Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1912-12-04
THE PARCELS POST.
POst-Offices Throughout Nation Ar
ranging for Installation.
SYSTEM IN OPERATION
AFTER FIRST OF JANUARY
Some Information for the Public
Concerning New System of Car
rying Parcels Through u.
S. Mails.

The postmaster has sent copies oi
circular to the Decorah business
men, for information which the post
Office department is desirous to OBJ
tain in order to prepare for the par
GELS post law which goes into effect
on January 1, 1913.
The regulations furnished to the
postofflce are somewhat complex to
the ordinary citizen, but they cover
in substance everything the postal
clerk will need to know in admins
tering the law.
| Only fourth class mail comes und-
er the parcel post, but in that class
will be embraced all matter not in
cluded in the first, second or third
classes, which does not exceed sew
enty-two inches in length and girth
combined, which is not of dangerous
or Objectionable character, and
which does not exceed eleven pounds
in weight. Hereafter rural carriers
are likely to carry poultry. baskets
of eggs, pumpkins, and other farm
products mailed to the town grocer
because it will be cheaper to mail
them then take time to haul them in
He will bring back to the farm groc-
cries, drugs and merchandise which
in eleven pound packages will cost
about 80 cents transportation or
about what the farmer will earn in
half an hoar of work on the farm.
The zone system makes the work
ing of parcel post much different
from the present mail system.
The government will receive pro-
portionate return for long hauls and
short hauls- Buying by mail wiz
probably be revolutionized to the
benefit of local merchants who have
There will be eight zones with boun-
daries at a distance of so miles to
$50, 800, 600, 1000, 1,40O, 1900,
and the limits of United States pos
sessions respectively from the post
Office which is taken as center. Ev-
cry postoffice will have a different
series of zones.
A pound box of candy under the
new law will go from Decorah TO
Cresco for cents. 1t will go to the
Philippines for II cents. Instead OF
paying 25 cents to send a box OF
flowers few miles by express one
can, after Jan. 1st, post it for OF
10 cents. In the annual sending OF
Christmas presents some hundreds
of thousands OF dollars will be saved
the people by the new postal law. II
is not likely that the country as a
whole will ever realize what stu
pendous change in business and per-
sonal relations will be wrought by
the parcels post until the whole
change has been accomplished by
slow degrees.
/ The official regulations follow:
THAT hereafter fourth class mail
matter shall embrace all other mat
ter including farm and factory prod
ucts, not now embraced by law In
either the first, second, and third
class, not exceeding eleven pounds in
weight, nor greater in size than sew
Ienty-two inches in length and girth
combined, nor in form or kind likely
to injure the person of any postal
employe or damage the mail equip
ment or other mail matter, and not
of character perishable within a
period reasonably required for trans
portation and delivery
That for the purpose of this Sec
tion the United States and it's several
territories and possessions, excepting
the Philippine islands, shall be divid-
ed into units of area thirty minutes
square, Identical with a quarter OF
the area formed by the intersecting
parallels of latitude and meridians
of longitude, represented on appro-
pirate postal maps or plans and sucn
units of area shall be the basis OF
eight postal zones, as follows:
THE first zone shall include all
territory within such quadrangle, III
conjunction with every contiguous
quadrangle representing an area hav'
ing mean radical distance OF ap'
proximately fifty miles from the cen
ter of any given unit of area. Fol
delivery within the first zone cents
for the first pound or fraction OF
pound and 3 cents for each addition
al pound or fraction Of a pound.
THE second zone shall include al
units of area outside the first zone
Lying in whole or in part within