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Show OUR MAIL SERVICE. We have spoken several times of our abominable mail service and it seems to get worse instead of better. When we want to make sure that an important letter will be delivered In Salt Lake on time we send It by some one going to the city. A letter postmarked post-marked Salt Lake 6 p. in., January a, gUL here on January 7, and one from Toledo, marked Jan. 4, gets here the same day. Payson letters postmarked Saturday get here the next Tuesday. Letters posted at Delta on Monday get to Oasis, five miles south, on Wednesday and so It goes all the time. All our mall goes out of Delta on tho northbound train which leaves at 12:4S at night. We suppose the south bound mall is sorted out on the train and thrown off at Lynn to be carried south on the train that leaves there about 5 o'clock In the morning. This train has no mail car but the mail sacks are put In charge of the baggage man w ho Is supposed to throw them off at the different stations, but probably he Is overworked and the sacks are often carried by to be brought back a day or two afterward. While we have no way of knowing where the delay Is we surmise that there are not enough railway mall clerks to do the work of dlstrlbntlon properly or In time, and perhaps the same mistaken Idea of economy has compelled the postmaster at Salt Lake to reduce his clerical force so that u ted In time for the outgoing trains and the Incoming mall cannot be dls-the dls-the outgoing mail cannot be distrlb-trlbuted distrlb-trlbuted In time for prompt delivery by the carriers. Postmaster General Hitchcock pointed point-ed with pride last year to the reduction reduc-tion of the postofflce deficit, but It looks as If It was being done at the expense of the service. If Instead of overworking mall clerks, trying to put an additional burden on radical magazines maga-zines and recommending a one-cent postage rate, he would reduce the compensation com-pensation to the railways to what the express companies pay for similar service, ser-vice, and give us a parcels post as every other civilized country has, he could wipe out the postofflce deficit and double the value of tho service. |