in length, to apartments five feet five inches in length by two feet six
inches in width. The most comprehensive conception of the practical
working of the postal-car system, can be formed in a railway post-office
from forty to sixty feet in length; with this in view, we will make a
trip in one. A permit to ride in the car, signed by the superintendent
of the division of the service, is necessary to allow us the privilege;
and it is also required of clerks belonging to other lines. This rule is
necessary, in order that the clerks may perform their work
uninterruptedly and correctly; and also to exclude unauthorized persons
from mail apartments. After a hasty exchange of salutations with the
four clerks, the "clerk in charge" notes our names on his "trip report,"
and we are assigned a spot in the contracted space, where, we are
assured, we will be undisturbed, at least for a while. The trip report
mentioned is used in noting connections missed, and other irregularities
that may occur. The interior of the car is fitted up with a
carefully-studied economy of space, upon plans made under the
supervision of the superintendent of the division, or chief clerk of the
line. Occupying one end of the car are cases of pigeon-holes, or boxes,
numbering from six hundred to one thousand, arranged in the shape of a
horse-shoe, for the distribution of letters. These boxes are labeled
with the names of the post-offices on the line of road, connecting
lines, States, and prominent cities and towns throughout the country. A
long, narrow aisle passes through the centre of the car, on both sides
of which are racks for open sacks and pouches, into which packages of
letters and pieces of other mail matter are thrown; on the sides above
are rows of suspended pouches, with their hungry mouths open. By this
plan, in this contracted space, upwards of two hundred different pouches
and sacks can be distributed into between the termini. On one side of
the aisle is a narrow counter, upon which the mail matter is emptied
from the pouches and sacks; this is hinged to the pouch-rack, and can be
swung back, to enable the clerks to get at the pouches more easily. The
space beyond, divided by stanchions, is for the stowage of mails, and
for their separation into piles.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A RAILWAY POST-OFFICE.]
In order that a minute may not be lost, when passing through tunnels or
standing in dark railway-stations, the lamps are kept burning from the
start to the finish. The last wagon, gorgeously suggestive of a circus,
has arrived with its load of mail, and the busy work receives at once a
new impetus. Several loads, however, have already arrived, and have been
disposed of as much as possible; for the work begins, in some cases,
several hours before the starting of the train. Transfer clerks and
porters deliver the pouches and sacks into the car, the label of each
being scanned and checked by the clerks, to detect if all connections
due are received, and that no mail may be delayed by being carried out
on the road with the other mail and returned. The last pouch is scarcely
received, when a sudden, but not violent, shock announces that the
locomotive is attached to the train, and the start about to be made. The
sound of the gong, seconded by the electrifying and resonant "Aboard!"
of the conductor, and the post-office on wheels is under way. Now, all
is a scene of bustle, but not confusion. The two clerks, to whom are
assigned the duty of distributing direct packages of letters and
newspaper mail, including merchandise, deftly empty the pouches, out of
which pour packages of letters and circulars, to be distributed unbroken
into pouches, and others labeled to this route and different States,
which are in turn to be separated into packages by routes, States, and
large towns, at the letter-case. To the clerk in charge is assigned the
sorting of such letters as are destined to distant routes or terminal
connecting lines; and his associate, or second clerk, is busy
distributing letter mail for local delivery, and into separations for
intermediate connections.
In addition to sorting letters, the clerk in charge has charge of the
registered mail, which requires special care in its reception and
delivery, booking and receipting therefor. Large pouches of registered
mail are also placed in his charge, _en transit_ between large
cities, and represent great value. The peculiar tooting of the whistle,
or a peculiar movement of the train around a curve, warns the fourth
clerk, who is on the alert, of a "catch" station; the letter mail for
that post-office is quickly deposited by the local clerk in the pouch,
the lock is snapped, and he is standing at the door not a minute too
soon or too late; the pouch is thrown out at a designated spot and one
deftly caught an instant after without a slackening of the speed of the
train. The pouch thus caught is taken to the counter, opened and emptied
by the fourth clerk, and the letters immediately placed in the hands of
the second clerk, who assorts the local mail; the through letters, or
those destined to go over distant lines beyond the terminus, are sorted
by the clerk in charge; the local, or second, clerk distributes his mail
as rapidly as possible, with a watchful eye for letters, etc., to be put
into the pouch to be delivered at the next station; the pouch is locked
and everything is ready for the next delivery and "catch." When the
stations at which pouches are caught are within a mile or two of each
other, the greatest activity is needed to assort the mail between
stations, to avoid carrying mail by destination and subjecting it to
considerable delay before its delivery by a railway post-office on the
train to be met at a point perhaps many miles ahead.
