Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-09-27
PARCELS POST IN GERMANY.
II Has Tremendously Developed Traffic
Among People.

One of the most striking things to
an American when he first sees Ger
man railroad Is the immense quantity
Of packages that are being loaded and
unloaded from the trains. Special cars
are carrying nothing but these pack
ages, and sometimes three or four such
cars are seen on the same train. An
inquiry as to what all this Is, brings
the information that it is packet post"
and then it dawns upon him that this
is what we have been beseeching con-
gress to establish at home and that he
now has an opportunity to see it in
operation. He now begins to watch
with more care to see how parcels post
works and what it carries. At the
railroad stations in the larger cities he
sees long rows of covered postofflce
wagons loading and unloading pack
ages of all sizes, kinds and description,
whatever else may be said about
parcels post, the people here use it and
use it freely.
At my boarding house in Central
Germany 1 asked my landlady where
she got her butter, which was of ex-
cellent quality. She told me it came
from Holstein, in the northwestern
part of Germany, 200 miles away. I
asked if it was expensive to have it
come so far, "Oh, no." she said; I'VE
have it come by post and have gotten
it every week for several years from
the same man. You know that we can
send package by post up to five kill
ograms I'll pounds) to any place in
Germany for so pfennig az cents)" I
then understood why had seen such
quantities Of packages in the railroad
stations and so many parcels post wa
gons on the streets in the cities. be-
gan to inquire about how commonly 1t
was in use for the marketing of farm
products. Here in Halle, WHICH is a
city of about 100000 population, in the
central part of Germany, find that 1t
is a very general practice for the fami-
lies to get supply Of butter, eggs and
poultry sent to them every week
through the parcels post, and they are
delivered to their door just as letter
would be.
We may theorize about how the
profits Of the middleman can be reduc-
ed and the expense of distribution de-
creased and the distance between the
producer and consumer shortened, but
where are we to get a more simple and
effective solution than by establishing
a parcels post? What will do more to
reduce the cost of living to the man
in the city and to increase the income
of the farmer than to have them deal
directly with each other through par
cells post? What are some Of the facts
about the parcels post Of Germany
and what is her experience?
For over a hundred years Germany
has had a parcels post Of some de-
scription and since 1873 the present
very effective and successful system.
At first, charges were made for send
ing packages according to their weight
and the distance they were to go. This
resulted in an endless amount of figur-
ing for the postal clerks and a dis
proportionate charge for small pack
ages that were only sent short dis
tances. Then the charge was fixed ac-
cording to zones, that is, uniform
price was charged for the first five
miles until the distance reached thirty
miles, and then it was raised every ten
miles until 100 miles the rate changed
for every additional twenty miles.
While this was a decided Improvement,
it still involved a great deal of calcu-
lation and in 1897 fiat rate of twen-
ty-five pfennig (six cents) per pack
age up to the weight of five Kilograms
I'll pounds) for distance not over ten
miles was fixed. For all distances over
ten miles a uniform rate of fifty prennig
az cents) was charged for packages
up to the weight of II pounds so that