The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 18, 1906, Page 15

ns go at once 1l under that low working P sorting and ett ke as nd with touch as ver rnéyman peinter who, hotype machine . h set his sticl: let- e rea) ar- . out of question since ever differs from every other in try served, the clerk soon learns bis « works as quickly as he cam read enveloves n hig hand. At this case, too, are the Teg peckages, each carefully entered as to various who has f two passen- = car, = mar owed the ‘prese distract him from his work, ‘does instant—the T instant the record kept to ex- iskly be how mis-sent listens as eagerly 1 do leaves of the little book with terest one might fancy of its gystem academic ned fro of department tions solely of being Tou: ed upor ¢ of practicat experience clerk rge. That is because he be- leves g close to men and ir methods detail of which con- rns the ever; ctly service He tells me t eces of regis- mis- the tered m course vear will secure the dismissal of -the rk responsible for the errors, and that a like conseque attends the fixing of responsibility for two errors in one year if the year before showed a similar bad recor Most of us wouldn’t consider two mis- takes in the whole long caléndar of the yedr a bad record, would we? B the Postal Department so rules in its registry service, and the resuit is a high efficiency to accept as a matter that we have come Down the center ‘of the car are four rows of open mail bags, held in rack two rows on a side, the space between being filled with a sliding table, at which two clerks are busy The great sacks of second and class matter—paper: periodicals books—are emptied one at a time on this table, whence the mien quickly distribute yawning third and the countless rolls among the bags. Without lifting their eyes from the smooth-worn slide whose weight of pack- ages diminishes only to be reinforced from sacks that le piled in the forward end of the car, ‘they toss each paper, every separate bundle, into the proper pouch They need not look at the name cards clerks e g e = = —~ to iind which pouch serves a given town because they know, and careful study of their route book has taught ‘them to classify instantly every mail station along their “run’ by the railroad, steam or electric, by which it may be most promptly reached. The car is a small one, and these three men constitute its regular force, but just now there is a fourth—the weigher, busied for an instant at every stop where mail is recelved or discharged, but not concerned with the regular work of the car. The weigher is one of 400 now busy In this distric Once every four years the Government makes a new contract with the railroad for carrying the maile and every four vears, therefore, must the weight of car- goes be determined. “There are 11,050 miles of track in our district says Mr, Stevens, after it is decided that we'll have the car doors open, bearing the noise and the dust the breeze brings in rather than endure the heat for the sake of a quiet that would be only comparative after all, “and the department must know the exact weight of mail carried on every train, every day of the test period of fifteen weeks.” What a task it seems! “The minimum i three times as long as in previous tests, so we begin earller than ever before. e ‘At holiday time the postoffice business is greatly increased and during the sum- mer it is very light, so this season is fairer as forming a basis than any other. Covering February, March, April and a part of May we shall be able to get our full reports filed in ample time to enable the department to decide on the new rate by July 1, when the present contracts ex- pire. “We have six States under our office, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Neva- da and California, as well as Arizona, Alaska and the Hawalian Islands. Those two do not increase our labors much, for there is only one road In Alaska,.and though there are four or five lines in Ha- wail they are all small.” “And you are weighing the mail on every train in all this territory?” “On every one. It is a big thing, take it all together, but it 4s divided so no one has more than he can do. “Watch this man as we get into Port Costa. The bag of mail to be thrown off is weighed and the amount noted in his book. When the Port Costa agent toszes on the mail for the north, the weigher gets it first and in an inktant has recorded its welght and turned it over to the clerks, who proceed with its distribu- tion. “That second bag that contains the emnty sacks.” “I noticed they’'ve been putting all the empties into one, as if they didn't want the car to have an untidy look. “It is not altogether a question of neat- ness,” observes the superintendent. “If we carry those bags to the end of the line —this car goes to rtland—we must pay the railroad for tra@sportation, and that is unnecessary. It would also tie up goes off here &) d] needed equipment.. They are put off at Port Costa and the first down train stop- - ping there takes them back to San Fran- cisco, where they are ready for use. “If the bag received is very heavy or if there are several of them, making too great a load for the spring scales, the platform scale at the end of the car is called into use, so that no time may be lost. “Now all the weighers in this district, there are ninety-five of them running out of San Francisco, are doing just what this one does. ‘“At the end of the run the record kept en route must be transferred to report cards and filed with'our office, the amount of mail received being balanced by that discharged. “Sometimes ‘those Interested in having a road make an extra good showing of weight