Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1884 — THE POSTAL SERVICE. [ARTICLE]

THE POSTAL SERVICE.

List of States in ’Which.lt Returns a Frofij to the Government. [Washington Dispatch.] During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, the postal service paid expenses and yielded a surplus in seventeen States aud j Territories, including, singularly enough, Alaska, where one would expect to find the postal service uurenumerative. The effect of reducing letter postage to 2 cents is that in the year ending June 30,1884, the postal service paid for itself in only ten States and no Territories The States in which the postal service paid for itself in 1883 and failed to do so in 1884 are Maine, Vermont, | Wisconsin, lowa, Minnesota, Dakota Territory, and the district of Alaska. The following table shows by States where the i postal service paid for itself in 1883-4, and where it did not, with the amount of the excess of expenditures of receipts, as the case may be:

Excess of Excess of ex- reeeipts pensea over over exBtates and Territories. receipts, p'dit’res. Maine , $48,328 $ New Hampshire 18,038 Vermont 33,909 Massachusetts. ..Tv........... ...... 916,906 Rhode Island. 124,638 Connecticut 135,643 New York.... 2.312,695 New Jersey. 143,517 Pennsylvania 560,677 De1aware.,................... ..... 8,162 Maryland 125,862 ...... Virginia 408,972 West Virginia. 76,920 ...... North Carolina 207,191 South Carolina 159,693 Georgia 320,202 Florida. . 133,294 Ohio 845,404 Michigan 39,461 Indiana.. j 294,062 Illinois 347,400 Wisconsin. 160,836 lowa 371,407 Missouri 480,383 Kentucky 171,089 Tennessee 111,210 Alabama . 238,494 Mississippi. 186,082 ...... Arkansas........ 208,602 L0ui5iana.................... 120,660 Texas 431,334 California. 471,188 Oregon 133,308 Minnesota 299,369 Kansas. 362.276 Nebraska 596,411 Nevada...., 113,108 Colorado 277,615 Utah. 180,996 New Mexico 111,366 Washington 110,892 Dakota 39,007 Arizona 149,819 Idaho 106,356 Wyoming;' 44,907 Montana. 62,653 Alaska. 1,600 ...... District of Columbia. 109,141 Indian Territory 42,086 Total $8,291,942 $4,606,982 The Ohio man appears to have got a good deal more than his share of postal facilities, and he might reasonably be asked to buy more postage stamps or be content with fewer mails. The effect of reducing letter postage one-third was to rednee the gross postal receipts only 5 per cent, in Hlinois.