The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-01-20
SHIFTING COLD NEW su'YLHs
Ea. senh by Parcel Fost at Great
 Isoas fos.tlae Radlroass. E

Jseatss zf.Y,es .a.s.c,. through tho exagen- tclen Of the financial situation, the MJnfteA States treasury department Round it necessary to transfer kpo,- 100000 in gold double eagles weigh Ing about 100 tons, from the mint in PhiIadeaph1a to New York city. Prior. to the parcel post law this treasure would hays been turned over to an express conpRny and the railroad zsaEryfne the gold for the cypress company would havs shared in the payment made for the service
 h this case, taking advantage Of the parcel post law, the treasury ofia- eials merely parceIIed out the gold weight limit of the law paid the or dinary parcel post rates and mailed it to New York.
 To carry these 100 tons of gold to New York required four special rail- road cars The gold was sent in three installments on successive days and in each instance. at the request of the postal authorities. the treasure ears had to be detached from the regular trains some miles from their destination and hauleds the remainder of the way by special locomotives.
 More than 100 postal clerks and inspectors went with this gold as guards For each the railroad car rying the gold was compelled to as surne the same liability as for a pas 4S61tkGEs road in this instance got nothing for its treasure trains, beyond the regu- . lar monthly payment for the routine mail service.
 In all. nearly 200 tons of gold, worth about $99, ,O0O, 900, have been deIphial to New York since last ALI gust. This gold was sent over the railroad in 19se00 sacks each weigh ing a trifIe under 19 bounds and f10 f which the government shifted from one pocket to the other in these transactions amounted to s4, ,554.
 Between! Boston and New York the government in 8 similar manner not long ago shipped $5,000,00 in gold being approximately g 1-4 tons. The gold was shipped in 167 bags. each bag containing something over 100 pounds of gold coin. The parcel post law prescribes 20 pounds as the weight limit for this zone, but the government got around this by put ting the gold up in 20 pound pack ages and then putting the packages in the bags, eontending that in this way it was shipping 20 pounds at a time.
 From New York to Ottawa, Ca nada. $840.eo0 more gold was sent by parcel post recently, bringing the to- tai in gold shipped by the govern naent by mall and carried at the rail- roads expense to $1O4,300,0 GOO.
 The operation of treasure trains by the railroad for the@ government without cost for railroad transports ton appears to be one of the cur rent phenomena attributable to the provide extra compensation for the railroads fof the increased service they must perform under the law.
 The mail contract under which the extraordinary service of transporting 200stons of gold. between PhiIadel- pfia and New York was performed provided compensation ion a basis o1 weight at fixed rates of pay based or the mall carrieda in the spring oa 1918. At that time nobody appar- entity had thought of gold shipments as coming within the Legitimate scope of the parcel post act.
 One interesting experience witF the parcel post affecting the rail . roads comes from West Virginia only in this case it was flour and no1 gold. Having received an order fol four barrels of flour from a customer living 25 miles away, the keeper of 2 general store in that state, who was ceived the idea of mailing the flour also the fourth-class postmaster con First, as the storekeeper, he loaded his -four into 32 sacks. Then step, ping into his post office, he sold him self S11.69 worth of stamps. Under the system by which fourth-class postmaster are femunerated, he ha5 right to the face value of all stamp. cancelled through his office, so tha in this case he merely refunded tt himself as storekeeper the money h, had paid himself as postmaster which meant that he shipped hi flour for nothfng.
 The railroad could not carry th1 flour on freight train because i was mall It had to load 1t witt other mail on passenger train which was delayed ten minutes D. fae unloading of the 32 sacks Q dour.s The railroad had to carry th'