The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances

Chapter III: Use and Abuse of Cars (2)

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So far as the employees are concerned, it is for the best interests of the company to have a fixed time for the pay-day. They need their money and should get it regularly. Any road on which the men are paid at uncertain times may be subject to incalculable losses. It is apt to provoke dishonesty and carelessness. The road which is bankrupt and forced to pass its pay-day to some indefinite time is always hampered by some of the most inferior class of servants in the market. Except in some instances where special laws have been passed requiring railroad companies to meet their pay-rolls oftener, once each month is generally recognized as pay-time, and on large roads it would be simply out of the question for the pay-rolls to be made up correctly and the men paid off sooner. The paymaster is the wage-distributing medium, and by virtue of his generosity will command as much respect as the President of the road. No officer's face is more familiar than his, and surely no one connected with the institution is looked for with more eagerness by the hard-working employees. It is no easy task he has to perform, and the responsibility for the millions of dollars paid out in this way annually is very great. This responsibility, however, has been very much reduced on some roads, where wages are paid by checks entirely. Under some circumstances this system will not work satisfactorily, especially on a road running through a sparsely settled country. The employees may have to stand a good round discount to some store-keeper or tradesman in order to secure their money. The best and most satisfactory return for services can be nothing less than solid cash; it encourages better attention to business and relieves the men from possible annoyance and inconvenience. The Paymaster's car, which is virtually a moving bank or cashier's office, and arranged conveniently for the payment of money to the men as they pass through, is generally run "special," upon notice in advance to all foremen or heads of departments, either by telegraph or, as on some roads, by the display of special signal flags, which are carried on the front end of the locomotive of some regular train the day before the car is run over any division. In this way all men employed along the line of the road, whether at or between stations, are notified of the Paymaster's coming, and it does not usually require any other inducement than this to bring them all out. There is nothing that will prompt them to jump higher and run faster than the whistle of the pay-train as it comes around the curve to the station. Men have been known to forget their names, and do other foolish things under the excitement of drawing their month's pay. The fellow who said he could not write all his name when requested by the Paymaster to sign the pay-roll, but offered to write as much of it as he could, after some deliberation made a cross on the sheet with all the care and nicety he could muster. Others who could not write have been very slow to admit it, and have pleaded haste as an excuse for not doing so. So far as Italians are concerned (and what railroad service is now complete without its gang of Italian laborers?), they are usually designated by numbers, and in some cases their foremen have thought it well to name them after prominent statesmen or other public men, or possibly some of the head officials of the company. To run across twenty-five or thirty Daniel Websters on the same road is not surprising, and the President of the company himself is liable to have a half-dozen namesakes throughout the different divisions of his road. A cage of jabbering monkeys is not a more amusing spectacle than some gangs of Italian laborers receiving their month's pay.

The pay-department can be made very systematic, and to promote economy and accuracy it is absolutely necessary that it should be. The Paymaster is not simply a medium through whom wages are distributed. He may be one of the most important officers of his company, and ferret out frauds and dishonesty which otherwise might never be discovered. He knows all the men, and they, of course, know him. In fact, he is the only one connected with the road whose recognition among all the employees is absolutely certain.

Some idea of the enormous amount of money earned annually by the railroad men in this country may be formed from the statement that it requires about $1,000,000 per month to pay twenty thousand men, and there are a good many roads on which the average monthly pay-roll embraces from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand names; in some cases even more.

When the pay-rolls are all turned over to the Paymaster, properly approved by each head of department, he notifies the Superintendent or Trainmaster of his proposed trip, mapping out in detail the route, which is usually the same each month. The signals or telegrams are sent ahead to the various foremen, and the car is ordered ready for the journey. The funds are arranged in denominations to suit the circumstances, with plenty of small change, and enough money for a day or two only at a time is provided. The pay for the flagmen at crossings, and switchmen on the road, as well as for the agents at small stations, is generally done up in envelopes, and, as the train speeds by, the packages are handed or thrown out at the proper places; and sometimes, to warrant a safe delivery, a forked stick is used, into which the envelope is put, thus giving it plenty of weight and saving it from being tumbled about promiscuously on the ground. Much time is saved in this way, and the pay-train is able to keep well out of the way of any regular train which may be following. So the pay-car flies along, only stopping at some large station where the number of employees engaged is sufficient to warrant it. These are quickly paid off, however, and the journey is continued. Perhaps at some junction a freight crew is met; and as these fellows have to get their money when they can, a stop is made on the road to give them a chance to do it. At some stations are found two or three gangs of section or track men, a watchman, an agent and his assistant, a pumper, and possibly a mail-carrier. Perhaps a discharged trainman will turn up also, who may have part of a month's pay coming to him.

