Iditarod pioneer., 1915-04-24
THE SEWARD -IpITAROD MAIL SERVICE

As the time approaches when the change from trail to water trans poraon of mail will take place. retrospective glance the winter mail service furnished dtarod during the past Nnter by way ot com parison with former years may be of interest serve also to pomt what direction efforts Tor It's improvement Shou pe ~ rected
 The Sevoddarod mail service went into effect on November last and will April 3O The contract provides tor con gnuens of 47 pounds weekly this limit including deliveries to knk Takotn Ophr and the nnoko and points along the trail In spite of predictions of ae the has been remarkably successful supplying the residents of s section with rstcass ma and the out going consignnents have been delivered wate promptly astonsh the ardent advocates of the route letter from Itarod forwarded the Seward route simultaneously with one the old from aod Fairbanks reached its destna on San Francisco days earlier than the forwarded through Fairbanks So far stcass mail concerned the people of this district have enjoyed which could hardly be eXceled Coming he matter of sacondca mail however, quite the re- To the people of Interior Alaska isolated from the rest of the world for several months the year the question ot supplying newspapers magazines of almost much importance supplying letter mail The of handling this class of mall over the Seward shows concvey that those charge either do realize importance the people, that they extremely careless that they hampered by red tape ensees rules The fact that the limited 475 pounds weekly meant necessarily only portion of the mail consigned to n district could be delivered The consequence has been that amount of newspaper psrce mail has accumulated Seward gentleman presented order at the Seward posofce for pack age addressed to an tarod informed that there hundred sacks of such mail for this district and that impossible through the lot and pick the package wanted Consequently there v be problem for the postal to solve getting these accunuaions to their destination.
 In last weeks mail consignment received letarod large
  and November of last There but few Pacific coast papers of later date than November and later than December When this mail left Seward undoubtedly there consignnents of newspaper mail the Seward posoce consigned daod of late date the middle of March, strange that this newspaper mail should be allowed the Seward office while the mail loaded up with newspapers months od and pact cay useless. Such stupidity handling mai nexcusabe; and posoce rules responsible for they should be changed ignored Subscribers tor and peodcas do not spend their money for the purpose of providing work for mail alone They pay for and reading Common should dictate that newspapers and magazines months old should be gwen preference the of delivery publications of date Seldom during the life of the mail has Seattle paper less than three months old been allowed filter through !darod
 Another thing that might bear looking by those authority the fact that publications reach dtarod promptly that their appearance date be forecast almost certainty spite of the fact that others make their appearance for months certain popular weekly published the Atlantic eaboard reaches its subscribers here regularly little than month after the date of publication and there magazines which almost regular their appearance. This may be only the result of chance, but there than that the result of avotm somewhere Many here subscribers Seae Tacoma Portland and San Francisco newspapers yet they unable these for months while London and other European publications delivered with few weeks of their publication date
 During the of 1o134 dtaod enjoyed an excellent mail though the time made the CordovaF considerably greater than the present n due the fact that the consisted of 600 pounds weekly all o which destined for the ldtarod district This aed the contractors to supply the district with practically all the mail consigned it. similar weight limit the Seward Idtarod would furnish mail that would all needs if the full