The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-05-30
Arthur Hupp of Lawrence In
vents Mail Catcher.
Offers to Equip All Govern
ment Postal Cars.
SHARE UNCLE SANS PROFITS
Novel Plan of Receiving Pay
for New Device.
Improvement on Old Mail
Crane System.

| Washington, May 30.-Uncle Sam is
| VIGOROUSLY slow about adopting in
| novations in his service, for the reason
| that so many things are submitted
without merit. The promoters of the
pneumatic tubes spent years and many
| thousands of dollars before they receiv-
| ed their first order, yet today the gov
| eminent spends hundreds of thousands,
| If not millions, annually for these tubes
| to save a few minutes in handling city
mail. Meanwhile the country mail is
! put off and on trains in precisely the
| same manner as it has been for the
past 40 or more years. Where the
| trains stop it is brought to the door
! of the mail car in loaded trucks pro-
! PEELED by hand and handed into the
car by men. The clerks throw out the
| sacks and they are loaded on the trucks
| by hand.
At other stations where the fast mail
! trains do not stop the mail is deliver
ed by being tossed out the car door,
with a chance that it may strike an
innocent bystander, or fall under the
wheels. simultaneously, a catcher
arm, designed in 1869, swings out and
catches a small bag of mail. Then the
clerk reaches out and pulls the bag in
from the cher-arm-provided it is
there. Frequently it is not, for one OF
the greatest objections to the present
and crane fail to connect and the bag
falls to the ground and sometimes I'M
der the wheels and is cut to pieces.
Again, these bags hold but few pounds
of mail and as only one bag can be
caught at a station, when there is more
than that amount of mail the fast train
must stop to take it on or the mail
must wait for the local train. What this
means with thousands of such stations
and thousands of mail cars. in the way
of loss of time and money, to say moth
ing of the delay of millions of pieces OF
mail, cannot be even approximated, but
it is tremendous. Today there are
nearly $4,000 Iron arm mail catcher
stations in the country, which serve
approximately $4,000, 900 people who are
dependent upon daily mail deliveries.
Hupp Saw an Accident.
1t was back in 1898 that Albert Hupp
of Lawrence, Kan, then the western
representative of a large eastern con-
Germ, saw small pouch snatched from
a crane, drop beneath the wheels of a
train and be ground to pieces. Casual
conversation with postal clerks led to
the information that the device had not
been improved since it was originated
in 1869, although the government had
been constantly seeking for something
that would co the work more effective
ly. Being a systematic man, Mr.. Hupp
made a note of this fact and decided
that when leisure afforded the would
perfect a device that would do the work
1t was nearly Is years later that the
opportunity was presented and Mr..
Rupp turned his attention seriously to
the problem of exchanging the mails
between trains at full speed and rail
way stations, with the result that he
has worked out a perfect system.
The problem he started to solve was
not merely how to handle one mail
sack safely, Tut how to take care of
any number of sacks of any weight: tc
dump them at exactly the same spot
on every trip and at every station, if
desired and to pick up any number OF
sacks and get them into the car with
out possible injury to the clerks, sacks
or the mail itself In other words. to
have the whole operation not only ab
solutely accurate, but absolutely au-
tomato. How well he succeeded nay
be jud. ed from the fact that tests
given of his device include the l2ck-
ing of the door of the mail car which
performs all the functions of loading
and unloading without a human being to
touch the mechanism even if they
wished. Furthermore, no train robbers
could get through such a door.
Doubtless few outside the postal ser
vice know that as the antique catcher
arm of the Civil War period can catch
only one bag-and that a very small
one-its use Is practically confined to