Later in the day it may be a shop gang of five hundred or one thousand men, consisting of carpenters, painters, machinists, and boiler-makers, and these are paid in order, each set of men by itself. There is no noise or disturbance, everything goes like clock-work, as all pass through in regular order, each gang or class preceded by its foreman, and the men arranged in line in the order in which their names appear on the pay-rolls. When night comes, and two or three hundred miles of road have been covered, the balance of the funds is carefully locked up in the safe on board, the car run in upon some convenient siding, and the engine housed for a wiping and a thorough preparation for the next day's run. The car is generally provided with comfortable beds for the Paymaster and his clerks, and during the paying-off time they practically live in the car. This insures early starts in the morning, and on large roads the necessity for haste is very apparent, where possibly two or three weeks are consumed each month in paying off the rolls.

* * * * *

The average traveller, spinning across the country at forty miles an hour, is not apt to think of the countless details involved in the make-up of the train in which he rides or the track over which he is wheeled; but when he considers how safely the millions of passengers are annually carried over the one hundred and fifty thousand miles or more of railroad in this country alone, he may be brought to realize that quite as much depends upon the quality of the material entering into the construction of the train and tracks as upon the efficiency of the engineer in the cab, or the conductor, brakeman, switchmen, and train-despatcher who perform their respective responsible duties in connection therewith. Feeding a railroad, then, means a great deal more than the majority of mankind supposes.

THE RAILWAY MAIL SERVICE.

BY THOMAS L. JAMES.

An Object Lesson in Postal Progress--Nearness of the Department
to the People--The First Travelling Post-Office in the United
States--Organization of the Department in 1789--Early Mail
Contracts--All Railroads made Post-routes--Compartments for
Mail Clerks in Baggage-cars--Origin of the Present System in
1862--Important Work of Colonel George S. Bangs--The "Fast Mail"
between New York and Chicago--Why it was Suspended--Resumption
in 1877--Present Condition of the Service--Statistics--A
Ride on the "Fast Mail"--Busy Scenes at the Grand Central
Depot--Special Uses of the Five Cars--Duties of the Clerks--How
the Work is Performed--Annual Appropriation for Special Mail
Facilities--Dangers Threatening the Railway Mail Clerk's Life--An
Insurance Fund Proposed--Needs of the Service--A Plea for Radical
Civil Service Reform.

At the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, in the Post-Office exhibit, was a double picture showing the postal service at the beginning of the century and as it is to-day. On one side was a postman--perhaps Franklin--on horseback, jogging over a corduroy road, "through the forest primeval," making a mile or two an hour; and on the other a representation of the fast mail train, the "catcher" taking a pouch from the "crane" as it passes at the rate of fifty miles an hour! Standing in the foreground is the pretty daughter of the village postmaster with the mail pouch just thrown from the car in her hand, a group of rustics, with ill-concealed admiration in their eyes, watching her as the swiftly passing train goes on its journey. This picture is not, perhaps, a work of art, but it is an "object lesson," giving at a glance the progress that our country has made in a hundred years.

(Facsimile of a print in the Post-Office Department.)]

Of all the executive departments of the Government, the Post-Office is the one nearest the people, and the one with which they are the most familiar. In addition to its work of collecting, transporting, and delivering legitimate mail matter, viz., letters, newspapers, and magazines, it is the greatest express company of the continent, since it has an office at almost every cross-roads, even carrying merchandise cheaper (considering the distance) than its rivals. Its registration system affords a means of forwarding valuable packages, at a slight additional cost, with almost absolute security. It is the greatest banking institution on this side of the Atlantic. The transactions of its money-order system, not only in our own country, but with almost every nation in the civilized world (Russia and Spain excepted), run up to wellnigh fabulous sums. Its drafts are easily obtained and cheap. Its notes are "gilt edged," and have never been repudiated. With the creation of the Postal Savings Bank system, the working people's department in its organization will approach perfection.

