Voi.. LXXI. No. 4137. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 10, 1912 Weekly, $1.00 per year 
PARCELS POST IN GERMANY 
What We Should Have Here. 
Part I. 
One of the most striking things to an American 
when he first sees a German railroad is the immense 
quantity of packages that are being loaded and un¬ 
loaded from the trains. Special cars carrying nothing 
but these packages, and sometimes three or four such 
cars, are seen on the same train. An inquiry as to 
what all this is brings the information that it is 
“Packet Post,” and then it dawns upon him that this 
is what we have been beseeching Congress to establish 
at home, and that he now has an opportunity to see it 
in operation. Pie now begins to watch 
with more care to see how the parcels 
post works and what it carries. At the 
railroad stations in the larger cities he 
sees long rows of covered postoffice 
wagons loading and unloading packages 
of all sizes, kinds and descriptions, and 
he immediately decides one thing—what¬ 
ever else may be said about parcels post, 
the people here use it and use it freely. 
At my boarding house in central Ger¬ 
many I asked my landlady where she 
got her butter, which was of excellent 
quality. She told me it came from Hol¬ 
stein, in the northwestern part of Ger¬ 
many, 200 miles away. I asked if it was 
not expensive to have it come so far. 
“Oh, no,” she said; “we have it come 
by post, and have gotten it every week 
for several years from the same man. 
You know we can send a package by 
post up to five kilograms (11 pounds) 
to any place in Germany for 50 pfennig 
(12 cents).” I then understood why I 
had seen such quantities of packages in 
the railroad stations and so many par¬ 
cels post wagons on the streets in the 
cities. I began to inquire about how 
commonly it was used for the marketing 
of farm products. Here in Halle, which 
is a city of about 200.000 population, in 
the central part of Germany, I find that 
it is a very general practice for families 
to get their supply of butter, eggs and 
poultry sent to them every week through 
the parcels post, and they are delivered 
to their door just as a letter would be. 
We may theorize about how the profits 
of the middleman can be reduced and 
the expense of distribution decreased, 
and the distance between producer and 
consumer shortened, but where are we 
to get a more simple and effective solution than by es¬ 
tablishing a parcels post What will do more to reduce 
the cost of living to the man in the city and to increase 
the income of the farmer than to have them deal di¬ 
rectly with each other through a parcels post? What 
are some of the facts about the parcels post of Ger¬ 
many and what is her experience? 
For over a hundred years Germany has had a par¬ 
cels post of some description, and since 1873 the pres¬ 
ent very effective and successful system. At first 
charges were made for sending packages according to 
their weight and the distance they were to go. This 
resulted in an endless amount of figuring for the pos¬ 
tal clerks and a disproportionate charge for small 
packages that were only sent short distances. Then 
the charge was fixed according to zones, that is, a 
uniform price was charged for the first five miles and 
increased for each additional five miles until the dis¬ 
tance reached 30 miles, and then it was raised every 
10 miles until 100 miles was reached, and for distances 
over 100 miles the rate changed for every additional 
20 miles. While this was a decided improvement, it 
still involved a gerat deal of calculation, and in 1873 
a flat rate of 25 pfennig (six cents) per package up 
to the weight of five kilograms (11 pounds) for a 
distance not over 10 miles was fixed. For all dis¬ 
tances over 10 miles a uniform rate of 50 pfennig (12 
cents) was charged for packages up to the weight of 
11 pounds. So that to-day the cost of sending pack¬ 
ages under 11 pounds in weight is as uniform in 
Germany as letter postage, except that for distances of 
less than 10 miles it is only one-half as much as for 
longer distances, and you can send an 11-pound pack¬ 
age across the German Empire for a little over one 
cent per pound and it will be delivered just as a letter. 
For packages of over 11 pounds the rate is fixed ac¬ 
cording to the weight of the package and the distance 
it is to go. The rate is uniform up to 10 miles, and 
increases for distances between 10 and 20 miles, 20 and 
50 miles, 100 and 150 miles, and is uniform for dis¬ 
tances over 150 miles. 
What can be sent by parcels post? Practically any¬ 
thing but explosives, although the postal authorities 
may refuse to accept very perishable products, and at 
their discretion may increase the rate up to one-half 
the original rate for very bulky packages. The packages 
are delivered and taken for shipment in the country 
just as other mail is handled, and in most parts of 
Germany two rural deliveries per day are made, and 
in all cases at least one. Moreover, packages may be 
sent collect through the post and will be delivered, 
collection made and remitted to the original sender for 
a small fee. On the streets of Halle dozens of par¬ 
cels post wagons can be seen at any time of the day 
making their deliveries, and on each wagon is a sign 
“packages received,” and anyone having a package to 
send needs only to give it to the men on one of the 
wagons. When one sees what a convenience the par¬ 
cels post is and how much it means to the economic 
prosperity and welfare of both the man in the city 
and the man on the farm, it is hard to 
realize how any interests have been 
strong enough to hold back legislation 
establishing it in our own country. It is 
a thing that must come and the sooner 
the better for the public. 
The holiday season that is just past 
has given an opportunity to see the par¬ 
cels post working at full capacity. Com¬ 
ing and going on every street could be 
seen the parcel post delivery wagons 
piled high with packages. Two men 
with each wagon, one as driver, the 
other as deliverer, rapidly distributed 
the Christmas packages to rich and 
poor alike, for everyone here uses the 
parcels post to send packages and thinks 
no more of it than of sending a let¬ 
ter. What a contrast it has been to our 
American method of having all of our 
packages handled by express companies. 
At home in Columbus, Ohio, I live just 
outside of the zone in which the ex¬ 
press companies make deliveries (an 
arbitrarily fixed district of very limited 
area) and each week I get a basket of 
butter, eggs, poultry, etc., sent from my 
farm some 30 miles away. The basket 
must not only be taken to the express 
office, some five miles from the farm, 
and sent by express to Columbus at a 
cost of 30 cents, but I must go to the 
express office in Columbus and get it. 
With a parcels post such as Germany 
has the basket would be taken from the 
farm by the rural mail delivery and de¬ 
livered to my house in Columbus, and 
it would cost 12 cents instead of 30. 
Such a convenient method of trans¬ 
portation naturally has a marked in¬ 
fluence on the various industries and in 
no one is it more important than in agri¬ 
culture. Here it works both ways—it furnishes the 
farmer a convenient and cheap method of getting his 
products on the market and an equally good way of 
getting his supplies from the city. 
Among the agricultural products that are sent by 
post, butter ranks first, and especially from northeast¬ 
ern and northern Germany is it sent to the large 
cities of central and western Germany. In the rail¬ 
road station in Berlin, of the lines coming from east¬ 
ern Germany, thousands of packages of butter are 
handled every day. At the minimum rate of the 
German parcels post which allows five kilograms (11 
pounds) to be sent any distance in the Empire for 
50 pfennig (12 cents), the cost of transportation is a 
small matter, considering that the package is both 
called for and delivered. H. c. price, 
PAULOWNIA IMPERIALIS, THE EMPRESS TREE. Fig. 43. 
