The postmaster-general “is further directed to superintend the business
of the department in all the duties that are or may be assigned to it,
and he is required once in three months to render to the Secretary of
the Treasury an account of all the receipts and expenditures in the
department, to be adjusted and settled as other accounts.” The
postmaster-general may establish post-offices and appoint postmasters on
the post-roads which are or may be authorized by law, at all such
places as to him may appear expedient. He regulates the number of times
the mail shall go from place to place, and he is authorized to contract
for carrying the mail, and to establish post-roads.
_APPOINTMENT-OFFICE._
The Appointment-Office not only has supervision of the appointment and
regulation of all postmasters, and the establishment and discontinuance
of post-offices, but also the distribution of blanks, wrapping-paper,
and twine to all post-offices; the supervision of pay of clerks in
post-offices; of allowance for furniture of post-offices; of extra
allowances to postmasters under the acts of Congress; of the appointment
and pay of special agents, route-agents, local agents, and blank-agents,
and of baggage-masters in charge of mails; of the foreign mail
transportation and foreign correspondence; together with some other
miscellaneous duties.
_CONTRACT-OFFICE._
The Contract-Office is charged with the conduct of mail-lettings, and
all contracts and allowances for inland mail transportation, with the
mail messenger service; the supervision and regulation of
mail-contractors, and the routes of mail-transit, including
distributing-offices; and with the increase and diminution of service on
mail-routes.
_FINANCE-OFFICE._
To this office are assigned the issuing of postage-stamps and stamped
envelopes for the prepayment of postage and the accounts thereof; the
preparation of warrants and drafts in payment of balances reported by
the Auditor to be due to mail-contractors and other persons; and the
superintendence of the rendition by postmasters of their quarterly
returns of postages. It embraces, also, all the operations of the
dead-letter office, and the accounts connected therewith.
_INSPECTION-OFFICE._
The Inspection-Office is charged with the observation of failures and
delinquencies in the service of contractors and route-agents; with fines
and remissions thereof; with the subject of mail-depredations, and
prosecution of violators of postal laws; with the duty of procuring and
distributing mail-bags, locks and keys, and some other duties of detail.
Perhaps no institution in this or any other country requires more
enterprise, general knowledge of business, and geography, than does that
of the post-office. We have already alluded to the fact of its being
considered by many as a “mere workshop” of the general department, and
whose operations are simply mechanical; but our readers ere this have
been undeceived as regards such a construction, and it must loom up
before them a prominent intellectual branch of our government.
That England has a high estimate of her post-office department is
evident from the encouragement given to every one connected with it, and
sustaining alike its literary character in historic publications. We
make the following extract from a recent work entitled “Her Majesty’s
Mails”:—
“There is no postal service in the world so well managed as that of
Great Britain. It is now not merely a self-supporting but a productive
institution; whereas there was a deficiency of half a million in the
post-office of America before the rupture between North and South.
Though America for ninety years has been, next to England, the most
commercial country in the world, yet, compared with the population, five
times as many letters pass through the English post as through the
American. London and its suburbs alone, with its less than three
millions of inhabitants, sends forth a greater number of letters than
the whole of America.
“The next best-managed post-office to our own is that of France; but in
France, by the law of 1856, there are five different tariffs of
postages. Judged by the revenue produced, the English post-office,
notwithstanding its low rate of charges, stands first.
“The Austrian post-office produces a revenue of 3,714,200 florins, or
£378,000; the Belgian, 2,960,000 francs; the French, 66,452,000 francs;
and the English, £3,800,000; being more than a quarter of a million
beyond the proceeds of 1862.