[Illustration: "CATCHING" AT FULL SPEED.]
The manner of taking or "catching" the mail from the trackside by some
invisible power on a railroad train plunging through space has seemed to
many a feat of almost legerdemanic skill, when all that is required is a
simple mechanical apparatus and a quick, firm movement of the arm in
using it at the right moment. A crane similar in appearance to the
oldtime gibbet is erected near the track, and may have served as a
warning by its suggestive appearance to some would-be train-wrecker. Its
base is a platform two feet and a half square, with two short steps on
top to assist the person hanging the pouch; a post ten feet in height
passes up through this platform near the edge; a stout joist about five
feet in length is fixed across the top of the post and so balanced that
when relieved of the weight of the pouch it flies up perpendicularly
against the post. The pouch used for this purpose is made of canvas and
is somewhat narrower than the ordinary leathern pouch. It is lightly
suspended by a slender iron rod projecting from the horizontal joist,
passed through a ring at the top and lightly held at the bottom in the
same manner as at the top.
[Illustration: POUCH HUNG ON "CRANE."]
When the pouch is snatched from the crane, the top piece flies up as
described, and a parallel short joist at the bottom of the pouch drops.
The pouch is strapped small in the middle, resembling an hour-glass,
where the catcher-iron on the car is to strike it. This "catcher"
consists of a round iron bar across the door of the car, and placed in a
socket on each side about shoulder high; a strong handle, similar to a
chisel-handle, projects perpendicularly from this bar; on the under side
of the bar projects, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, a slender
and strong iron rod, slightly turned at the end to prevent its tearing
the pouch, of about three feet in length. As the train approaches the
crane, the operating clerk with a quick, steady throw delivers the mail
at a given point, usually near the crane; he then grasps the handle with
his right hand, swinging the handle over inward; the arm when thrown
outward, the horizontal bar turning in the sockets, comes in contact
with the pouch, striking that part of it narrowed by the strap and
striking the arm near the vertex of the angle into which it is driven by
the momentum of the train; the greater the speed the more securely it is
held there; but the clerk is on the _qui vive_, and as soon as it
strikes the catcher-iron, grasps the pouch to make sure of getting it,
as sometimes if the pouch is not hung properly, the arm will strike it
at such a part as to require the most agile movement on the part of the
clerk to secure it and to prevent its falling to the ground or under the
wheels of the train and being torn to pieces; these cases, however, are
rare, but pouches have lodged on the trucks and have been carried many
miles.
To return to the clerks and their work. In the meantime, the "through"
work continues, when the distance between stations and junctions will
allow of it; letters in packages are distributed into boxes with a
celerity and economy of motion which could be acquired only by continued
practice and training of the eye to decipher an ever-varying
chirography, and of mental activity to almost instantly locate a
post-office on its proper route, its earliest point of supply, or
connecting line.
The emptying of pouches continues; package after package of letters roll
out on the counter as though they were potatoes rather than the dumb
expression of every human emotion, or the innocent touchspring of their
awakening. The pouches are labeled to indicate those requiring the
earliest attention, as are also the packages of letters they contain;
this plan prevents, to a great extent, the carrying of mail past its
destination.
The packages of letters to be distributed by routes, post-offices, and
States, are taken to the letter-case; those not to be so separated, that
is, unbroken packages, _en transit_, are placed at once into their
proper pouches.
The emptying of sacks of paper mail follows that of the pouches; the
papers and packages of merchandise are faced in a manner to be readily
picked up, their addresses read, and deftly thrown into the mouths of
the pouches and sacks in the racks; this is very skilfully done, as the
want of space requires that they shall be crowded closely together.
The swaying of the train around a curve makes little difference, as the
clerks in a short time learn to follow every motion of the train. A
quick decision, ready eye, and economy of movement as a superstructure
to a good knowledge of his duties, are the invaluable qualities of a
successful railway postal-clerk; and one so equipped soon outstrips his
lagging seniors and associates in grade. As the train approaches a
junction, preparations are made to "close out" that part of the mail to
be delivered at that point, the sacks are tied, the tags or labels
having been attached before starting. The clerks at the letter-case are
rapidly taking the letters from the boxes tying them into packages, and
separating them into piles, which are dropped into their proper pouches
and locked, and so on until all is ready. Let us examine these packages
of letters and at the same time describe the slip system. On the outside
of each package for redistribution, and also inside each direct package,
that is, containing mail for a single post-office, is placed a brown
paper slip, or label, about the size of an ordinary envelope, bearing
its address or destination, which may be that of a post-office, a group
of post-offices supplied therefrom, and labelled "dis." (the
abbreviation of distribution), or for a railway post-office; this slip
also bears the imprint of the name of the clerk who sorted into the
package and is responsible for its correctness, the postmark with date,
and a letter, as "N." for north, or "W." for west, indicating the
direction the train is moving at the time. A similar slip is also placed
loose in each pouch and sack.
