4888 
Various. 
A FEW WORDS ABOUT POSTAL LAWS. 
JOSEPH HARRIS. 
Enormous amount of free mail matter; ap¬ 
propriate work for Government and pri¬ 
vate enterprise; rich Uncle Sam shoidd pay 
for public service that doesn't pay for it¬ 
self; though having a superabundance of 
income he doesn’t pay for “free" postage 
matter; the patrons of a few “ paying ” of¬ 
fices pay for a multitude of non-paying 
ones; rates on different classes of mail 
matter; domestic postage dearer on some 
classes than foreign; amendments in the 
jiostal laics suggested. 
There are in the United States 55,157 post- 
offices. Of this number, considerably over 
50,000 are what are called “fourth-class” 
offices, where the postmaster receives no sal¬ 
ary. In pay for his services he is allowed a 
certain percentage on all the postage stamps 
he cancels. Up to $500 each quarter he is al¬ 
lowed 50 per cent, on all stamps canceled. Up 
to $60 each quarter, he receives 100 per cent. 
In other words, 50,000 postmasters in the 
United States might send off twelve million 
dollars of mail matter per annum, on which 
the Government receives not one cent. In ad¬ 
dition to this, there is a large amount of 
mail matter carried free for members of Con¬ 
gress and the Departments at Washington. 
Newspapers and periodicals are carried free 
in the county where they are published, and 
to all other places at the nominal rate of one 
cent per pound. Reports for experiment 
stations are also carried free. 
For one, I do not object to any of these pro¬ 
visions. The fourth-class postmasters certain¬ 
ly do not get exorbitant pay for their labor. 
Members of Congress should be allowed free 
intercourse with their constituents; newspa¬ 
pers should go free in the county and be car¬ 
ried at a mere nominal price to all their sub¬ 
scribers. At any rate, this is the law of the 
land to-day. Uncle Sam is very generous. 
But it seems to me that if Uncle Sam wants to 
be generous, Uncle Sam should foot the bill. 
By “ Uncle Sam ” I mean the Government, or 
the people of the United States. 
There are those who think that Uncle Sam 
should do as little as possible. They say 
everything should be left to private enter¬ 
prise. It seems clear, however, that anything 
which ought to be done, and which cannot be 
done by private enterprise or by the States 
themselves, should be done by Uncle Sam. 
And this has always been the theory and 
practice of the Government. Private enter¬ 
prise would not construct harbors or clean our 
rivers or build lightnouses or carry the mails 
to every post-office in the United States. 
If left to a private individual or company, 
the mails would be carried only to large 
cities where the business was profitable. At 
tens of thousands of places the people would 
be left without mail facilities, just as they are 
now left without express offices. It is clearly 
Uncle Sam’s duty to carry the mails, and he 
recognizes the duty and performs it well, just 
as he builds lighthouses and signal stations 
and sends us word when a storm or cold wave 
is approaching. 
But who ought to bear the cost of the light¬ 
houses and the signal stations? You say 
Uncle Sam—in other words, not the few peo¬ 
ple specially benefited, but the whole people 
of the United States. And this is done. Who 
should pay the salaries of the two or three 
thousand postmasters, whose duties are per¬ 
formed largely by paid assistants while they 
attend to politics? Who should pay for the 
free mail matter sent by the Departments at 
Washington and members of Congress? Who 
should pay for carrying newspapers free in 
the county where they are published, and 
for carrying all newspapers and periodicals, 
including millions of copies of mere advertis¬ 
ing sheets, at less than the service costs, and 
who'should pay for carrying the entire mail 
matter from 50,000 “fourth-class” post-offices, 
practically and actually for nothing? You 
say Uncle Sam, and you say right. Many 
people seem to have the idea that he does so 
now, but they are mistaken. Uncle Sam is 
generous, but Uncle Sam does not foot the 
bill. 
If Uncle Sam was poor we should not com¬ 
plain. During the war, and for years after¬ 
wards, we cheerfully put a stamp on every 
check that was issued or note made or deed 
given. Had it been necessary, and it would 
have paid, we would have put a 10-cent stamp 
on every letter and a two-cent stamp on every 
copy of every newspaper issued, as was for 
many years thecase in England. But instead 
of being poor, Uncle Sam is so rich that he 
does not know what to do with his surplus 
income. 
