Overland Mail

“ The government had subsidized an overland mail service at nearly a million a year, called the Butterfield line, with daily mails from St. Louis to San Francisco, running through Arizona. The mail service of the West has done a great deal to build up the country; and population came flocking into the Territory with high hopes of its future prosperity. ”

“ Joseph, Mo., post-office force, broached the thought that considerable valuable time would be saved if the overland mail could be sorted on the cars, and made up for offices at the end of and along the routes. The department allowed him to carry out this idea, which, starting in such a humble way, is now one of the most important branches of the department.
Before the “catcher” on the mail cars and the “crane” at small stations came into use, twenty years later, the process of catching and delivering the pouches was indeed strenuous, both for the mail clerk and the local postmaster. ”

“ The reader will recollect the circumstances already mentioned relative to a notice issued by the Post Office, recommending persons corresponding with the far East by the Overland Mail to appoint agents in India for the payment of the onward postage. [24] On this subject the following passages occurred before the Committee:—
“Chairman.—With regard to Indian letters, an objection was taken by the East India Company to forwarding letters from Bombay unless payment was made at Bombay?—I am aware of that. ”

“ The company bought government stamped envelopes and put its own stamps on them and charged more than one hundred per cent profit for the service, the government mail service at the same time escaping the charge for carrying an immense amount of mail matter that it col- lected full postage upon. Individuals engaged in carrying letters and light packages overland from Oregon to California in the early '50s and as a reward for their arduous and dangerous task received 50 cents an ounce for the contents of their pouches. ”

“ The growing importance of the foreign service also merits attention. The post-office department of Great Britain and our own have agreed upon a preliminary basis for a new postal convention, which it is believed will prove eminently beneficial to the commercial interests of the United States, inasmuch as it contemplates a reduction of the international letter postage to one-half the existing rates: a reduction of postage with all other countries to and from which correspondence is transmitted in the British mail, or in closed mails through the United Kingdom ”

“ In these days of cheap postage and newspapers in every household, it may be difficult to comprehend the intense interest centring in the appearance of the mail on its arrival at a small provincial town. The leather bag of the Post-Office was almost the undisputed and peculiar property of the upper ten thousand. When there was good reason to suppose that any communication was on its way to some member of the commonalty, speculation would be eager among the knot of persons met to talk over the probable event. ”

“ Another change which the Post-Office authorities have made is a radical but a necessary one, and bids fair to make the mail-packet service, at no distant date, self-supporting, so far as the mother-country is concerned. Under the new principle already applied to India and Australia, the British colonies are required to pay half the [Pg 249] cost of their respective services, the English Government paying the remainder. The result in some instances has been an increase in postage rates, but we hope this will not long be considered necessary. ”

“ No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the mysterious. The connexion of the mail with the state and the executive government—a connexion obvious, but yet not strictly defined—gave to the whole mail establishment an official grandeur which did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. ”

“ Upholding the morality of the mail, a fortiori I upheld its rights; as a matter of duty, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege of imperial precedency, and astonished weak minds by the feudal powers which I hinted to be lurking constructively in the charters of this proud establishment. Once I remember being on the box of the Holyhead mail, between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some "Tallyho" or "Highflyer," all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity of form and colour in this plebeian wretch! ”

“ When merchants lock up their desks and offices, and complete their last round of duties by posting their letters, the serious work of the Post-Office, for the second time during the day, may be said to begin. The hour before the despatch of the principal mail in any provincial Post-Office, thanks in great part to the dilatoriness of the public in general, is an hour of busy activity, seldom witnessed in any other branch of industry whatever. ”

“ This important colony ought not only to have mails from Kingston at least three times a week, but the various post-offices throughout the island should have auxiliary post-offices, after the manner of penny or twopenny post-offices in this country. Every one will be glad to pay a regular and reasonable postage, rather than be at the very heavy expense, after 1840, of taking a labourer to convey the communications. ”

“ Long before the ordinary workmen in our towns are summoned from their repose, the Post-Office work in the provinces may be said to commence by the mail-cart clattering through the now silent streets to the railway station, there to await the arrival of the first and principal mail, and its first daily instalment of bags. ”

“ When there are good grounds for believing that letters are opened and read from motives of curiosity, complaint should be made in writing to the Chief Clerk of the Post-Office Department, Washington. A secret plan for the certain detection of prying delinquents has recently been devised.
[Pg 416]
Two or more letters directed to different persons, cannot be sent by mail in one envelope or packet, without subjecting the sender to a fine of ten dollars. This does not apply to any letter or packet directed to a foreign country. ”

“ But thirty days is a different matter, and even our friends in New Zealand or the Fiji Islands seem only 217in the next street compared with similar conditions a hundred years ago.
At home we grumble at the Post Office, and are irritated at the delay of a single post, but if we are living abroad, or have friends and relations in distant countries, the very word “mail” has a sweet sound in our ear. ”

“ Office to obtain the postage on letters passing over the cross-roads of England. The increase in England's colonial possessions and her growing trade with foreign countries produced a corresponding growth in the packet service. The last part of the century saw the establishment of Palmer's mail coaches in order to meet competition from the post coaches. The great increase in revenue which accompanied the industrial revolution led to corruption among the postal officials, resulting in the reform of 1793. ”

