Expressman

“ And, what's more, young man,” he added, suddenly turning to the Expressman, “YOU'LL express them trunks of hers THROUGH TO SACRAMENTO with your kempany's labels, and hand her the receipts and checks for them, so she CAN GET 'EM THERE. That'll keep HIM outer temptation and the reach o' the gang, until they get away among white men and civilization again. ”

“ One Wednesday morning about eleven o'clock, when Grey had just stepped out upon the street from a late breakfast at the Planters'—having been out until nearly morning the night previous on a fruitless attempt to keep the woman under surveillance for a few hours, that detective was looking up and down the street quite undecided as to what course to pursue—he saw Mrs. Winslow just leaving an expressman at the court-house square, who immediately jumped into his wagon and drove off. ”

“ He is one of the small dozen of men whom I really like and respect. Now he is gone, and I must wrestle with an escort which cannot speak as much English as I can Japanese, which latter is next to nothing. The complexities of life are bad enough when one travels with a policeman, a land-surveyor, a special courier and correspondent, an interpreter, a local guide, and half a dozen coolies, all in one’s private train! But when the interpreter is the one to be snatched away, they are rather worse. Without him we went a stiff journey to-day, over a track 6 inches wide, through the mountains. ”

“ The Postman. Who is the man who is most eagerly looked for as he comes down the street? The Postman. Who receives, at every door where he stops, a most cordial welcome? The Postman. I wonder if the thrill of getting a letter will ever pass away. When you come home from school the first thing you do is to look on the hall table to see if the Postman has brought you a letter. It is the same when we grow up. No matter how many letters we may receive we never get over the keen delight at having the Postman bring us letters.
Last Sunday afternoon you wrote your grandmother. ”

“ Take [11] your mail with you, and telegraph back orders to your stenographer. I think that is all. Oh, yes, to-night, while you are at dinner, you will be called to the ’phone by one of our men. If you are in trouble, this may give you opportunity to get away, and put us wise. You will find a motor at the door now, waiting to take you to the station. If your man doesn’t get there with your things, take the train, anyway, and buy some more when you get to New York. Don’t turn aside from your commission for anything. Don’t let anything hinder you! Make it a matter of life and death! ”

“ For in a moment a fierce-looking portly gentleman, warranted fresh from his tailor, comes out of the low cranky door, and an attendant darkie hauls his portmanteau after him; an abundance of chains and seals dangle from his waistcoat pocket, and with much puffing and blowing, like a human grampus, he gets into the train, and glares defiantly round him. ”

“ Only one class of men want to take advantage—the expressmen. They are the same everywhere—exorbitant, if not dishonest, in charge, and careless in work. It is not to the credit of the express system that a traveller must truly say so harsh a thing. ”

“ There was great excitement when we arrived at the junction without the express messenger, who acted as postal clerk as well.
When the local express agent learned that the messenger was not with the rescued party, that the conductor had been unable to find him, and that no one could remember having seen him since we stopped, and he was seen heading for the high land with his register pouch and some packages of express matter bearing red seals, he began to wire in all directions. In a little while mounted men were dashing out toward the hills, so as to be ready to take the trail at dawn. ”

“ Will not these good people some day come to see that if it is advantageous to have a path that admits of the postman bringing to them three geese in a basket, and other such things, that it would be more advantageous to have a road that would admit of the diligence post, or the carrier’s cart, bringing them many other things they want, but which are beyond the carrying power of the postman? ”

“ COST OF LIVING
A moment's reflection is sufficient to show that a Government postal express would make express facilities available to a far greater number of persons than are served at present by the express companies. For the Government postman and the Government post office cover the country as a whole—the express companies operate only along railroad, electric, steamboat and stage-lines. ”

“ We catch the sound of what is to be paid—eightpence, ninepence, a shilling—and our hopes generally rise with the postage. How we are provoked at the delay in getting change—at the servant who does not hear the door! Then if the postman passes, and we do not hear the expected knock, what a pang is there! ”

“ A postman, a sorting-clerk, or a letter-sorter, if he be dismissed from his employment cannot pick up his bag of tools and offer himself to the next workshop, for the simple reason that he has no tools, and his trade is one of such a peculiar nature that it is wanted nowhere outside the Post-Office. ”

“ My being on the Dover line, and my being very fond of France, occasion me to cross the Channel perpetually. Whenever I feel that I have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing it, and want a change, away I go by the mail-train, and turn up in Paris or anywhere else that suits my humour, next morning. ”

“ Whatever be the general character of the work, we are bent on enjoyment during this particular journey. The country through which the train is now proceeding is but thinly supplied with towns, hence the number of letters received is much smaller, and we may avail ourselves of the opportunity which this break in the character of the duty gives us, to examine more closely and from our own point of view, a few of the letters which are waiting to be despatched. ”

“ There was a sign of civilization in the shape of an omnibus, rather a rickety and weak-springed affair, it is true, but still an omnibus, and it carried them safely to the hotel, whither their baggage followed in a wagon. ”

“ The above are random extracts from frontier newspapers, printed while the Pony Express was running. The Express could never have existed on its high plane of efficiency, without an abundance of coolheaded, hardened men; men who knew not fear and who were expert--though sometimes in vain--in all the wonderful arts of self-preservation practiced on the old frontier. That these employees could have performed even the simplest of their duties, without stirring and almost incredible adventures, it is needless to assert. ”