“A comparison of the year 1839—the year immediately preceding the penny
postage—with the year 1861 gives these results: An increase nearly
eightfold in the chargeable letters; a threefold increase in the
receptacles for letters; a fortyfold increase in the number of
money-orders; a fiftyfold increase in the amount of money-orders; and an
increase of the gross revenue in round numbers from £2,390,000 to
£3,402,000. The amount of the correspondence of a country will measure,
with some approach towards accuracy, as Mr. Matthew Hill says, the
height which a people has reached in true civilization. The town of
Manchester equals in its number of letters the Empire of all the Russias
both in Europe and Asia; and this fact we owe, as many of the marvels we
have stated, to Sir Rowland Hill. The poor and the lowly, the domestic
servant and the humble artisan, can now correspond with each other from
one end of the kingdom to the other at the trifling expense of 1_d._;
and for this civilizing, Christianizing, and eminently social good we
are indebted to a late post-office secretary, whose merits have been
recognized, but who cannot be overpaid in money or money’s worth. As
Lord Palmerston said on the 10th of June, Sir R. Hill showed, in
relation to the post-office, great genius, sagacity, perseverance, and
industry, and he was the first to prove that the department was a public
institution for the performance of services, rather than for the
collection of revenue. If, as the first minister of the crown stated,
and as we believe, the cultivation of the affections raises men in their
own estimation, improves their morals, and develops their social
qualities, Sir R. Hill has been amongst the greatest benefactors of the
human race, and he well deserves the vote that was agreed to on the 10th
of June without a dissentient voice.”
_POST-COACHES, POST-HORSES, AND RAILROADS._
Postmaster-generals up to the period when railroads superseded that of
post-coaches and post-horses had a much harder time in their “vocation”
than have their successors since. The difficulties then were to overcome
the opposition of parties interested in contracts. Coaches and
post-horses, routes and agents, became important items in such
contracts; and the least favoritism on the part of the
postmaster-general called forth not only censure from those immediately
interested, but not unfrequently from those high in authority. During
the postal administration of W. T. Barry, Esq., considerable political
feeling was mixed up with these complaints. Mails at that period (1835)
were carried on horseback from central points, and by four-horse
post-coaches from city to city. Lines of stages were established in
several sections of our country. The number of post-offices was 10,693.
The line of stages extended to the western boundary of Missouri; to St.
Augustine, in Florida; through Indiana, by the seat of government in
that State; through the whole Territory of Michigan and State of
Illinois; from Detroit to Chicago; and from Chicago to St. Louis, in
Missouri; thence to New Orleans, in half the time which it formerly
occupied. This facility, however, was afforded by connecting the coaches
with steamboats in the mail-transportation. Lines of post-coaches were
also established in this year from Nashville to Memphis, on the
Mississippi River, in Tennessee; from Tuscumbia in Alabama to Natchez in
Mississippi; and to Tuscaloosa, the seat of government in Alabama; and
from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery; completing a direct line from Nashville
in Tennessee, and all the other Western States, to the city of New
Orleans.
A semi-weekly line of two-horse stages was added to a tri-weekly line of
four-horse post-coaches from Washington City, through Lynchburg in
Virginia, Salisbury, N.C., Yorkville, S.C., and Augusta, to Savannah in
Georgia; from thence to the northern part of Georgia, through that State
to Tallahassee, and to Pensacola in Florida.
We have given this statement for the purpose of showing the amount of
labor essential to the transportation of the mails at that period,
compared to what it is now. It is, however, somewhat strange that
railroads were not established in many places, which would have obviated
the necessity of coaches.
_SOMETHING ABOUT RAILROADS._
Railroads, although evidently of ancient origin, were first used near
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1650. Wooden rails four to eight inches square,
resting upon transverse sleepers two feet apart, were in use for many
years, when railroads of the same description covered with thin plates
of iron were substituted.
In another part of this work we speak of the lost arts. Proofs of their
existence are found in the excavated cities, and even in those vestiges
which establish the belief of an antediluvian state of society equal to
any that has existed since. Egypt abounds with antiquities. Where are
the ramparts of Nineveh, the walls of Babylon, the palaces of
Persepolis, the temples of Baalbec and Jerusalem? Where are the fleets
of Tyre, the docks of Arad, the looms of Sidon, and the multitude of
sailors, pilots, merchants, and soldiers? Where are those laborers,
those harvests, those flocks, and that crowd of living beings which then
covered the face of the earth?[48]
The temples are crumbled down, the palaces are overthrown, the ports are
filled up, the cities are destroyed,—all,—all. Earth itself is only a
desolate place of tombs. Yet specimens of high art remain, and also
indications of a classic taste far superior to that which boasts of
refinement since. We have every reason to believe that railroads were
known to the Asiatics long, long before these cities fell in their
ruins, carrying along with them the charts by which we could have traced
their cause of greatness. The cities of the desert—that of Palmyra, for
instance—could never have been built so far away from “marble-quarries”
if railroad facilities had not been known and afforded the means of
conveying those vast blocks of marble which formed its pillars.