hauled pad the mails by sending out quantities of printed matter during the test season, and sometimes books and o e WAL Bl Mobel Beeson. publications usually handled by tne ex- Press companies are turned over to the postal department for transportation. “Such an increase is promptly reported to the office and. tracers at once inve &ate to determine whether it is'a perma- nent growth or whether it represents a mushroom attempt to get gredit for a service the road will not be required to give regularly. “There have been cases, too, and tons of books have been sent through under a Congressman’s frank, but where the weighing is continued over 105 days we undoubtedly get a fair, and average. \ “But if this ta plished by a sma single cars the here tons Just ht is accom- in turns ng of weig IL amount of w abulating of the re tells a different story. We have sl expert accountants making the maries, and with two adding mac they keep their work so well shall have cur final statemer the department within two or three w after the actual weighing Is com “Do ¢t e final reports re at we ready for ks the average service of every line or division of every road? “Yes,” answers Mr., Stevens, “and to the average service of every train. You see certain trains carry much heayler mail than others on the same line and this difference must be established so that daductions on account of failure of the service may be just. “For example, the evening trains out of San Francisco for Portland carry many times the mail that the morning trains to Portland do, and if on account of wreck or accident or for any other r 4 are unable to render the postal ser the Government is warranted in making & larger deduction than for the failure of one of the lighter trains. “There is a difference, too, on different days of the week, Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday showing much heavier business than the other: ““And the rate?”’ I ask. “At present the rate is $42.75 per mile per annum for a minimum service of 200 pounds per day, but the showing made by this test 1l be so far in advance of that of four years ago that there will certainly be a change in rate. “No other division of the railway mail service has made the gains shown in the Eighth. Not only has the number of per- manendt residents increased in a way that is unequaled, but the tourist travel has become enormous, and I shall not be sur- prised if the volume of business handled proves to be 3 per cent greater than in 190 We are now arrived at Davisville, where this Portland car is detached to await the coming of a later train bound for the north and where we must await the com- ing of the fast.mail from Ogden which shall carry us home. Ordinarily this fast mail passes the am- bitious little town of Davisville as if ‘It ce E »iay. for the superint ion, 1t halts Just long er rug! to scrambila abgard, when it 1 its way, strive ing to mak: ua w of the miy o3 lost in _cro: fields of Ne- braska plendia are these of fast each designed for transports nly & pass- engérs an impediment fc uipped with 500 letter cases, racks mail bags folding against the car wall when distribution is compieted, and end door- ways, through which communication is had, they represent the best that has been dev for the expedition of the service and the comf he clerks. They have be t mail clerks, since ock erday after- noon, more than twenty-four hours, im which time there has been not a single hour for rest. Nor wi ere be until the 60.000 nounds of mail their cars now hold is turned ov to the postal wagons waiting at the foot of Market street Lunch over, their cooking kit, compaet as ever camper carrf® carefully packed away, teakettle and stewpan, griddle, plates and cutlery, each fitting into its own small corner. whiie the single burner das stc . wrapped in news- paper, erowns the whole To my regarding clerk they he continues, them so they've bee; There's no time to sleep and we don’t waste much time eating, but we've two nights to ch our rest before we d all right. 1o of our big we have to- day were 90,000 pounds— 15— we'd_think that a pret “This train left New night, and, of ¢ 1 ™ there, and being out of Chicago Monday night the mail there was lighter than it was the day after “We had 70,000 letters, thot letrers and postal cdrds. It just beats the world how many souvenir pestal cards are be- ing sent—more and more every week. I had a row of them tw feet packed together as close as they long, could be, and that's pretty close know if vou ever tried di They work up a great des letters. ““The motion of the train, too,”" I begin, but he says at once: “We work better when the train is go- than when it Is still. [ don't know why, but it's a fact ry mail clerk fn the raflway se 1l tell you the same thing.” Then they are hannil certain train, are its enly co there are but three in Ca Sacramento, Oakland T Benicla, where we are ferried across the straits—a break in the tri tis all too quickly passed—while the men. the mail distribution finished, are preparing for its discharge. Bags by scores lie piled near'the doors, there are the looks around to see that nothing is forgotten, and the train rolls under t sheds on the Oakland mole. From every car begins a rain of mail bags, and in fewer minutes than I would have thought possible truc are loaded and trundled on to the waltln y The first carry packages and must b ornia e Is a halt at “rexistered In haste, teo, is the dray piled with the Austr Da ¢ the Oceanic to sail at once, but will not safe aboard Walt for the next ferry? Why, the next ferry is twenty minutes in the future and twenty minutes is an age, an eon, In the delivery of first-class mail