The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-08-18
Economics in
Mail Equipment

thrown off at the station IN cities, can
form no idea of the immensely of this
branch of the public service. Statis-
tics and tables Of figures may have lit
tie interest for the ordinary reader,
but when it is stated that the total
number Of mail bags used for trans
porting the mails amount TO about
five millions, and if placed end to end
would stretch from Boston to San
Francisco, some estimate may be
formed Of the tremendous mass of
such equipment needed in the dispatch
of public business.
At the beginning of this administra-
ton an inventory was taken to learn
what equipment for railway postal
transportation the Government had on
hand. 1t was discovered that the
grand total of such property was g.
549, 4S9 pieces, of which 468,S46 were
mail pouches, 2,592,479 were sacks,
and 4S8,164 were mail locks. Since
this inventory was made the growth
of the service required the purchase
of over one million and a half mail
bags to meet the steadily Increasing
demand. This business of the Govern
| ment is so enormous that tabulation
made in the Railway Mail Service two
years ago showed that the eight mail
bag repositories of the United States
received and sent out again during the
year just preceding, nearly 100000
pouches. AS the real amount of
stock then was about 100000, it will
be seen that this equipment was han
died ten times by the system of distri-
| button devised to relieve congestion
at one point and meet pressing de-
MAIDS at another, without which ar
rangement the peculiar cxactions of
the service could not be met. Che
amount thus handled is now very much
larger, sacks and pouches passing to
and fro through these repositories and
| the mail bag storehouse at Washing
ton aggregating 100000 pieces.
The money required from time to
| time for the purchase of this great
supply and the price TO be paid, SO as
to come within the appropriation,
were matters of great concern 70
those in charge. Congress supplied
the funds, but where the supply could
be bought at the lowest price Gov
eminent standards maintained was
the problem. In the SUMMER of 1913,
| the Department was paying $l.44 for
| its ordinary mail pouches. The price
was deemed too high, and experts
| were set to work to devise something
which would be of equal capacity,
equal durability, at less cost. The
result was that pouch was designed
which the Department contracted for
and purchased for less than 60 cents
each, and this pouch has been pIoduc
| ed in large quantities and is replac-
ing those formerly under contract.
Experts were also placed OH the pro-
| position of designing cheaper but
equally effective pouch for the cX-
change of mail by moving trains. The
Department was then paying Sl,70
for these catcher pouches. Within a
short time pouch was evolved, de-
signed on scientific principles, which
| is giving far better service and at
greatly reduced cost, viz, 80 cents
each.
The saving in this production Of
! equipment will amount to a very .arge
sum, for there have been over 100000
| of these new style bags placed in the
service within the last two years az a
reduction of fifty per centun, and this
economy will of course continue and
grow in amount as the further de-
| mand for supply is met. While the old
| style of equipment required expert at
| tention to keep them in repair, this
| newer product requires o1t little, and
is kept in good condition at nominal
cost by machine operators.
The repair and proper maintenance
| of mail bags is provided for in an es-
| Enlistment located at Washington.
| Experienced and efficient people are
| only employed, for repair work must
be well done before bags can again
be permitted to enter the service. The
number repaired and placed in good
condition during the past year was
| over million.
| One of the difficulties connected
with this repairing process, which was
also something Of a hardship to the
! opei ators, was the accumulated dirt
and dust which attached to these bags
when returned from the service and
which was a menace to the health of
those so employed. No attention had
| ever been paid to the dangerous and
| unsanitary conditions under which
this work was done. No attempt to
cleanse these bags from the foul i'm
purities they gathered and collected
had ever been made, and those EN-
ployed at the work, n1en and women,
were forced to inhale the dust which
an ordinary shaking out by hand fails
to remove, which was considerable, as
the shaking out prosess was hastily
end imperfectly done. The official in
charge saw the need of change to
better methods, and steps were at
once taken to discover it. Correspond
ence was had with manufacturers of
machinery both in this and foreign
countries. A system was finally adop-
ted consisting of large tumbling bar
rels each having capacity for hold
ing several hundred bags. Driven rap
idly by electric power, the dust con-
fined to a tightly constructed room
and carried off bv blowers and lodged
in immense canvass receptacles, re-
sembling a dirigible balloon when in
fated, this process was found thor
oughly suitable, for careful tests show
ed that all dust was completely re-
moved -Four thousand day arc now