The cities of Palmyra and the spot which marks the site of Tadmor
present an imposing spectacle in rising from the sands of the desert. It
looks like a forest of columns. The great avenue of pillars leading to
the Temple of the Sun, and terminated by a grand arch, is 1200 feet in
length. The temple itself is a magnificent object. The city is a vast
collection of ruins, all of white marble. How were these huge columns of
marble conveyed to this city of the desert?
The sculptures of the Memphite Necropolis say that Memphis once held a
palace called the “Abode of Shoopho.” Shoopho was the owner of vast
copper-mines: he was termed “pure king and sacred priest.” Historians
doubted the power he exercised over Egypt, and also the amount of labor
performed in erecting pyramids and monuments,—as, for instance, it is
maintained that he employed 100,000 men for twenty years in erecting a
monument for which ten preceding years were requisite in preparing the
materials and the _causeway_ whereon the stone was to be carried. The
monument, as described by historians, was of immense proportions, the
base of which was 764 feet each face, the original height 480 feet,
containing 89,028,000 cubic feet of solid masonry and 6,848,000 tons of
stone. The distance these materials were carried was twenty miles from
the quarries on the eastern side of the Nile. What sort of a _causeway_
was that which could transport these huge masses of stone a distance of
twenty miles? Again, this great pyramid is lined with the most beautiful
and massive blocks of sienite, of red granite, not one particle of which
exists twenty-five miles below the first cataract of the Nile, at Aswan,
distant six hundred and forty miles up the river from the pyramid.
Blocks of this sienite are found in this pyramid’s chambers and passages
of such dimensions, and built in such portions of the masonry that they
must evidently have been placed there before the upper limestone masonry
was laid above the granite. There not being in its native state a speck
of granite within six hundred and forty miles from the pyramid, is a
proof that Shoopho did rule from Memphis to Aswan, and from Migdol to
the tower of Syene. How he conveyed the material that distance involves
the question of the origin of _railroads_.
Let us pass on to Alexandria. Pompey’s Pillar stands upon a pedestal
twelve feet high. The shaft is round, and, with the Corinthian capital,
one hundred feet in height; the diameter is nine feet. Cleopatra’s
Needle is of one shaft of granite, covered with hieroglyphics: it is
sixty-four feet high, and eight feet square at the base. There are a
great number of pyramids scattered over Egypt, but the most remarkable
are those of Djizeh, Sakhara, and Dashour. When seven leagues distant
from the spectator they seem near at hand, and it is not till after
having travelled several miles that he is fully sensible of the size.
The largest is ascribed to Cheops. They are on a platform of rock
situated one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the desert. Ten
years were consumed in preparing a _road_ whereon to draw the immense
blocks of stone, and the labors of 100,000 men were employed, who were
relieved once in three months.—_Herodotus._
What sort of a road and the manner these blocks were carried are matters
of conjecture. _We incline to the opinion of railroads._
_HOW THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT._
The stones used in building the pyramids of Egypt, it is supposed, were
raised to their places by piling up immense inclined planes of sand, up
which the blocks were pushed with rollers. If inclined planes were used
to raise large blocks to a great height, is it to be supposed that a
similar mode, or _railroads_, were not used to convey them on a level
plane?
The statement, often repeated on high authority, that the pyramids were
built before the Egyptians acquired the art of writing hieroglyphics,
however, which they do contain, do not convey that full knowledge of the
state of the arts among them, at the time the pyramids were constructed,
which is to be learned from the writings and pictures in their tombs and
temples, in regard to the state of their arts at a subsequent period.