The errors discovered in the packages of letters, or among the loose
pieces in the pouches and sacks, are endorsed on the proper slip, signed
and postmarked by the clerk in the railway post-office receiving it.
These errors may be the result of carelessness, ignorance, or
misinformation; in the latter case, had the clerk been properly
informed, perhaps a delay of half an hour or less might have been
avoided if sent by some other route. These error-slips are sent each day
enclosed in a trip report to the division superintendent; if approved,
the record is made, and the clerk in receiving the error-slip at the end
of the month is informed of his mistake, and it is needless to add that
the error, if one of ignorance or misinformation, will not be repeated.
This forms a part of the record of the clerk upon which to a degree his
future advancement depends. The beneficial effect of this system as an
incentive to study, care in distribution, and a commendable rivalry, is
indisputable.
The postmarks on the letters in the package in our hands show that they
joined the current at a junction but a few miles past, and if the
location of one of them is sought on the map, it is found to be an
obscure hamlet on a remote stage route, by which it reaches the
railroad, over which a single clerk in an office seven feet square, or
less, performs local service, and which line makes connection with the
through mail-train on the main road. The letters described are tied in a
package with others, and a label slip placed thereon addressed to some
railway post-office, perhaps hundreds of miles distant, which is reached
unbroken through a many-linked chain of connections; with this package
are others for large cities which will be passed along intact to
destination, and also letters labeled to railway post-office lines
making connections in their turn. The pouches and sacks into which the
packages of letters and papers are deposited will be received at the
next junction into a railway post-office car, sorted and forwarded in
the manner described. In many cases a mail is sent across by a stage
route to connect a parallel line, and thereby feeding a new section.
Mail matter is frequently received, through error, for post-offices on
the line of road but just passed, or for post-offices supplied only by
one railway post-office train moving in the opposite direction; to
provide for such mail a pouch is left at the meeting-point of this
train; and so the train plunges on with its busy workers, its
pleasure-seekers, and its composite humanity, The clerks have long since
become grim with the smut of the train, paling all others but the
fireman, and the long-nursed illusion that all government positions are
sinecures is rudely dispelled by their appearance, and an insight into
their arduous duties. As the train lazily rolls into the terminal
station, pouches and sacks are ready for delivery and the clerks make
ready to leave the car.
The instant the train stops, a portion of the mail, large or small as
the case may be, is delivered into a wagon for rapid transfer to a
railway post-office train about to start from another station. If the
incoming train is late, it may be necessary to exact the utmost speed to
reach the outgoing train, and in many cases it is always necessary to
effect it rapidly. After the transfer mail is disposed of, the labels of
the remaining pouches and sacks are examined, and as the mail is passed
out of the car we are surprised at its quantity, filling a number of
large wagons; this, however, does not constitute the entire mail
distributed _en route_, as the quantities delivered at junctions
and stations aggregate, in many cases, more by far than that delivered
at the terminal station, There are many details of work that our space
forbids us to describe, that are technical and of little interest to the
reader, but are of relative importance. These we must leave, and prepare
for the return journey on the night-train, feeling grateful that our
busy fellow-travelers are to have an opportunity to refresh themselves.
The work performed in a railway post-office on a night-train differs
somewhat from that on a day-train, yet maintaining the same general
principle of distribution. The methods differ, governed by the
connections, and a clerk suddenly transferred from a day-train to a
night-train on the same route, unless thoroughly informed of the train
schedules, of close and remote connections, the time of the dispatch of
direct closed pouches from many post-offices, stage route schedules,
etc.,--which knowledge, even approximating correctness, would be
extraordinary,--would be almost as much at a loss as if transferred to
another route, excepting his knowledge of the location of the
post-offices on his own line. In all cases if a delay occurs, causing a
connection to be missed, it is the duty of the clerk to know at once the
next most expeditious route by which the mail can be forwarded.