The first mention of a travelling post-office occurs in a memorial addressed to Congress in November, 1776, by Ebenezer Hazard, Postmaster-General under the Continental Congress, in which he states that, owing to the frequent removals of the Continental Army, he was subjected to extraordinary expense, difficulties, and fatigues, "having paid an exorbitant price for every necessary of life, and having been obliged, for want of a horse--which could not be procured--to follow the army on foot."

Directly after the inauguration of General Washington, in April, 1789, the organization of the Post-Office Department followed, and Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts, was appointed Postmaster-General. That the people might derive the greatest possible advantage from an institution peculiarly their own, this gigantic monopoly--for it is nothing else--was created, and all competition forbidden. The Postmaster-General had then but one clerk, and there were but 75 post-offices and 1,875 miles of post-roads in the United States; the cost of mail transportation being $22,081, the total revenue, $37,935, the total expenditures, $32,140; leaving a surplus of $5,795. From this time until 1836 the contracts made for the transportation of the mails do not mention any kind of service on post-roads except stages, sulkies, four-horse post-coaches, horseback, packets, and steam-boats.

The growth of the Railway Mail Service has been coincident with that of the railway itself, and the importance of both cannot be underestimated in considering the future development of the country. Almost as soon as a railroad is fully organized it becomes a mail contractor with the Department.

The Act of Congress constituting every railroad in the United States a post-route was approved July 7, 1838. Postmaster-General Barry, in his annual report for 1836, speaks of the multiplication of railroads in many parts of the country, and suggests it as a subject worthy of inquiry, whether measures may not be taken to secure the transportation of the mail on them, and adds: "Already have the railroads between Frenchtown, in Maryland, and Newcastle, in Delaware, and between Camden and South Amboy, in New Jersey, afforded great and important facilities to the transmission of the great eastern mail." At this time a railroad between Washington and New York was in process of construction, and Postmaster-General Barry dwelt in his report on the importance of the facilities that would be afforded for speedy service between the two cities, predicting that the run between them would probably be made in sixteen hours. The service is now performed in about five hours.

At first the facilities for mail services were very limited. Postmaster-General Kendall, in 1835, suggested that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company might be asked to close in some portion of their baggage-cars, a strong lock being placed on the apartment, to which only the postmasters at Washington and Baltimore should have keys. In the same report he adds: "If wheels can be constructed which can be used alike upon the railroads and the streets of the cities respectively, the Department will furnish an entire car containing the mail to be delivered at one depot, and received at the other, asking nothing of the company but to haul it." It was even proposed at this time that the Government should have its own locomotives, everything else on the road giving the right of way to the mail train. This proposition was not adopted. The fear was expressed, however, that if the Department did not have absolute control over the road, the people would have to depend on stage or other horse transportation for mail service. All these early troubles in time passed away, and, through concessions on both sides, the railways soon became the most important agent of the Post-Office Department.

This, of course, was not accomplished without many trials and tribulations. It seems strange, in the light of the present, to read in an official report a remonstrance from route agents that nearly every night dead bodies were placed in the mail crates between Philadelphia and New York, and the mails packed around the coffins. This breach of good order disappeared after that time, and with it came to an end the freight methods and the old stage-coach ideas of dealing with the mails.

A separate compartment in a baggage-car, fitted up with few conveniences necessary for the distribution of local way-mail, was the beginning of the system which has developed into the luxurious postal cars of the present time. As a matter of history, however, it is only fair to say that the system which we then adopted had been in use for some time by our northern neighbors of Canada, who had taken it from the mother country.