But we have the less valuable authority of Herodotus that the blocks of
stones were lifted from one course to the other up the steps of the
pyramid. Remains of Cheops’ grand causeway, for transporting the blocks
quarried from the rocks on the east bank, are still seen leading up the
great pyramid from the plain, a shapeless ridge of ruinous masonry and
sand. According to Herodotus, it was one thousand yards long, sixty feet
wide, and forty-eight feet high, was adorned with figures of animals,
and was a work of ten years. Some of the stone used for the coping over
the passages are seven feet thick and more than seventeen feet long.
Lifting these stones up the side of a pyramid four hundred and fifty
feet high was certainly a work of great labor; but as a feat of
engineering it was mere child’s play compared with some of the triumphs
of modern science and skill,—for instance, lifting the Menai bridge on
to its piers, or raising on end and placing on its pedestal the
monstrous monolith which adorns the city of St. Petersburg.
_RAILROADS FROM 1760—ENGLAND._
In 1760, wooden railroads were in pretty general use to facilitate
mining operations. Tram-roads, with rails of cast iron, first introduced
at the Colebrookdale Works, at the instance of Mr. Reynolds in 1767; at
the Sheffield colliery in 1776. Stone props for the support of the rails
substituted for timber in 1797, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Edge rails were
brought into use by Mr. Jessop in 1789, at Loughborough. Malleable iron
edge rails adopted at Newcastle in 1805, and at Tinsdale Fell in 1808.
The improved malleable edge rail now in use was invented by Mr.
Birkinsaw in 1820. A locomotive engine propelled by steam was employed
for the first time on the Merthyr-Tydvil Railroad in Wales in 1804.
Blenkinsop’s locomotive engine, which operated by means of cog-wheels
and rack rails, was invented and applied on the Leeds Railroad in 1811.
But the locomotive engine that has obtained the greatest reputation and
been most generally adopted was that invented by Mr. George Stevenson in
1814. This engine has undergone a variety of improvements up to 1829,
and was deemed at that period more efficient than any of its
predecessors.
_RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES._
(Abstract of the Seventh Census.)
In no other particular can the prosperity of a country be more
strikingly manifested than by the perfection of its roads and other
means of internal communication. The system of railroads, canals,
turnpikes, post-routes, river navigation, and telegraphs possessed by
the United States presents an indication of its advancement in power and
civilization more wonderful than any other feature of its progress. In
truth, our country in this respect occupies the first place among the
nations of the world.
From returns received at this office in reply to special circulars, and
other sources of information, it is ascertained that there were, at the
commencement of the year 1852, 10,814 miles of railroads completed and
in use, and that 10,898 miles were then in course of construction, with
a prospect of being speedily brought into use. While the whole of these
10,898 miles will, beyond reasonable doubt, have been finished within
five years, such is the activity with which projects for works of this
character are brought forward and carried into effect, that it is not
extravagant to assume that there will be completed within the limits of
the United States before the year 1860 at least 35,000 miles of
railroads.
The Quincy Railroad, for the transportation of granite from the quarries
at Quincy to Neponset River, and the Mauch Chunk Railroad, from the
coal-mines to the Lehigh River, in Pennsylvania, were the first attempts
to introduce that mode of transportation in this country; and their
construction and opening, in the years 1826 and 1827, are properly
considered the commencement of the American railroad system. From this
period until about the year 1848, the progress of the improvements thus
begun was interrupted only by the financial revulsion which followed the
events of 1836 and 1837. Up to 1848, it is stated that about 6000 miles
had been finished. Since that date an addition of 5000 miles has been
made to the completed roads, and, including the present year, new lines,
comprising about 14,000 miles, have been undertaken, surveyed, and
mostly placed under contract.
