Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1888 — THE POSTAL SERVICE. [ARTICLE]

THE POSTAL SERVICE.

The annual report of the Third Assistant Postmaster-general shows that the total cost of the postal service for the last fiscal year (inclusive of amount earned by the subsidized Pacific railroad companies for mail transportation) was ♦58,126,004. The postal and money order receipts amounted to $52,695,195,176, leaving a deficiency of $5,330,828. This deficiency is owing mainly, it is said, to the great extension of the free delivery service and the increase of railway mail transportation. The total number of pieces of registered matter transmitted during the year was 13,677,169, and of special delivery matter 1,434,400. The total number of articles of the various kinds of stamped paper emitted was 2,700,625,17i>, representing $50,626,321. Statistics are given showing that in the •cheapness- of -postage-, the - number- ofpostoffices, extent of mail routes, miles of service performed, postal revenue and postal expenditure, and number of letters and other pieces of mail matter. transmitted in the mails, the United

States is now conspicuously ahead of every other nation in the world. The statiktics of letters, 1 etc., transmitted during the year, which are the first accurate statistics of the character ever published by the department, are as follows: Letters mailed, 1,769,800,000; postal cards mailed, 372,2 0,006; papers and periodicals mailed, 1,063,100,000: pieces of third and fourth-class matter, 372,900,000; total, 3,578,000,000. The The Third Assistant recommends that in some of the larger cities the pneumatic tube or some equivalent underground system of transporting the mails be adopted; that the present contract for letter-sheet envelopes be rescinded; and that, as a substitute for the franking privilege, members of Congress have an anfiual allowance of money for the purchase of postage stamps with which to pay postage on speeches and other official matter sent through the mails.