660 



POSTAL CARDS. 



PRESBYTERIANS. 



quantities at intervals, the order from Chicago 

 being from 20,000,000 to 25,000,000, and from 

 St. Louis 10,000,000 to 15,000,000. New York, 

 Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati have 4,000,- 

 000 to 5,000,000 at each shipment. No post of- 

 fice is allowed to take fewer than 500 cards, and 

 any order for fewer than 3,000 is carried in mail 

 bags or pouches. The wooden cases containing 

 larger quantities are carried as fast freight. 



In drawing the contract, the Postmaster-Gen- 

 eral reserves the right to change the printed de- 

 sign, the color or quality of the ink, and even 

 the weight of the cards. If the contractor is at 

 expense for any of these changes, the difference 

 is made up to him ; and if he is the gainer, some 

 of his pay is deducted. The former contracts 

 specified explicitly the formula for manufactur- 

 ing the postal-card paper. It was " 75 per cent, 

 of number 2 country rags, and 25 per cent, of 

 chemical wood pulp. The present contract was 

 awarded upon the samples noted above, the bid- 

 ders being allowed to offer such qualities " as 

 they shall consider suitable for postal-card use." 

 Nothing was said about the formula. It is there- 

 fore allowable to use wood or other paper hav- 

 ing no rags in its composition, but showing a 

 tensile strength beyond the requirements of the 

 contract. Whatever the material, the paper must 

 be well " calendered " that is, it must be pressed 

 to a uniform weight and thickness, and finished 

 upon both sides so that it will take equally well 

 the printer's ink, the writer's ink, and the lead 

 pencil. Without calendering, both kinds of ink 

 would spread, and make the card useless. 



If rags are used they are first sorted. All the 

 stray money is taken out of old pockets, and 

 buttons and other hard substances are removed. 

 A chipping machine cuts even the largest rags 

 into small bits, and a blower drives out the dust. 

 Then come a succession of baths, and a cleaning 

 process by means of chloride of lime and other 

 chemicals. By this time the old rags are not 

 recognizable in the clean, pasty product, that 

 feels pleasant and has an odor not unlike the 

 mushroom. Wood pulp and rag pulp meet in 

 one of the vats, which has a kind of steam- 

 boat wheel to mix the two kinds of mash and 

 keep them moving. If wood pnlp alone is used, 

 the corded pulp is picked to pieces and mixed 

 in the vat until it becomes of the same pasty con- 

 sistency as the rag pulp. The pulp is lifted" from 

 the vat and placed upon a strainer so that it may 

 lose as much as possible of its water. The edge 

 of the mass finds itself drawn into one end of a 

 paper or card making machine about 60 feet 

 long. Soon it begins to hang together, and then 

 it passes under and over numerous rollers heated 

 by steam' from within. It grows thinner and 

 harder at every step, until it reaches the other 

 end in the shape of a long roll of cardboard, 

 ready for the printer after it has been calendered 

 and cut into sheets 21 by 30| inches (the size of 

 40 postal cards), or larger sheets containing 100 

 cards. A former contractor cut some of his cards 

 into rolls 4 cards wide, and fed them into a 

 printing machine. The present contractor has 

 adopted machines that feed from a continuous 

 roll at the rate of 300 cards a minute. The Gov- 

 ernment furnishes the plates for printing. They 

 are of the hardest steel, and their life is about 

 two years. The contractor, who is under bonds 



of $300,000, is held responsible for their safety, 

 as much as he is held for the safety of the cards 

 that are printed. All spoiled cards are destroyed 

 in the presence of a Government official, and the 

 contractor has no pay for them. An attachment 

 to some of the presses cuts and counts the cards. 

 It also straps them in packages of 25, and the 

 cost of the little paper strap is $1,200 a year. 

 The former contractor cut the printed sheets 

 lengthwise on a " slitter," and crosswise on a 

 rotary "cutter." The machines were operated 

 by girls, who counted, sorted, and bound ; and 

 their expertness was remarkable. They would 

 count the 25 cards in a package while the visitor 

 had difficulty in counting 5. Counting by hand 

 has been abandoned for the most part. Twenty 

 packages, or 500 cards, fill a pasteboard box ; but 

 quantities of 2,000, 4,000, 6,000, 8,000, 12,000, 

 16.000, and 25,000 are packed in wooden cases. 



PRESBYTERIANS. I. The Presbyterian 

 Church in the United States of America. 

 The following is the summary of the statistics 

 of this Church for 1892 : Number of synods, 30 ; 

 of presbyteries, 217; of candidates, 1,280: of 

 licentiates, 431 ; of ministers, 6,331 ; of elders, 

 24,790 ; of deacons, 8,099 ; of churches, 7,208 ; 

 of churches organized during the year, 196 ; of 

 communicants, 830,179 ; added during the year 

 on examination, 57,478 ; of adult baptisms, 20,- 

 859 ; of infant baptisms, 25,762 ; of members of 

 Sabbath schools, 894,628. Amount of contribu- 

 tions : For home missions, $998,111 ; for foreign 

 missions, $812,793; for education, $141,661; for 

 Sunday-school work. $129,806; for church erec- 

 tion, $309,022 ; for the Relief fund, $102.414 ; for 

 the freedmen, $131,822 ; for sustentation, $71,- 

 192; for the General Assembly, $80,908;* for 

 aid for colleges, $159,915; for congregational 

 purposes, $10,033,128; miscellaneous contri- 

 butions, $1,314,790; total contributions, $14,- 

 285,562. 



Benevolent Societies. The receipts of the 

 Freedmen's Board had amounted to more than 

 $172,000, while its expenditures had been about 

 the same. It had employed 371 missionaries, 

 had aided 300 churches and missions, and main- 

 tained 80 parochial and 14 boarding schools, 

 with a total of 9,229 pupils. It had also under 

 its charge 276 schools, with 18,221 pupils. Two 

 new school buildings had been erected at a cost 

 of $24,000. Property for church and school 

 purposes had been bought at Richmond, A she- 

 vine, and Little Rock. Ten new churches had 

 been organized during the year. 



The total receipts of the Board of Home Mis- 

 sions for the year ending in May were $925,949, 

 and the total income available for its current 

 work was $843,353. The debt had been reduced 

 by $31,253 during the year, and was now $67,- 

 092. Fourteen hundred and seventy-nine mis- 

 sionaries and 360 missionary teachers had been 

 employed, and returned 8,808 additions on pro- 

 fession of faith during the year, a total member- 

 ship of 93,504, with 132,651 persons in congrega- 

 tions, 3,368 adult baptisms, 4,680 infant baptisms, 

 360 Sunday schools organized, and a total of 2,190 

 Sunday schools, with a membership of 141,236. 

 One hundred and seven new churches had been 

 organized, and 52 churches had become self-sus- 



* Includes synodtcal and presbyterial expenses. 