The hardship incurred by a night-clerk is greater in many respects than
that of the day-clerk; while in the latter case a continual active
strain is required in the performance of local work and its multiplicity
of detail, yet this is more than offset by the handling of bulky and
heavy through mail and the unnatural necessity of sleeping in the
daytime, which at most affords but a partial rest. On many night-lines
the clerks commence work in mid-afternoon, accomplishing considerable
before the train starts, and as the train plunges through darkness into
the gray dawn and early morning, they sturdily empty pouches and sacks,
and the incessant flow of letters and papers is only interrupted when
approaching some important junction where mail is delivered and received
from connecting lines or post-offices. Everything presents a weird
aspect in a railway-station at midnight,--men flit about in a dazed way
with satchels, the bright light bursting through the doorway of the car
gives a ghastly look to the face of the man who throws in the pouches
and sacks, and all appear like ghosts that will vanish with the approach
of dawn; but we realize the substance of our surroundings when we again
turn our attention to the busy scene in the car. The city distribution
of letters--a feature of the service on night-trains which has greatly
facilitated the early delivery of mails in a few of the larger
cities--has been extended to other cities, and others are still to
receive its benefit. For instance, clerks from the Boston post-office
detailed to do this duty enter the mail-car at the Boston and Albany
Railway at Springfield, Massachusetts, and sort the city letters by
carriers' routes, post-office box sections, banks, insurance offices,
etc. The corresponding train moving in the opposite direction is boarded
by New York post-office clerks making similar separations.
The packages of letters thus made up go direct to their respective
divisions in the post-office, thereby avoiding the delay that would be
caused in passing through other preliminary distributing departments.
This work has been taken up recently by the Railway Mail Service, the
plan enlarged and extended, and added to the other duties of the clerks.
Additional clerks, however, have been employed to perform this work, yet
the others are required to know it, and on lines where additional clerks
were not appointed, to make it their regular duty.
A glance has been given at one of the many links in the continuous
chains of connections that cross and recross the face of the country. A
comparison of the oldtime method and of the railway post-office service
will show the superior advantage of the latter. At some remote hamlet in
Nova Scotia, a letter is started for San Francisco, California. It
crosses the boundary line into the United States and enters at once the
swelling current at Vanceborough, Maine. Leaving that place at 1.35
A.M., Monday, without delay it reaches Boston at 5.10 P.M., is
transferred across the city, leaves at 6.00 P.M., connecting with the
fast mail train from New York City at Albany, through Syracuse,
Rochester, and Buffalo, reaches Cleveland at 6.00 P.M., Tuesday, and
Chicago at 6.00 A.M., Wednesday, where an intermission of six hours
makes the longest delay in the line of connection. The next morning,
Thursday, at 11. A.M., Omaha is reached; Friday, at 6.00 P.M., Laramie,
Wyoming; Saturday, at 6.00 P.M., Ogden, Utah; Sunday, Humboldt, Nevada;
and Monday, at 11.00 A.M., San Francisco. This illustration has been
made to show the far-reaching continuity of connecting lines across the
country, passing through many of the principal cities but not entering a
post-office for distribution, rather than a complexity of connections
almost innumerable in a thickly-settled country, and over which study
and patient inquiry to simplify are ever at work.
Lyons, Wayne County, New York, is located on the New York Central
Railway; a letter is started from that place for Leeds, Franklin County,
Massachusetts; it is received into the New York and Chicago railway
post-office at 8.17 A.M., then it is given to the Boston and Albany
railway post-office at Albany, the latter line connecting at Westfield,
Massachusetts, with the Williamsburgh and New Haven railway post-office,
arriving at destination at 9.37 that night.
Again at 6.08 P.M., from Lyons, another New York and Chicago railway
post-office train passes, but, owing to different connections, disposes
of it differently: from this railway post-office a pouch containing a
similarly addressed letter, with other mail, is delivered at Albany for
the Boston and Albany railway post-office, due to leave Springfield,
Massachusetts, at 7.15 A.M.; this pouch is conveyed from Albany in the
baggage-car attached to an express-train, which train, passing
Westfield, connects at Springfield with the 7.15 A.M. railway
post-office train East. At Palmer a short distance east of Springfield a
return mail is left for the railway post-office that left Boston at five
o'clock that morning; into this mail the letter for Leeds is placed, as
the clerks in the latter-named railway post-office deliver at Westfield
a pouch for Leeds, which place is reached 10.07 that morning, on train
in charge of baggage-master. This illustration is comparatively a simple
one. Many instances could be given where a detour of many miles is made
to gain a few minutes in time. By the old system the letter would, in
all probability, have gone to Albany post-office for distribution,
thence either to New Haven, Connecticut, or Westfield, Massachusetts,
for the same purpose, losing trains at each place waiting to be
distributed, and consuming fully, or more, than sixty-four instead of
sixteen hours. By the old method delays became almost interminable as
the connections became intricate, more so than on a continuous line. The
advantage of the "catcher" system described elsewhere, which enabled
towns to communicate with one another in a few minutes, instead of by
the direct closed pouch system through a distributing office miles away,
consuming hours, is not inconsiderable.