“ The passengers go on talking—the little midshipman has told them who he is, and where he is going; but there is one man who has never joined in the conversation; he is dark-looking and restless; he sits apart; he has seen the glitter of the falling coin, and now he watches the boy more narrowly than before. ”

“ In five minutes the two partners came into the express office. "What's to pay, Joe?" wheezed Long, wiping the perspiration from his fat face as he leaned over the counter. "Think we're shippin' clockwork bombs by express, same as that holdup man done a spell ago and blowed up a car and wrecked a train? ”

“ When it is remembered that express is much quicker and more convenient than freight, although more expensive, and that the industrial processes of the United States have long been and still are characterized by a keener demand for speed and convenience, irrespective of cost, than the industrial processes of other countries, the above table becomes eloquent with significance. ”

“ Hurrying messengers dash by, stray cabs rush along with a low rumble and sharp clash of hoofs. But it is not in the street that the minds and bodies of men are obviously in action; go inside one of the mighty palatial offices, and you find yourself in the midst of such a hive of marvellous industry as the world has never seen before. On one journal as many as four hundred and fifty or five hundred men are all labouring for dear life; every one is at high pressure, from the silent leader-writer to the fussy swift-footed messenger. ”

“ There is something almost pathetic in the value he places upon human relationship, even of a very casual order. A conductor on a local train who has grown familiar with scores of passengers is no longer a ticket-punching, station-shouting automaton. ”

“ Here, likewise—the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchant—we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master’s ships, when he had better be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. ”

“ Do you ever see a man look through a stack of mail, and notice that suddenly his face lights up as he seizes a letter "from home"? He tears it open eagerly, his mouth up-curving at the corners, as he lingers over every word. ”

“ As we have said before, in every case exchangers should write to each other, and arrange the exchange, settle the postage, and determine the details before they trust their articles to the mail or express. Every day brings us complaints, and some of them very bitter ones, from boys and girls who accuse others of having treated them unfairly. ”

“ When you are stamping letters in hot haste to catch the European mail, you are as likely as not to find that the head of President Grant has curled up and refuses—most uncharacteristically—to stick to its post.
The conveniences of the express system, again, are, in my judgment, greatly overrated. It is often slow and always expensive. ”

“ In a certain literary society where the question was, whether the merchant or the man of letters was of the greatest use to society, one of the members asked if by the man of letters was meant a postman? ”

“ American conductors are Czars; American brakemen and train hands are Grand Dukes, at least; a porter is little less than a highwayman; and a hotel clerk—God forbid that we should mention him in the same breath with any of the foregoing! ”

“ But shall an author be so shabby as to abridge his sentiments, for the sake of postage, merely because a post-office clerk weighs them more according to his own than the postal rates? And am I not encouraged to the opposite course—that of protracting my emotions—by the electoral, princely, and city-benches in Ratisbon, inasmuch as the said benches by an imperial recess allow me a deduction of two thirds of my postage for printed matter, in order, as they hope, to give encouragement to literature and to sentiment? ”

“ Occasionally a clerk, in a moment of mad rebellion, would observe to a passenger who happened to be standing on another man's feet at the time, that the Company did not do them over well, and that more trains would be a convenience. ”

“ There is another portion of a post-office which adds another page to its romantic history; and that is the “Carriers’ Department.” Many a sad tale has the carrier to tell,—many a strange incident connected with his “constant round.” A glance into this room shows you a number of men busily engaged in assorting or “blocking” the letters on their route. These they receive in bulk from the distributor, which are passed to them from a smaller room through a series of pigeon-holes. And here we have a most remarkable illustration of what the human mind is capable of accomplishing. ”

“ DORIS. I never heard of a mailman being good.
JERRY. They’re mostly all good. Some professions anybody can get into them, like business or politics for instance, but you take postmen—they’re like angels, they sort of pick ’em out. [Witheringly.] They not only pick ’em out—they select ’em.
FISH [fascinated] . And you’re the best one.
JERRY [modestly] . Yes, I’m the best one they ever had. [He looks over the letters.] Now here’s what I call a clever ad. Delivered a lot of these this morning. Children like ’em, you know. They’re from the carpet company. ”

“ When No. 32 hove in sight—the Fast Mail is its proper name—and stopped opposite the small station at Adrian, a blessed, beloved, be-capped, be-buttoned and be-overcoated Pullman porter—an attentive, considerate, alert porter—emerged from it and at a sign from me picked up my overcoat and grip—they now weighed a ton apiece—and with a wave of his hand conducted me into a well-swept, well-ordered Pullman. ”

“ After working for some time he had been enabled to purchase the horse and wagon he drove, and as he was making money, hoped in a few years to have enough to purchase his own freedom. Roch concluded he could gain from him some information as to Maroney's driver, so he carelessly asked him if the hack driver was also hired out. ”

“ The postmaster himself is a pajama-clad gentleman, whose appearance is calculated to strike terror to the souls of humble seringueiros, or rubber-workers, who apply for letters only at long intervals. ”

“ Look out for a fine-looking man who is helping some poor woman carry a baby, or a basket, or a load." And, sure enough, when the train arrived he found the distinguished diplomat, the great statesman, helping a poor laundry woman carry her large basket of soiled linen. ”

“ He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, resuming it as his safest place, said:
“Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?”
“You are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; “and you are a cursed aristocrat!”
The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's bridle (at which he was evidently making) , and soothingly said, “Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris.” ”