In such circumtances who shall pay for car¬ 
rying free matter through themails? We say 
Uncle Sam, or the Government, or the whole 
people of the United States, and not a partic¬ 
ular class. If there was need to impose more 
taxes, there might be no special objection to 
levying a tax on everybody who used the 
mails. But as this is not the case, it is clearly 
as much the duty of the Government to pay 
for the free matter that goes through the 
mails, as it is to pay pensions, support the In¬ 
dians, or do any other necessary work that 
cannot be performed by private individuals. 
The people who use the mails at three or 
four thousand post-offices are taxed heavily to 
carry free mail matter from fifty thousand 
fourth-class offices and for millions of dollars of 
money expended in carrying dead-head mat¬ 
ter and supporting political postmasters. Is 
this right, or just, or equitable? 
At present we pay postage as follows: 
First Class.—Postal cards one cent each to 
any post-office in the United States and Cana¬ 
da, and two cents to foreign countries; letters 
two cents per ounce in the United States, and 
five cents per half ounce to foreign countries. 
Second Class, A.—Newspapers and periodi¬ 
cals from office of publication or news 
agencies, one cent per pound. 
Second Class, B.—Transient newspapers or 
periodicals one cent for four ounces. 
Third Class.—Books, catalogues and other 
printed matter one cent for two ounces. 
Fourth Class.—Samples of merchandise and 
all other mailable matter one cent per ounce 
to any post-office in the United States aud 
one cent for two ounces to foreign countries. 
In other words, if I was to send a. half- 
pound sample of wheat or corn or oats to a 
commission merchant in New York I must 
pay eight cents postage on it; while if I want 
to send it, inaNew York, to England or France 
or Germany or Russia or India or China or 
Oceanica I pay only four cents. 
What Congress should do, and do at once, 
is to strike out the third and fourth classes 
aud simplify matters as follows: 
First Class.—Letters and postal cards one 
cent per ounce. 
Second Class.—Newspapers aud periodicals 
from office of publication one cent per pound. 
Third Class.—Books, transient newspapers 
and periodicals, catalogues, circulars, seeds, 
samples of merchandise and all other matter 
that is now sent by mail, one cent per four 
ounces. 
This is carrying third and fourth class mat¬ 
ter at the same rate as transient newspapers 
and periodicals are now carried. As the law 
now is, a father can send a newspaper to his 
son in Dakota, four ounces for one cent; the 
mother can send her daughter a four-ounce 
book for two cents, while the sister who wants 
to send him a pair of four-ounce mittens must 
pay four cents. If she cannot see the prin¬ 
ciple on which our postal laws are based and 
drops them into the post-office with the same 
stamps required for the book or the periodical, 
the mittens will be sent to the dead letter 
office and the poor boy must stand the bliz¬ 
zard as best he may. If need be, we will wait 
till the boy is sent to Congress and T think he 
will turn a deaf ear to the blandishments of 
the express companies. 
Grand Bay, Mobile Co., Feb. 10.— From 
away north of us comes the cry, cold! cold!! 
blizzard! death! etc. So many years have 
passed since I have seen the mercury at zero 
that I can scarcely realize the intense cold thus 
indicated, as I sit here with but a handful of 
fire in the open place and my coat off. Only 
three times this winter have we had it cold 
enough to make ice, and each time the cold 
lasted only one night. The coldest was 28 u . 
Strawberry beds are in full bloom. Lots of 
berries are half grown. Blackberries are 
showing the green. Plum trees are in bloom; 
so are many quince and peach trees The Le 
Conte and Kieffer pears are also bursting 
their buds. Oats are 12 to 15 inches high. 
Cabbages and peas are growing finely; pota¬ 
toes (Irish) the early planted, are well up, 
some four to six inches high. I have heard it 
predicted that Mobile County will this spring 
produce (if no cold snap interferes) the largest 
crops that have ever been grown of Irish po¬ 
tatoes and cabbage, to say nothing of later 
crops of peas, beans, etc. c. c. w. 
Illinois. 
Pleasant Valley, Jo Daviess Co., Feb. 
9 —Water for stock is scarcer than for many 
years in these parts though I’ve heard of no 
real suffering. If a warm spell would set in 
we would have plenty of water as there are 
from two to three feet of snow on the level, 
and it is the next thing to impossible to get in¬ 
to the timber after firewood, and if a heavily 
loaded sleigh on the public road leaves tha 
track it is sure to upset. It has been a cold, 
stormy winter, but nothing here to what 
they have experienced farther northwest. It 
was 22° below zero yesterday morning and 32 Q 
to 34? below has been the coldest. Feed is 
very scarce: not one farmer in 20 has feed 
enough to get his stock through in good con¬ 
dition without buying. Potatoes that were 
stripped of leaves by bugs, after a few wet 
days in the middle of August, leafed and blos¬ 
somed anew and turned out 100 or more bush¬ 
els to the acre of very fair potatoes which 
seem to be keeping well. Some were so pro¬ 
ductive that dozens of little tubers grew on 
the vines above ground at the joints where 
the leaves intersected. Early potatoes failed. 