“ Perceiving that residence at Brighton, and therefore custom to the railway, would be increased by every addition to postal facilities between that town and the metropolis, I induced the directors to make an offer to the Post Office for the conveyance of a mail by every train without any additional expense to that department. ”

“ Even in the smallest colonies such internal establishments would pay, and, in most of them, more than pay, the expenses they occasion; while it is clear that such internal facilities would most materially add to the external or packet postage.
Where the roads are good, the mails, travelling at the rate of five or six miles per hour, may be carried in gigs, as in this country, drawn by horses or mules ”

“ When the mails are ready, they are sent from the Post-Office in various ways. Those for one or two country roads are sent to a local railway station, and taken in charge by the railway guard, who drops the bags at the different points on the line according to their address; others are carried by mail gigs under one or more private contractors, while the rest are taken [Pg 237] by country-walking postmen, who make certain journeys during the day, returning in the evening with the letters and bags they have gathered during their travels. ”

“ As the greater portion of both routes lay through an uninhabited country, and as the correspondence of the savages was not great, the matter rested. The postmaster-general was empowered to contract for transporting a mail from Charleston, South Carolina, touching at St Augustine, Key West, and Havana, across the Isthmus of Panamá to Astoria; the mail to be carried each way once in two months, or oftener should the public interest require it, provided the expenditure should not exceed $100,000 per annum. ”

“ An official in Scotland thus described the service in 1799: "It is impossible to obtain any other contractors to ride the mails at 3d. out, or 11⁄2 d. per mile each way. On this account we are so much distressed with mail riders that we have often to submit to the mails being conveyed by mules and such species of horses as are a disgrace to any service." This is evidence from within the Post Office itself. While young boys were suited for the work in some respects, they were thoughtless and unpunctual ”

“ EARLY BRISTOL POST MARKS.
The mail services in the rural districts are not free from danger. The pitcher may have been carried to the fountain year after year without mishap, but it not infrequently becomes broken at last. In like manner the contractor for the Portishead, Clevedon, and Yatton mail cart service, after having driven over this route with immunity from accident for forty years, yet came to grief in the last week of his connection with His Majesty's mails, January, 1902. ”

“ The honor and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself. ”

“ He leaned over the bar and called to Owen: “Hey, you! One minute, there, young fellow!”
“Want me?” inquired the carrier, stepping back into the barroom.
“Yes. Are you quite sure that this here registered package ain’t been tampered with?”
“I’m quite sure that it hasn’t while it’s been in my hands, and I think you’ll find that the post office isn’t to blame,” replied Owen. “The government is mighty careful in the handling of its registered mail.
“But, of course, if you’re suspicious,” he added, “you can come around and see the superintendent and ask for an investigation. ”

“ To implement the statute the Post Office maintains 10 or 11 screening points through which is routed all unsealed mail from the designated foreign countries. At these points the nonexempt mail is examined by Customs authorities. When it is determined that a piece of mail is 'communist political propaganda,' the addressee is mailed a notice identifying the mail being detained and advising that it will be destroyed unless the addressee requests delivery by returning an attached reply card within 20 days. ”

“ Formerly, people went to the nearest postoffice for their mail; now, in all cities, the mail is delivered by postmen, just as the letter from Uncle Charles was delivered to-day.
“In almost all parts of the country there is a rural free delivery. By the roadside in front of each farmer’s house is a mail-box, having the name of the owner upon it.
“A letter carrier drives through the neighborhood with the mail. When he leaves mail in a box he raises a little signal which is attached to it in such a way that it can be seen from the farmhouse. ”

“ Britt, Third Assistant Postmaster General, who has charge of the accounting division of the service, makes the bold statement that it cost the government $62,438,644.70 more to carry and handle the second-class mail last year than was received for the service. Being an “expert” figurer Mr. Britt found no difficulty in arriving at that absurd 9.23 cents a pound as the actual cost to the government of carrying and handling second-class mail. ”

“ Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. ”

“ Some people, indeed, recognising the absurdity of calling a decrepit old man a “postboy,” preferred to give him the title of “mailman,” by which name a postal servant who got drunk and delayed the Bath mail in 1770 is styled in a contemporary newspaper, which says, “The mail did not arrive so soon by several hours as usual on Monday, owing to the mailman getting a little intoxicated on his way between Newbury and Marlborough and falling from his horse into a hedge, where he was found asleep by means of his dog.” ”

“ All mail is delivered free of charge. Not only is this so in the cities and larger towns, but in the villages and rural districts as well. There is no place where the dapper little postman does not go. ”

“ By Edgar B. Piper, Editor of The Oregonian
The increase in second class postal rates, particularly the application of the zone system to second class mail matter, which is proposed by the war revenue bill of the House, involves a revolutionary change in the policy which governs the Postal Service. That policy has hitherto been to treat the mail system as a means of serving the people as nearly at cost as possible, not as a source of revenue; to provide cheap means of written and printed communication be tween the people at an equal price for all parts of American territory ”