The credit of suggesting the first step toward the present system has generally been given to Colonel G. B. Armstrong, who in 1864 was Assistant Postmaster at Chicago. This is incorrect; Mr. W. A. Davis, a clerk of the St. Joseph, Mo., Post-Office, where the overland mail was made up, conceived the idea, in 1862, that if the letters and papers could be assorted on the cars between Quincy and St. Joseph, the overland mail could start promptly on time. He was given permission to carry out this idea, and there are vouchers on file in the Department at Washington showing that he was paid for that specific work. In 1864 Colonel Armstrong was authorized and encouraged by the Hon. Montgomery Blair, then Postmaster-General, to undertake the difficult task of arranging and introducing the service. On August 31, 1864, he wrote: "To-day I commenced the new distribution." Subsequently, Colonel Armstrong became the first General Railway Mail Superintendent, and held this office until ill-health compelled him to resign, in 1871. To Colonel George S. Bangs, of Illinois, and his successors, Theodore N. Vail, William B. Thompson, and John Jameson, is due the excellence of the present system. Colonel Bangs was a thoroughly equipped post-office man, energetic, courageous, and progressive. Brimful of ideas, he was ever on the lookout for improvement. Never satisfied with old ways, he was constantly striving to simplify and better the service. He forgot himself in his work, and died a martyr to his duty, leaving the Travelling Post-Office of to-day a monument to his memory. While to Colonel Armstrong is due the credit for the skeleton of the system, it was the genius of Colonel Bangs that clothed the bones with flesh, developed the sinew, put the blood in circulation, and breathed into its body the breath of life. Colonel Bangs found, in 1871, that everything was disjointed, disconnected, and sluggish. There was no attempt at "certainty, security, or celerity." It was a "go-as-you-please" condition of affairs. He grappled at once with it and brought order out of chaos. He introduced a system of emulation among the employees, rewarding those who displayed proficiency by promotion over the sluggish, and thus, in fact, was probably the father of what is now known as Civil Service Reform. In 1874 he discussed the propriety of establishing a fast and exclusive mail train between New York and Chicago, "this train" (quoting his report to the Postmaster-General) "to be under the control of the Department, so far as it is necessary for the purposes designed, and to run the distance in about twenty-four hours. It is conceded by railway officials that this can be done. The importance of a line like this cannot be overestimated. It would reduce the actual time of mail between the east and west from twelve to twenty-four hours. As it would necessarily be established upon one or more of the trunk lines, having an extended system of connections, its benefit would be in no case confined, but extended through all parts of the country alike."

This report met with the approval of Postmaster-General Jewell, who ordered Bangs to negotiate with the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad and the Lake Shore Railroad for a fast mail train, leaving New York at four o'clock in the morning, and arriving at Chicago in about twenty-four hours. It was the old story of making bricks without straw. The Post-Office Department had no appropriation to pay for such facilities, hence it had to depend at first on the public spirit of the railroad authorities. Commodore Vanderbilt, the president of the companies whose lines were to be used, had had dealings with the Department, and was perhaps not altogether sanguine as to the practical issue of the experiment, or in respect to the countenance it would receive from Congress; but Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, the vice-president, lent a willing ear to Mr. Bangs's proposition, and did his utmost to aid him in putting it into effect. There being no special appropriation available for the purpose in hand, "the devil was whipped around the stump" by Colonel Bangs stipulating that if Mr. Vanderbilt would have twenty cars built and the service performed, all matter originating at or coming into the New York Post-Office, which could reach its destination at the same time by this line, should be sent by this train, and that the railway companies could have the right to demand a weighing of the mail matter at will, all railroads being paid according to weight. When the details of the plan were communicated to Commodore Vanderbilt, he is reported to have said to his son: "If you want to do this, go ahead, but I know the Post-Office Department, and you will, too, within a year." Mr. Vanderbilt did "go ahead." He constructed and equipped the finest mail train ever seen on the planet, ran it for ten months, never missed a connection at Chicago, and was always on time at New York. He did not have to wait a year, however, for a realization of the sagacious old commodore's prophecy. Within three weeks, despite the indignant protest of Colonel Bangs, the mails of three States were ordered to be taken from this and given to another route. A grosser and more wanton breach of plighted faith it would be hard to find, and its results were far-reaching and disastrous.