Prices now 75 cents a bushel. The farmers 
here have been forced by circumstances to 
learn the value of well saved corn fodder com¬ 
pared with stalks standing in the field. I 
think cutting corn will be more practiced 
hereafter. w. s. s. 
Hamm. 
Conway, McPherson Co., Feb. 6.— After 
reading the accounts'of blizzards in the North¬ 
west and sensationalisms about the weather in 
Kansas, it will be pleasant to know that in 
Central Kansas farmers are now in their 
fields at work, though of course permanency 
is not expected. I started two teams harrow¬ 
ing on fall plowing on January 30, and they 
have continued at work until the present 
time, checked only by slightly frozen ground 
this forenoon. The grouud was sufficiently 
dry, and I wanted to “improve the time” and 
be ready when oats sowing time comes. As a 
new hand at Kansas farming, I shall try to 
imitate our successful neighbors. In Penn¬ 
sylvania or Iowa soils, it would not, from my 
experience, do to level the ground so early, 
with falling weather yet to come; but here 
the soil is lighter and I judge will pack but 
little, and I think it will be the better for this 
early work. The few numbers of the Rural 
New-Yorker received were a little surpris¬ 
ing to us in the number of articles applicable 
to the “Great West” and especially in the 
notes from Kansas. To tfie old time sub¬ 
scriber in the East, its Western visits must be 
like that of an old friend. Roads have been 
in wonderfully fine condition all the time dur¬ 
ing my eight months’ residence, and on the 
frost going out last week a heavy load could 
be hauled any day. Plowing for spring crops 
is in progress on a number of farms. To a 
npw-comer there are some unpleasant features 
of the weather; but there are so many bright, 
pleasant days that no wonder the windy, dis¬ 
agreeable ones are forgotten and the people 
think only of the country as “Sunny Kansas.” 
But a word to people everywhere, if you are 
moderately satisfied in your present location, 
think well before changing. j. m. 
Pennsylvania. 
Annville, Lebanon Co., February 20 — 
We are experiencing a severe winter. For 
high winds, blizzards, and snow-drifts, it has 
had few equals. Ice was plentiful, and a con¬ 
siderable quantity has been stored. Ice¬ 
houses are getting more popular from year to 
year, as farmers find ice invaluable through 
the hot season. Live stock look well, as fod¬ 
der of all kinds yielded abundantly. Grains 
of all kinds are rising in value, which is a 
blessing, as past prices were ruinous to a cer¬ 
tain class of farmers. j. a. b. 
Womans Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
I F only some universal genius would invent 
a feminine wet-weather costume which 
would do away with wet and draggled petti¬ 
coats! This slushy season of thaws will cause 
a good many women to echo that plaint. We 
may do what we can in the way of water¬ 
proof, rubbers and umbrella, but it is abso¬ 
lutely impossible to keep one’s skirts dry, even 
when they are made short walking length. 
And this is the great drawback to out-door 
exercise in bad weather. The use of thick 
woolen leggings will prevent any risk of tak¬ 
ing cold, if the damp skirts are removed im¬ 
mediately on coming into the house, but such 
additions do not obviate the discomfort of 
soiled and draggled skirts. But unless we all 
decide in favor of the convenient but unbecom¬ 
ing Bloomer we are not likely to see any great 
alteration or improvement. 
* * * 
Sqmehow the dress reformers do not seem 
to agree in essentials. Now, they tell us re¬ 
peatedly that we are not to wear ligatures con¬ 
fining the body or limbs in any place. Yet 
the clever editor of Dress tells us that we 
ought to wear spiral metal garters below the 
knee, instead of the convenient and easy sus¬ 
pender. The metal spring is supposed to give 
rather more than elastic, but it must impede 
the circulation in the fine blood-vessels near 
the surface, if nothing more. We have al¬ 
ways had as great a horror of tight garters as 
of tight stays, and we should always advocate 
the supports from the waist. 
