686 



POSTAL FACILITIES, RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN. 



Nearly 50 per cent, of the newspaper mail 

 passes through the office with the bags un- 

 opened until they reach their appropriate line. 



The Fast Mall of 18T5. The crowning act of 

 Mr. Bangs's administration was the fast mail 

 in 1875. The first equipment was twenty cars, 

 four on a train, and the trains were composed 

 exclusively of mail-cars. The terminal points 

 were New York and Chicago, and the run was 

 made in 26 hours and 40 minutes, over the New 

 York Central. On the same day a limited 

 mail between the same points was established 

 over the line of the Pennsylvania Central, 

 which left New York 15 minutes later. Con- 

 nections were made with roads running in 

 every direction, so that every State and Terri- 

 tory felt the benefit. The existence of the fast 

 mail and the limited mail was terminated by 

 the action of Congress in the reduction of 10 

 per cent, in the pay of all railway companies, 

 and after a life of ten months and six days it 

 became a thing of the past. But it has been 

 reproduced in the most perfect form yet attain- 

 able in the present railway post-office system. 



Stamped Envelopes. In 1823 a Swedish artil- 

 lery officer, Lieut. Frekenbar, petitioned the 

 Chamber of Nobles to propose to the Govern- 

 ment to issue stamped paper, specially destined 

 to serve as envelopes for letters. The propo- 

 sition, duly recorded on the minutes of the 

 Chamber for March 23 of that year, was favor- 

 ably considered, on the ground that it woulrl 

 be convenient both to the public and to the 

 post-office, but was finally rejected by a large 

 majority. Stamped envelopes are now re- 

 garded almost as a necessity, and in the United 

 States alone there were issued for the fiscal 

 year 1886, no fewer than 354,008,100, having 

 an aggregate value of $6,932,055.02. Those 

 issued by the Government are of three quali- 

 ties, and are made in sizes ranging from " small 

 note," designated as No. 1, to "large baronial," 

 designated as No. 11. 



Special-Request Envelopes. To facilitate the 

 prompt return of undelivered matter, and 

 avoid the trouble and expense of transmis- 

 sion to the Dead-Letter Office in Washington, 

 and the opening of letters and parcels to 

 learn the name of the sender, the Government 

 adopted, in 1876, the plan of printing without 

 charge on the upper left-hand corner of the en- 

 velope the name and address of the sender. 

 This procedure was a convenience in two ways : 

 if the postage was insufficient, the sender was 

 notified ; and if the letter was not duly de- 

 livered to the person addressed, it was returned 

 directly to the sender. These envelopes were 

 furnished in lots of not less than 500 each. 

 In the first year after their adoption, 64,374,- 

 500 were issued, while by steady advances the 

 number in 1886 had reached 152,742,250. 

 These figures, however, give but a faint idea 

 of the matter of "return," for the reason that 

 the Government declines to put anything on 

 the envelope besides the request and the ad- 

 dress. Business men prefer to incur the extra 



expense involved in printing a few additional 

 words designating their calling, and the num- 

 ber of letters bearing a return mark is probably 

 tenfold the figures given in the Postmaster- 

 General's report. 



Letter-Sheet Envelopes. An effort was made 

 by Postmaster-General Howe in 1882 for the 

 introduction of a stamped sheet of paper that 

 would combine letter and envelope in one, and 

 a contract was attempted with the owner of 

 one of the many patents known. The con- 

 tractor failed to perform his part, and no steps 

 were taken to provide the letter-sheet until 

 October, 1884, when a contract was entered 

 into with the United States Sealed Postal-Card 

 Company, and a new article of postal station- 

 ery, combining a letter-sheet and a stamped 

 envelope, was introduced and designated a 

 " letter-sheet envelope." The issue was begun 

 Aug. 18, 1886, and in three months nearly 

 3,000,000 were sold. The envelopes are fur- 

 nished in separate sheets, or put up in pads or 

 tablets of 25, 50, or 100. They are made of a 

 single sheet of unruled white paper, with a 

 writing surface of about 5 by 9 inches, and of 

 such pattern as readily to suggest the manner 

 in which they are to be used. 



Reduction of Postage. The charges on postage 

 for first-class matter were in effect reduced by 

 the act of March 3, 1885, which provided that 

 on and after July 1 of that year, the rate 

 should be two cents for each ounce or fraction 

 of an ounce, instead of two cents for each half 

 ounce. By the same act, .newspaper postage 

 was reduced from two cents a pound to one 

 cent a pound, when issued direct from publish- 

 ing-offices in bulk. When papers or other 

 matter belonging to the second class are put 

 into the mail by other than publishing-offices 

 with their regular issue, the charges are one 

 cent for each four ounces. 



Stamp Agencies. On March 1, 1884, to ac- 

 commodate the public, agencies for the sale of 

 stamps were established. The place usually 

 selected is a drug-store or stationer's, where 

 ladies and children can go to make purchases 

 with perfect freedom. A contract is entered 

 into between the Government and the individ- 

 ual, whereby a notice is to be displayed, and 

 stamps, stamped envelopes, postal cards, and 

 letter-sheet envelopes are to be had in any 

 quantity desired, up to the limit of two dollars. 

 The agent in turn receives the nominal sum of 

 two dollars a month as salary, the Government 

 considering that the indirect benefit accruing 

 to him will further repay his trouble. Of these 

 agencies there are one hundred in the city of 

 New York, and they exist in about the same 

 proportion in other cities. 



Special Delivery. On March 3, 1885, a stamp 

 was authorized by Congress, which, when 

 affixed to any letter or registered parcel, would 

 require a delivery by special messenger, within 

 the carrier-delivery limit of any free-delivery 

 office, and within one mile of any other post- 

 office specially designated, in advance of the 