The usefulness and comparative economy of railroads as channels of
commerce and travel have become so evident that they have in some
measure superseded canals, and are likely to detract seriously from the
importance of navigable rivers for like purposes. In a new country like
ours many items of expense which go to swell the cost of railroads in
England and on the continent are avoided. Material is cheap, the right
of way usually freely granted, and heavy land damages seldom interpose
to retard the progress of an important work. It is difficult to arrive
at a clear approximation to the average cost of railroad construction in
the United States. Probably the first important work of this class
undertaken and carried through in the Union was the cheapest, as it has
proved one of the most profitable, ever built. This was the road from
Charleston, in South Carolina, to Augusta, on the Savannah River. It was
finished and opened for traffic in 1833. The entire expense of building
the road and equipping it with engines and cars for passengers and
freight was, at the date of its completion, only $6700 per mile; and all
expenditures for repairs and improvements, during the eighteen years
that the road has been in operation, have raised the aggregate cost of
the whole work to only $1,336,615, or less than $10,000 per mile.
It is estimated that the 2870 miles of railroads finished in New England
have cost $132,000,000,—which gives an average of nearly $46,000 per
mile. In the Middle States, where the natural obstacles are somewhat
less, the average expense per mile of the railroads already built is not
far from $40,000. Those now in course of completion—as the Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad, Pennsylvania Central, and other lines, the routes of
which cross the Alleghany range of mountains—will probably require a
larger proportionate outlay, owing to the heavy expense of grading,
bridging, and tunnelling. In those States where land has become
exceedingly valuable, the cost of extinguishing private titles to the
real estate requires, and the damages to property along the routes form,
a heavy item in the account of general expenses of building railroads.
In the South and West the case is reversed: there the proprietors along
the proposed line of a road are often willing and anxious to give as
much land as may be needed for its purposes, and accord many other
advantages in order to secure its location through or in the vicinity of
their possessions. In the States lying in the valleys of the Ohio and
Mississippi the cost of grading, also, is much less than at the
eastward. Where the country is wooded, the timber can be obtained at the
mere cost of removing it from the track; and through prairie districts
Nature seems to have prepared the way for these structures by removing
every obstacle from the surface; while fine quarries of stone are to be
found in almost every region. These favorable circumstances render the
estimate of $20,000 per mile in all the new States safe and reliable.
The primary design of nearly all the great lines of railway in the
United States has been to connect the sea-coast with the distant
interior, to effect which object it was necessary to cross the
Alleghanies, which intersect every line of travel diverging to the West
from the great commercial cities of the seaboard.
The Eighth Census (1860), continuing the line, makes this addition to
that of the Seventh:—
Previous to the commencement of the last decade, only one line of
railroad has been completed between tide-water and the great interior
basins of the country, the products of which now perform so important a
part in our internal and foreign commerce. Even this line, formed by the
several links that now compose the New York Central Road, was restricted
in the carriage of freight except on the payment of canal tolls in
addition to other charges for transportation, which restriction amounted
to a virtual prohibition. The commerce resulting from our railroads
consequently has been, with comparatively slight exceptions, a creation
of the last decade.
The line next opened, and connecting the Western system of lakes and
rivers with tide-water, was that extending from Boston to Ogdensburg,
composed of distinct links, the last of which was completed during 1850.
The third was the New York & Erie, which was opened on the 22d of April,
1851. The fourth in geographical order was the Pennsylvania, which was
completed in 1852, although its mountain division was not opened till
1854. Previous to this time its summit was overcome by a series of
inclined planes, with stationary engines, constructed by the State. The
fifth great line, the Baltimore & Ohio, was opened in 1853 still farther
south. The Tennessee River, a tributary of the Mississippi, was reached
in 1850 by the Western & Atlantic Railroad of Georgia, and the
Mississippi itself by the Memphis & Charleston Railroad in 1859. In the
extreme north the Atlantic & St. Lawrence, now known as the Grand Trunk,
was completed early in 1853. In 1858 the Virginia system was extended to
a connection with the Memphis & Charleston and with the Nashville &
Chattanooga Railroad.
The eight great works named, connecting the interior with the seaboard,
are the trunks or base-lines upon which is erected the vast system that
now overspreads the whole country. They serve as outlets to the interior
for its products, which would have little or no commercial value without
improved highways, the cost of transportation over which does not equal
one-tenth that over ordinary roads. The works named, assisted by the
Erie Canal, now afford ample means for the expeditious and cheap
transportation of produce-seeking Eastern markets, and could without
being overtaxed transport the entire surplus products of the interior.
