Evening star., 1952-04-22
Our Mail Service
Our MoiI Service
Ten Men Required in Delivering
Your Letter to Local Address
By jones 6. Deone

By jones 6. Deone
It takes 10 men to deliver a
letter within Washington. One to
New York takes 18.
These are minimums. Washing
ton letters delivered through a
branch, instead of the main post
Office, take IA.
Here's how it works:
The collector picks up the let
ter at a mail box. He puts it
in a sack.
All sacks go to the main post
Office. Each is emptied by a mail
handler.
A clerk faces the letter for can
ceiling. Another puts it through
the canceling machine.
A mail handler takes it with
others to a distributing case. A
clerk sorts it-separating Wash
ington mail from that going out
|of town. There are 33 out-of-
town cubbyholes. There are two
for the District-zoned and un-
zoned. This letter is zoned Wash
ington 1-downtown.
A handler picks it up and takes
it to the incoming division. A
clerk sorts it again-into one of
IS more cubbyholes. The 35
divide the Washington post Office
area.
Another clerk takes the letter
and puts it in a carriers box. The
carrier sorts it for his route
and delivers it.
It would take four, more han
dlers to transport it to Chevy
Chase.
And an error can occur any.
where.
Five. million pieces of mail, II
and out. 60 through the sorting
process during the Washington
post Offices average day. Almost
5000 employees, in II different
Offices. have roles to play. Some
370 vehicles travel some 11,00(
uncounted miles more. zone hun.
miles. Some LIS carriers trudge
dred and forty miles in nearby
Maryland still are Rural Free De-
livery.)'
There are 1850 collection points
l-chuteS and boxes. There are foul
to nine daily collections -four
in residential areas, the nine fol
downtown business. And there
are one to three weekday deliverie.
I one for residences, two for out
lying business areas, three to bust.
ness downtown. Hotels and news.
papers get four.
Good Service, North Says.
Is the service good?
i Washington Postmaster Roy M
North says it is. His office, he
says, gets only three or four COM
plants a day.
A years complaint records fiji
one filing drawer. Here are
samples:
A Washington man addressed
an airmail letter to Saudi Arabia
It went to Burlington, Vt., from
there to Fall River, Mass, from
there to Salem, N. j., where il
was found in supposedly empty
mail sack. The Salem postmaster
returned it to the sender-46 days
, after it was mailed.
The citizen remailed it-accept-
ing an apology.
An airmail letter from England
was delivered to the 170O block
of S street. The occupant, not
being the addressee, marked the
envelope mot At" and dropped
it in mail box. It was errone.
ously given back to the same car.
rier, who remarked it mot At
and sent it to the inquiry section
After 80 days it was returned tx
the sender.
To the outraged addressee, who
accused the post Office of "cumu.
7 lative bad eyesight," Postmaster
, North explained that the carrier
; had been cautioned to pay more
=, attention to the formation of the
, English figure g. so as not to con.
. fuse it with our a."
Most Complaints UnfOunded.
Ninety-five per cent of the COM
plants actually are nothing like
this, according to Assistant Post