OCR Text |
Show wbuld co&t thera 3,000 for postage. Somebody might offer to deliver those circulars for, say, $2,000. Well, ho would be arrested very quickly. Business tsen i can liave their boxes at the postoffice ana send their messengers for muil, but no business man or men can have ft private route and pay a man for serving it Everything must go through the post-office. post-office. Envelopes with 'R. R. B.' on them ('railroad business') go through without postage. You can employ a messenger boy to carry a letter for yon, or you can hand a letter to a friend to deliver as a personal accommodation. "To get at the matter of transportation it wero better to know at first what are post road!-. Well, all waters of the United States, all railroads or purt of railroads, all canals, all plank roads and the road on which the mail is carried to any conrt house or county seat. The mails must be carried on any train that the postmaster post-master general may select, "Now as to tho pay. I might soy that land grant roads, that is, roads that get help from tho government, only receive 80 per cent, for transporting. Tho railroads rail-roads furnish all cars or parts of cars for the carrying of mails, and they shall be maintained, heated and lighted by the railroad companies. The government pays $25 per tnilo per annum for mail care forty feet in length, $40 for a fifty-foot fifty-foot car and $M for a sixty-foot car. The government does not own anything about the equipment except, of course, its sacks and pouches for mail. "A good postal car will cost from $4,000 to $.j,000. Now you've got the figures for the cars. The government pays $50 per annum per mile for every 200 pounds; 000 pounds, $73; 1,000 pounds, $100; 1,500 pounds, $125; 2,000 pounds, $150; 8,500 pounds, $175; 0,000 pounds, $200, and $25 for every additional 2,000 pounds. The government paid about $20,000,000 in 1S89 for transporting the mails; for rental of postal cars, $8,300,000, and for pay of clerks, $5,000,000. This is for railroad service alone. "The steamboat service costs $500,000, and the stage coach and horseback service, serv-ice, $950,000; the mail equipment, pouches, pouch-es, locks, etc., $200,000. So you see the government pays nearly $40,000,000 faff mail service." Cincinnati Times-Star. ! CARRYING THti MAILS. It Taj the KHllrntrl Well and Conts th Ciovemment 0-0,000,000 a Year. The rnilroadft carry the vast bulk of the mails nowadays. People want their letters quickly. So the railroads got the caiTying wherever they reach. Of course considerable mail goes by steamboat and by 8tage,"stnr route" nnd by penny post. The transportation of Uncle Sara's mails is something enormous. Superintendent Burt, of tho railway mail service, said: "Yes, I imagine that wonld be interesting, inter-esting, for the transportation of mails covers n tremendous iifcnre. "In the lirst place th government has b monopoly of all mail transportation. There is no such tiling ;w a private cai lier or a private delivery. Otherwise a I man lfiight tet hiriM'lf . up in business nnd mako money by carrying aud delivering deliv-ering for. lis than Uncle Sam conld. For instance, suppose Procter & Gamble wanted to send out 800(0n0 cijrcularg. ; It V : ' . |