Previous to 1850 by far the greater portion of railroads constructed
were in the States bordering the Atlantic, and, as before remarked, were
for the most part isolated lines, whose limited traffics were altogether
local. Up to the date named, the internal commerce of the country was
conducted almost entirely through _water_ lines, natural and artificial,
and over ordinary highways. The period of the settlement of California
marks really the commencement of the new era in the physical progress of
the United States. The vast quantities of gold it produced imparted new
life and activity to every portion of the Union, particularly the
Western States, the people of which, at the commencement of 1850, were
thoroughly aroused as to the value and importance of railroads. Each
presented great facilities for the construction of such works which
promised to be almost equally productive. Enterprises were undertaken
and speedily executed which have literally converted them into a
network of lines, and secured their advantages to almost every farmer
and producer.
The progress of these works in the aggregate, year by year, will be seen
by the tabular statements at the close of the report. The only
important line opened in the West, previous to 1850, was the one from
Sandusky to Cincinnati, formed by the Mad River and Little Miami Roads.
But these pioneer works were rude, unsubstantial structures compared
with the finished works of the present day, and were employed almost
wholly in the transportation of passengers.
With the advantages arising from the railroad routes, it is not at all
surprising that our postal facilities have increased to such an extent
that, next to the telegraphic wires, it may rank as one of the most
extraordinary operative institutions in this or any other country in the
world.
It will be perceived that in speaking of the department the author has
paid little or no attention to the rebellion in connection with its
operations. Situated as he is in the department, his opportunities are
such that if the business of the office has lessened, as is supposed, in
consequence, there is not a man engaged but must truly say that, instead
of such being the case, their labors, as well as the business of the
office, never presented a more stirring and flourishing appearance. In
some respects it may have affected the general income, but upon the
whole the vast increase of army letters and newspaper circulation, added
to sundry articles of wearing-apparel coming under postal regulations,
we question if this deficiency has not been partially, if not entirely,
overcome. To a certain extent it affected foreign postage. The following
statement, however, will convey a better idea of the postal finances
than that of any theory established upon “why and whereof.” Figures,
they say, never lie; but may not the master-hand forming them
occasionally err in their formation?
The postal revenues for the year ending the 30th of June last were
$12,438,233.78, and the expenditures of this department during the same
period were $12,644,786.20, showing an excess of the latter of
$206,532.42. The average annual receipts of this department from 1859
to 1861, inclusive, were $8,745,282.62, and the average annual
expenditures for the same period were $14,482,008.44, showing an average
annual excess of expenditures over receipts of $5,736,725.82; and the
average annual receipts from 1862 to 1864, inclusive, were
$10,871,530.97, and the expenditures, $11,694,785.72, showing an average
annual excess of expenditures over receipts of $823,254.75.
The excess of receipts in 1864 over 1861, the first year of the
rebellion, was $4,088,957.38.
Although the proportion of receipts as against the expenditures has
doubtless been increased on account of the suspension of the postal
service in the insurrectionary States, the above furnishes the evidence
of an improving financial condition of the department highly creditable
to the administration of my immediate predecessor.
The estimate of expenditure for 1864 was fixed at $13,000,000, in which
was included the sum of $1,000,000 specially appropriated for the
overland mail-service, being $355,213.80 more than the amount actually
expended.
On the other hand, the revenues of 1864 were estimated at an increase of
five per cent. on those of 1862, making $8,714,000, while they actually
reached $12,438,253.78, or $3,724,253.73 more than the estimate. This
increase equals 42-5/8 per cent.
The increase of expenditures in 1864, compared with those of 1863, is
11-5/8 per cent., and the increase in the revenues for the same year
11-3/8 per cent.
This exhibit promises an increase of the revenues for 1865 over the
estimate submitted in the report of last year.
The revenues of this department for the year ending June 30, 1865, were
$14,556,158.70, and the expenditures $13,694,728.28, leaving a surplus
of $861,430.42.
The ratio of increase of revenue was 17 per cent., and of expenditure 8
per cent., compared with the previous year.