El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-11-27
TOssing Letters Is Difficult
Railway Postal Clerks Must Have the
Throwing Habit Down Fine; Are
Well Paid Now.
- By Frederic ]. HaeIxfu ----

~ AsHNGToN D. G.. Nov. III

I by which of these roads a letter will
reach them quickest. through what
: junction points it must travel, and a
! hundred and one other things and then
J 20 be able to throw letters into a half
! hundred pigeon holes, each pigeon hole
/ representing a certain locality and
/ each letter going into the right pigeon
hole, at the rate OF a hundred or more
a minute, the while the train is thun-
! dering along at 40 or so mile gait,
/ then you can grasp. what 1t means to
/ be a railway mail clerk.
Tt requires some 1000 clerks to man
the 3400 railroad pOstoffices in the
United states, and they draw a total
pay Of about S20.0G0,000 a year For
many years they were the pOorest. paid
I of all the servants of the government,
] considering the strenuOusness Of their
calling and the dangers to which they
/ are exposed, but today their average
compensation is more than 500 a
month"; and $3.50 year more than the
: average postal servant gets
Risky Work Formerly.
The postal clerk in the past had to
run a. serious risk of getting killed in
the discharge OF his duties. The Ordl-
nary postal car was run up next to the
] engine. and was constructed Of wood
( throughout. With a heavy engine
/ ahead Of it and a heavy train behind
il, the result in case Of a wreck usu-
ally was a mass Of kindling wood, with
the clerks killed or wounded. To add
I to the horrors of the situation, gas
! lighting pipes suddenly severed would
over the mass OF wood and mail and
in hundreds of instances the horrors OF
Incarceration were added to those Of col
lision.
The postal clerks begged the govern
ment to insist upon the equipment OF
all postal cars with electric lights, but
the railroads answered that electric
train lighting was still in the expert
mental stage, in face OF the fact that
every one Of them was even then fea-
turing its crack trains as being cleo
ally lighted throughout, and the
government accepted the statements Of
the railroads Then. when the steel
cars came out, the clerks begged that
the railroads be required to furnish
steel postal cars, pointing out that the
average postal car was being hired by
the government for approximately
$4,000 a year, q rental which they con-
sidered high enough to entitle them to
steel cars There was the usual pro-
test, but finally congress required the
gradual substitution of steel cars for
the old wooden ones.
The degree Of proficiency demanded
in the railway mail service is remark
able In other branches OF the govern
trance examination, but that is the
end Of 1t, unless It be for promotion to
some other grade In the railway mail
service the clerks must constantly
study and nemorize thousands Of new
pCstpffices and the quickest ways Of
reaching them Out of every 10000
pieces OF mail handled by the railway
mail service last year 1897 were ham
died correctly
Three Examinations Yearly.
Each clerk must undergo an average
Of about three examinations year.
The department has books printed Civ
ing full data about each postoffice in
a given territory, and showing the
system of distribution of mail 50 as to
reach each one Of them. The clerk
must memorize al these usually for
all the postOffices in given state at
fi~oa Then he makes out a card
for each postoffice, on the front OF
on the back the routing particulars. He
buys himself a little case Of pigeon
holes 70 correspond, except in dimen-
sions, to the big cases seen IN every
postal car. This little case contains
2SS holes. He labels each hole, doing
it in such a way that all letters going
tain groups Of offices. are put into
their proper pigeon holes Then he
must take the packs OF cards ne has
made out. and throw each card into its
learn to do il accurately but rapidly as
we'll After he has satisfied himself
with his proficiency in distributing
these cards he goes before the au-
rhOrities and distributes the cards in
their presence. being timed for speed
and checked up for accuracy.
IN each Of these examinations the
clerk must throw" about a thousand
cards, and he gets so many points off
for each error and so many off for
each minute above the standard it re-
ulres to throw given number OF
cards. A clerk running from Wash
ington to Greensboro. North Carolina.
will in the course Of few years. be
required to mass an examination on the
$500 postOffices in Virginia the 1900
in North Carolina the 1900 in Alabama,
the 1906 in Georgia, and those OF three
or four other states as well. Then,
too, he must know in what package TO
tie every letter addressed to a street
number in every one Of three or four
important cities like Washington, Bal
IimOre. Philadelphia or New York.
Each Error Counts.
Every time a clerk throws" card
in the wrong box in taking an exami-
nation il shows that he would have
missenr a letter If he had been throw
ing them in the mail car pigeon holes.
And that is regarded as something al
most beyond the point Of liberation In
the railway mail service. One can
scarcely expect any person to perform
the same Identical act 10000. times
without making more than three mis-
takes, but when each time represents
a thinking process involving no less
than five different considerations, be-
sides the physical effort required TO
perform it on a fast moving train, II
viii be realized to what high standards
of proficiency the railway mail SER
vice has attained: and 1897 out OF
every 10000 is the average, showing
tha- thousands of clerks do much bet
ter than this Indeed, some Of them
VIII correctly pigeon hole 1898 out Of
every 10000.
Old System Would Swamp Them
In these days Of distributing mails
by the billions of pieces the old sys-
tenn of carrying all mail from the city
of origin to the city OF destination
without distribution according to
streets would swamp the postOffices.
The mail would have to be assorted
piece by piece in the postoffice, and
the hour of delivery delayed greatly.
So, while we wake and while we sleep,
the thousands OF railway postal clerks
are working away on the thousands
Of mail trains day and night IN order
that our mail may get to us at the
earliest possible moment.
The railway mail service has been
a matter Of evolution. In 1854 George
B. Armstrong laid out the scheme for /
its establishment, and on August IS
of that year, under authority from the
postmaster general, the first railway
postal car in the history of the world
made its initial trip between Chicago {
and Clinton. Iowa. In 1875 the first
all mail train between New York and
Chicago was run, and from that day
forward one step after another has
been made in the improvement Of the
railway mail service until today It
stands without a peer among all the
Institutions Of the governmental ser I
vices of the world in efficiency.
Tomorrow-Rural Free Delivery.