Norwich bulletin., 1911-05-15
HALFWAY THROUGH
KEEPING MAIL RECORD
About $4,000 Letters Handled Here in
Day, and From 500 to 5000 Papers.

With the end of today's business at
the postoffice, Postmaster William
Caruthers and the local STAFF will be
about halfway through with the
counting and timing Of mail as ordered
by the department to be carried on at
all the postoffices in the country from
May 10 May 81. There is a great
amount of detail involved in carry
this order, and although the ofhceS
generally received advance notice and
were advised to make one or two trial
days before May 1. the count and tab
ulation of records has not gone for
ward smoothly in all Offices. Judging
from the nunper OF inquiries made OF
the department about the order. But
in the Norwich ONCE the details re-
quired have been gotten at with little
friction, since Postmaster Cdruthers
had exercised his usual foresiSnted-
ness and had the plan all mapped out
ready to start on the first day of May
What the plan involves may be gath
cred when it is known that the Nor
wlch Office shows total Of about a.
600 incoming and outgoing letters dali
ly in the first class mail and from
500 new spapers on small day to
class, besides all the other classes and
subdi n sions Of the mail matter han
died.
There are four things which the de-
partment ID trying to learn about all
the mail that is handled. These are:
First, number of pieces handled; sec
ond actual time consumed in hand
ling; third, average number of pieces
handled per minute; and. fourth av-
erage number of landings each piece
received. The time is to be kept in
minutes from which it can be figured
just how many pieces Of each class
of mail matter can be handled in a
minute. Blanks are provided on which
the total day by day and the grand
total for the month can be shown,
which are to be returned as soon as
possible to the postal department a.
Washington when the month Is over
In order to return the record sheet
to the department in as good shape as
possible, Postmaster Caruthers is
keeping the daily figures on sheets
of common brown paper from which
the totals for the day are transferred
to the final sheet. All the sub-sta-
lIons are included in the count and
where theft records are added to
general results. The carriers are also
counting and keeping time on the let
tiers they deliver and collect, having q
daily sheet Of brown paper on which
they make their returns. From figures
it was shown that about JIG to 10 let
tiers per minute were handled in an
incoming mail of 1000 letters and
about 20 per minute in an outgoing
mail of the same number.
To make a general count and timing
of the mail would be a. big task, any
way, but the government directions on
this assignment are of such fine-tooth-
comb variety as to add greatly to the
detail. Every class and subdivision of
mail has to be counted and timed sep
arately and separate records made,
which are added together to get the
grand total
For instance. in the first class mail,
which comprises letters, there is no
subdivision, but in the second class
mail there are newspapers. magazines,
transient, local delivery and free in
county mail, each to be counted and
timed separately. Altogether there are
fourteen classes and subdivisions to
be kept track of.