Parcel post

“ The great retail houses, in increasing numbers, employ the parcels post for sending home the purchases of customers, instead of using their own delivery wagons. They find the government does the work for them cheaper and better than they can do it for themselves. The price charged, which is paid, of course, in postage stamps, varies from two cents for a parcel weighing under two pounds to twenty-two cents for a parcel not exceeding eleven pounds. ”

“ All such parcels have to be examined at comparative leisure, and the public would be surprised to learn what a large amount of time is spent by the Post Office in making good the many defects and shortcomings in addresses on parcels and other postal packets. The Parcel Post comes in for many kicks from the public, but in justice it must be said that the officials spare no pains to trace the proper 91addresses of parcels. They exercise, too, great ingenuity in the task, and books of reference are in constant use. ”

“ The international parcel post has always been regarded as primarily commercial, [657] and the service has been deliberately restricted to small parcels on the ground that the conduct of an ordinary transportation undertaking is not a postal function, and that the admission of heavy parcels would render impossible the maintenance of the postal principle of uniformity of rate. ”

“ Let me now explain the system of sorting. The majority of people probably never give a thought as to the happenings of a parcel which they have posted: they leave it in faith on the counter and the wonderful Post Office sends it direct to its destination. That is probably their idea. Supposing you have left your parcel on the public counter of King Edward's Building, what happens next? The parcel is taken to the despatching room to wait the arrival of the van which will convey it in a sack to the Parcel Office at Mount Pleasant. ”

“ Moreover, they were impressed by the fact that a parcel post system was in operation in most other countries of the world, even in Australia, a country slightly larger in area than the United States and much more sparsely populated, where the two factors which so radically distinguished the United States from most other countries in which a parcel post had been established were met with in even greater degree. ”

“ The first of John Palmer's mail coaches began to run in 1784, and the system lasted nearly sixty years. The determining cause which induced the Post Office to take to the road again was the introduction of the Parcel Post. The railway company receives 55 per cent. of the stamp value of every parcel, and as the collecting, sorting, and distributing expenses are heavy, the cost of transmitting parcels in this manner is considerable. ”

“ Larry. “I remember Uncle George (you know he is assistant postmaster at —) says almost the same thing, that parcel post would not spell bigger profits for the producer and worth-while saving for the consumer until what he called ‘empties’ would be returned by the United States Post-office Department, free of charge.”
“Nevertheless,” said Mr. Fullerton, “a great many Long Island farmers, especially those who ship in small lots, are making good use of the parcel post. I would advise you to interview Mr. Kelley, Brooklyn’s postmaster, on the subject. ”

“ Office for the work, render this business one of extreme accommodation to the public. Not only is the Parcel Post taken advantage of for the transmission of ordinary business or domestic parcels, but it is made the channel for the exchange of all manner of out-of-the-way articles. ”

“ Your parcel is in the company of others, intended for all parts of the world, and the first step is to get the parcels to the various parts of the office from which they will be despatched to other destinations. Along the whole length of one side of the table is a wooden framework or sack holding the empty baskets. These ten baskets are labelled Scotch, Irish, Paddington, Foreign and Colonial, Delivery, Liverpool Street, 89Euston, King's Cross, Waterloo and London Bridge, Town, and the sorters stand between these baskets and the table laden with parcels. ”

“ People will use a parcels post when it becomes cheap enough to be an economic possibility, and they will use it enormously, as experience elsewhere has abundantly and conclusively proved. Until then they will use the fourth class postal rate only for the occasional cross continental parcel on which the express rate soars out of all reach, or for the small parcel under a pound in weight on which the fourth class rate is less than the express companies’ minimum charge. ”

“ The extension of the rural routes to include a parcel post,” he asserts, “will be a boon both to the rural population and to the store-keeper as the latter can receive his orders by mail or telephone and despatch the desired merchandise by the rural carrier. The farmer will be saved from hitching up his horse and losing the time he needs for planting or harvesting his crops, and it will enable the store-keeper to increase his sales and meet the requirements of modern trade.” ”

“ Parcel mails are in the international service frequently denied the privilege of rapid transmission accorded to letter mails. [658] The developments of the present war have emphasized the essential distinction to be drawn between communications on the one hand, and packages of goods sent by parcel post on the other.
The general basis of postal rates is naturally affected in some degree by the fact that the Post Office is a State undertaking, and the propriety of Government control deserves [Pg 329] consideration. ”

“ Parcel-post packages are commonly very bulky. Such may now be mailed for local delivery and for delivery in the first, second, and third zones, that is, within three hundred miles of the place of mailing, if they do not exceed seventy pounds in weight, while packages not in excess of fifty pounds may be mailed to any address in the United States. The handling of these packages necessitates the use of entirely different character of equipment. As far as it is practicable to do so, this matter is segregated from mail of the other classes. ”

“ The classified [Pg 47] or carrier stations are practically complete post-offices, so far as the public is concerned, affording full facilities for the sale of stamps, money-orders, postal savings, registration of mail, acceptance of parcel post, the distribution of mail, etc., and for the delivery and collection of mail by carriers. The financial stations afford all the conveniences mentioned for the benefit of the public, except that they do not make delivery of mail nor effect its distribution. ”

“ The whole effort of the parcel post aims to furnish an exceedingly reasonable method of interchanging commodities between the farm and city home, something which no private corporation has ever attempted or would undertake to do, all such enterprises being purely for gain and profit. ”

