The Washington times., 1919-11-02

sage she faithfully complied with the
oft-repeated Injunction, Don't fail TO
inform the Bureau of War Risk In
surance of change of address"
| Another conscientious mother who
had been duly instructed in the fact
that 1t is often difficult to Identify
soldier unless specific information
be given in the letter of inquiry sd-
dressed to the bureau, asked some
, matter of my boy, Jim" you must
have noticed Jim, because he's six
feet tall" And of course she couldn't
be expected to know that that wasn't
just the sort of descriptive informa-
ton which might help in placing
Jim, nor that in that splendid regi-
ment known as "Pershing's own
made up OF units from all over the
country, there were thirty-seven hun
| dred men who stood six feet or bet
ter.
| One mother from whom "the boy"
| had made allotment and asked Gov
| eminent allowance, answered the for
| NAL inquiry as to whether she had
| other sources of income with the
painstakingly conscientious state
| ment. only Fred's hens"
| Pathetic EptstIcs.
So into the Bureau of War Risk In
surance, by the hundreds OF thou
| sands, pour the letters bearing their
manifest stories of hearty willingness
to conform to requirements and sim
| pie, incorruptible honesty but fire.
uuently so vogue in respect to neces-
sary information as to render iden-
| tification of the cases difficult, IL not
impossible.
The mail section of the bureau
works on a sixteen-hour basis with
one shift working from in the
morning to 5 in the afternoon ana
night shift from / to in the
morning, handling directly from the
Postoffice all mail arriving during
the night.
During the period from October,
received. sorted, classified. and dis
tributed total of 1e,s66,533 pieces
of mail. and for the same period re
cefved from the various division Of
the bureau, arranged according 10
States. and forwarded to the city
Postoffice a total of 22,527, SOS pieces
of mail This makes a grand total
of 42.394.041 pieces of mail passing
through the mail section during the
course of twelve months.
On July IA. 1919, the mail section,
G. Cholmeley-Jones, took over the ar
ranging and listing of all tenders in
payment for insurance premiums.
These remittances during the period
July IA TO October z numbered L.
, 2o3, 1872 at a valuation of 50, 7s4, 1s63s
Additional Duties.
is taking on additional duties in or
der. to relieve the various divisions
of the bureau, and is functioning
with a lower percentage of errors
than the minimum allowed by the
United States Postoffice.
The bureaus mail trucks make
hourly trips between the Postoffice
and the Arlington building and also
collect or deliver at nine offices Of
the bureau outside of the Arlington
building. and at eleven other Gov
eminent offices
Around the first of the month the
100000 pieces a day, later falling To
40. 900 or $4,000.
Premium receipts make up about
half of the entire incoming mail dur
ing the first half of the month. Sew
enty-five per cent of all mail re-
ceived is for the insurance division
of the bureau
The mail Section also handles each
day $4,000 to 100000 pieces of out
going mail and about 10000 pieces Of
inter-departmental mail. Between
December 1, 1918 and September 80,
1918 and September 80, 1913, the Bu-
notices alone. In January the flood
of discharge notices rose to $500
In August it reached the high-water
| mark of 700.3 25. The total number of
pieces of incoming mail received dur
| ing August was 2,2S7. 436.
Mail Is CLASSIFIED.
Mail as it comes from the mail
sack is separated unopened into
thirty-one classes. This separation
is accomplished by means OF a rack
of labeled letter-boxes, quite similar
to the process employed in post
offices. AS fast as a box is filled by
the clerks on one side, a clerk on the
other side removes the contents and
snaps a rubber band around them.
Personal mail is distributed unopened,
but the rest is opened and examined.
Ten of the thirty-one classes, consti-
tuting 90 per cent OF the whole, is
read. The letters are run through the
letter opening machines, at a rate OF
from two to three hundred a minute.
From the letter openers the mail
goes to forty women expert mall
readers who make forty-eight separs-
tions of the, mail brought to them.
Last week il was forty-three. To-
morrow il may be ffty-one. The aim
is by close subdivision to shorten
the time of distribution and get action
as quickly as possible. 1t takes good
judgment as we'll as good memory
to decide unerringly under which of
the forty-eight heads a letter be-
longs. but the mail-reader does 1t at
the rate of 900 to 1,500 letters a day.
The classification is alphabetically
arranged and begins. Abstracts, Ac-
counting, Adjutant Generals Office,
Allotments and Allowances, Auditor
for War Department, Awarding Sec
tion," etc.
There are ten classihcations for
the Insurance Division, and six class
ifcations for letters containing
checks. Letters containing checks,
money orders, or other valuable en-
closures go to a group of girls in the
next room who sit around a big table
covered with wire baskets. All checks
are listed in duplibte, the lists veri-