* * * 
In a great many respects each woman must 
be a law unto herself, as far as dress reform 
is concerned. We have no sympathy what¬ 
ever for the women who write piteously of 
414 
the martyrdom they undergo through the 
absurdities of modern fashion. If a woman 
wishes to do so she can dress sensibly and com 
fortably without making a guy of herself. 
She can observe hygienic laws without look¬ 
ing conspicuously different from her fashion- 
led sisters. And while respecting Dr. Walker 
for her courage, we must look on her as a 
much-mistaken woman, though she has °er- 
tainly solved the problem of draggled skirts. 
* * * * 
It is a little bit surprising to read Dr. Tal- 
mage’s opinions, stated in a recent sermon, 
that women would have no effect on moral 
questions if allowed a voice in matters of 
State. Speaking of temperance matters, he 
says that multitudes of women drink, and 
drink to excess, and he continues to assert that 
women would really do nothing to further 
the temperance cause. We do not wish to 
say anything on the political side of the ques¬ 
tion, but Mr. Talmage’s remarks express a 
willful disregard of women’s work in moral 
reforms. In all organized efforts towards a 
higher standard of living, both in temperance 
and purity, and in every moral question, wo¬ 
men have always taken a leading part. We 
believe, most emphatically, that woman’s 
highest influence will always be social rather 
than political, but there is absolutely no rea¬ 
son why our political influence, if it is given 
us, should not be as moral and beneficent as 
the influence we now possess over society 
and its units. 
TREATMENT OF HIRED MEN. 
FRED GRUNDY. 
O n page 44 Mrs. Fisher says: “Probably 
in the millennium every farm will have 
its tenant house aud occupants, who will 
board all the hands employed by hire.” For 
the average farmerine that would be the 
millennium, sure enough. But how about the 
tenantine? Has Mrs. Fisher ever met her? I 
have. But then she’s a “Poor Joe,” and is 
rarely or never considered in connection with 
anything approaching a millennium. 
Let me mention a single incident of dozens I 
have in memory. L— had a farm of 480 acres, 
aud he kept four hired'men, one of whom was 
married, lived in a tenant house on the farm 
and boarded all of the hands. The season 
had been very wet, and 130 acres of corn were 
struggling with a mass of rampant weeds. 
Just before the wheat began to color for the 
harvest, the rains ceased and hot “corn 
weather” set in. In order to make the corn 
crop we smote and slew weeds with hoe aud 
cultivator, from the rising until the setting of 
the sun, for nearly two weeks. 
One day, about 11 a. m., two men came to 
the field in search of work. L- turned to 
me, and in his quick, keen manner, said: 
“G-, what do you think of these two 
men?" They were rather rough and tough¬ 
looking customers, and were squirting tobac¬ 
co juice right and left, so I merely said that 
they appeared to be able to work. “Well, 
men,” said he, “I’ll give you a dollar a day 
until I get this field cleaned out. G-give 
that man your hoe, and you let the cattle into 
the lower pasture.” As I passed the tenant 
he asked: “Did L-hire them fellers?” I 
nodded an affirmative. The wrinkles in 
his brow deepened and a painfully des¬ 
pairing look came over his features 
as he glanced first at the sun then 
toward the house where his wife was 
preparing dinner for four. I knew what he 
was thinking about, so I told him I would 
hurry back and care for his team. When we 
went in to dinner, his wife, hot aud worried, 
was carrying a peevish, half-sick baby about 
and directing him as he set the food on the 
table. Instead of taking the regular half- 
hour rest after dinner, he washed the dishes 
and I wiped them. Then he prepared as 
much of the raw material needed for supper 
as he could. Those two roughs remained with 
us a week; aud I am positive that neither 
L-, nor any other man who had any respect 
for the feelings of his wife, would have kept 
them one day, unless he was bound, as this 
tenant was, by an iron-clad contract to do so. 
Out of pity for the tenantine I told L- 
what sort of characters they were. “Oh, 
well,” said he, “I suppose they are rough and 
filthy, but I guess Sallie can put up with them 
for a week easy enough!” 
This tenant left the farm in the fall, and 
went to work in a flouring-mill. Two years 
afterwards his wife told me, with consider¬ 
able emphasis, that if she were given her 
choice between dying and taking her old 
place on L—’s farm, she would a thousand 
times rather die! 
I worked as a hired man for several years, 
sometimes alone and sometimes with three or 
four others, and my experience as a hired man 
convinced me that the usual farm method of 
treating hired men, i. e. taking them into the 
house as members of the family, is radically 
