they use up one
horse on an average of every two
years, which is no small matter, as
they can use only sound horses that
are good roadsters.
The wagons they use are no larger
or heavier than necessary to handle
their present mail, hence anything
that would increase the bulk and
weight of their daily load would
necessitate larger and heavier wag-
ons, and as there are comparatively
few routes favored with level and
good roads, two horses would be
required, with a third horse to
change off, and as know that they
are only making bare living and
expenses at present, such an addi-
tional expense would necessitate
their giving up the job or getting
more wages.
New mail boxes would have to
be adopted large enough to take In
packages allowed to go by mail and
they would be unsightly things to
have standing out in front of each
house. With merchandise in them,
they would be easy marks for those
persons who have that peculiar mag
netism about them that attracts to
them things not under lock.
Now, from the merchants point
of view there are several features
that are not going to work out to
his advantage, one of which is very
evident right here in this commu-
nifty, and like or similar condition
is found in a majority of the thickly
settled communities. This region
is very thickly settled; there are four
towns about twelve miles apart form
its four corners and have ten rural
carriers distributing the mail to a
district about twenty miles square.
These four towns have an aggre-
gate of fifteen merchants, while in
this district there are eight little
postoffices and twenty-six stores,
some of which are much larger and
better stores than any in the four
towns from which the rural carriers
start. Nearly all these twenty six
stores are good ones, carrying So, ooo
or more in stocks and represent the
business of nine villages and three
inland points, but they do not have
access to the rural mail although
these carriers deliver to all their
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