“ In any case, a postal service should be limited to parcels of moderate size and weight, because the Post Office, as at present organized, is for the most part adapted to the handling of packets which can be delivered by foot-messengers. In rural [Pg 332] districts this is almost universally the rule. [666] It is frequently necessary in the towns to separate entirely the parcel post traffic from the ordinary light letter post traffic (except in those parts of the service where the parcel post traffic is very restricted) , to provide a separate staff, and to furnish different equipment. ”

“ It is therefore to the advantage of [Pg 216] the public to divide a heavy parcel, though such a proceeding obviously increases the cost to the administration of its handling and transmission. The despatch of heavy parcels by post is naturally discouraged, and the proportion of such parcels is decreasing. [452] Of the total number of parcels sent by post in 1900, more than 88 per cent. were less than 5 kilogrammes in weight, and the number of greater weight than 10 kilogrammes formed less than 3 per cent. ”

“ Parcels are accepted for localities not served directly by the contracting companies, but such parcels are conveyed only to the point served by railway nearest to the place of destination. It is left to the public to provide for their further transmission. In the case of parcels delivered only at the railway station, an advice of delivery is sent to the addressee by the company or their agents within twenty-four hours of the receipt of the [Pg 207] parcel. This advice is sent by post, and the postage, 5 centimes, is recovered from the addressee. ”

“ The list of possible shipments of every conceivable kind and character could be indefinitely extended, for it is known that the scope of subjects that can be handled by the parcel post is practically limitless and only awaits proper enterprise for productive profit to those who will engage in it.
The parcel post is without question a great success. There is no other measure of interest connected with the service which presents so many economic possibilities. Its great advantage over the private carriers is apparent and the benefits quickly seen in practical operation. ”

“ Where a service was provided by the railways, the rates and conditions were not satisfactory, and the establishment of a parcel post represents an attempt to prevent the full application of the principle of charging "what the traffic will bear."
The Post Office, moreover, as a public undertaking, cannot bargain freely for special facilities or terms with individuals or firms having large numbers of parcels for delivery within a limited area. Without such specialization the Post Office must often be unable to offer the most economical service, and private carrying agencies secure the business. ”

“ It is estimated that the delivery division effects the delivery daily through the carriers assigned to the general office and to the various stations of approximately 5,000,000 letters, cards, and circulars, 800,000 papers, periodicals, and pieces of printed matter and small parcel-post packages, and 65,000 bulky parcel-post packages, or, in all, close to 6,000,000 pieces of mail of all classes. ”

“ Perhaps to no class will the boon of a parcels post be greater than the merchants in the large cities. All the way from four cents to fifty cents is now paid for the delivery of a parcel within a radius of thirty miles around the leading cities of this country. Experiments have shown that it is possible, where the interests of a considerable number of merchants are combined, to deliver an average dry-goods parcel, thirty miles out, at a cost not to exceed four cents. ”

“ Mail bags, parcel post receptacles, official bicycles, and telegraph instruments are supplied in large quantities. Over 11,000 bicycles, carriers, and trailers are in use throughout the Kingdom, and the mileage covered by them amounts to 150 million miles per year.
Miscellaneous postal stores, such as stamps, seals, scales, weights, telegraph paper, string, sealing-wax, are purchased by the Stores for the Post Office. Printed matter, pens, ink, paper, and office requisites, 202though stocked and distributed by the Stores, are supplied by the Stationery Office, Whitehall. ”

“ Each person on a rural route and the carrier cannot dicker for the transportation of each article. That would soon lead to great dissatisfaction, as some would think that others were being favored. And to dicker on each parcel would take so much time and be so much trouble that the carrier could not be expected to do it. All we need to put into effect a modern parcels post on the rural routes is a law fixing a reasonable and proper rate for the transportation of parcels and making it the business of the rural carrier to handle parcels as well as the mail matter he now carries. ”

“ Instead, they would have instructed the clerk to mail the glass bowl by parcel post, marked as a “tourist purchase.” When the package arrived in New York, the post office would have turned it over to Customs in routine fashion for examination. An examiner would have verified the contents and its value and then returned the package to the post office to be forwarded directly to the Smiths in their home town. If any duty were due, it could have been paid to the postmaster after filling out a simple entry form. No broker. ”

“ In the early days of the parcel-post it was used chiefly by the person who had friends or relatives in Europe and wished to send a present to them, but it is now being used very extensively in commercial transactions. By this means goods ordered from abroad are forwarded by the great mail-order houses, and the total volume of this business is large.
Much difficulty is experienced in inducing senders of mail matter to wrap it securely. ”

“ The inauguration of the parcel post, which in fact has made the postoffice a common carrier, has led to serious efforts on the part of the government towards an adequate appreciation, by possible users, of the advantages of the new facilities, and a campaign of education is carried on, not so much with a view of increasing revenues, as of fostering the “producer to consumer” movement, particularly in farm products. ”

“ Go to the post office here in the city and find out what packages were sent out by parcel post, early this morning. It's dollars to doughnuts he's mailed them to himself under another name—somewhere west, since he was headed that way. But don't neglect address in Mexico, either. Probably it's insured—he wouldn't take a chance on losing them. Have them look up registered packages first of all. ”