This train was a marvel of completeness and efficiency. It was manned by picked men, and the only complaint ever made against it was that it ran so fast that the clerks had not time to sort the mails for the post-offices between New York and Poughkeepsie. To obviate this, Colonel Bangs requested the postmaster at New York to have two hundred mail-bags dyed red, which should contain the mail for those offices nearest together, so that the crew in the train could distribute them first. There was no complaint after that. But when the dyer's bill was sent by the postmaster to the Department, it was disallowed by a clerk of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, who, in a letter announcing the fact, said that there was no necessity for the outlay if the postal clerks did their duty. Bangs, who had just arrived at the post-office from a day and night's ride on his favorite train, was lying on a sofa half asleep in the postmaster's private office, as that official was opening his mail. When he came to that letter he handed it to Bangs. He was wide-awake in an instant. "Mr. Postmaster," said he, "do you know the man who signed this letter? He is a wheezy priest, a fool, and a Baptist, at that. Give me the letter." The bill was allowed as soon as Bangs reached the Department. He was wrong, however, in crediting the subordinate to the Baptist faith. He was an ornament of another persuasion.

So carefully had the project been considered and adapted that the service on the Central, from the start, moved with the precision of clock-work, and was an immediate success. It is proper to say that word of what was going on between the Department and the Vanderbilt system reached the Hon. Thomas A. Scott, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and he at once made up his mind that the corporation under his management could not afford to be behind its great rival. One Saturday morning he telegraphed to J. D. Layng (now General Manager of the West Shore and President of the C. C. C. & I.), then General Manager of the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, to know if by the following Monday week, the date on which the train was to start, four postal cars could be built and the first one be in Chicago ready to start on its eastern trip. The answer came back, "Yes." The order was given to the Allegheny shops on Saturday afternoon, and on the following Saturday the first of the cars, complete and equipped for mail service, started for Chicago, and began its east-bound trip on Monday morning. The second and third cars were finished on Monday night, and the fourth--thus fully equipping the line--on Tuesday.

Thus had been established two splendid fast trains, and the outlook was bright for the future, when Congress, in spite of the efforts of the Post-Office Department, passed an Act reducing the already inadequate compensation to the trunk lines, for the carrying of the mails. This action brought official notice from Messrs. Vanderbilt and Scott of the discontinuance of the fast mail trains between New York City and Chicago, and that service ended.

Colonel Bangs was greatly mortified at this result, but he stood his ground and remained at his post until the close of the year. Then, worn out with never-ending toil, and disheartened by the action of Congress, he tendered his resignation and insisted on its acceptance. Parted from the Post-Office, President Grant, knowing his worth and wishing to recognize his services, appointed him Assistant Treasurer of the United States at Chicago. He lived to perform the duties of this office only a few months, as death overtook him suddenly, while on a visit to Washington on official business, December, 1876. His work, however, was not permitted to drop. He had left in the service three assistants, Theodore N. Vail, William B. Thompson--afterward Second Assistant Postmaster-General--and John Jameson, who were fully imbued with the ideas of their late chief and were fully loyal to them. They, in the order named, became his successors, and never permitted opportunities to escape wherein there was a possible benefit to the service to be secured. Although the fast mail service was suspended for lack of support from Congress, its usefulness and practicability had been so thoroughly demonstrated that an appropriation of $150,000 was made in March, 1877, for its resumption on the trunk lines. This victory was not reached without untiring efforts on the part of Mr. Vail, and by generous support in both houses of Congress; in the Senate by the Hon. Hannibal Hamlin and James G. Blaine, of Maine, and in the House of Representatives by such broad and liberal statesmen as Mr. Waddell, of North Carolina, Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Cox, of New York.

Since then, Messrs. Thompson and Jameson have watched the progress of the work with jealous eyes, and have succeeded in extending it practically to the whole country. The present service is due not alone to the liberality of Congress, because the appropriations have been parsimonious, but to the generosity of the railways, which have performed a valuable work for a price which in many cases does not pay the expense of the necessary additional labor involved.

The Railway Mail Service at the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1888, gave employment to 5,094 clerks. Matter was distributed on 126,310 miles of railway, and on 17,402 miles additional closed pouches were carried. There were also operated 41 inland steam-boat lines on which postal clerks were employed. The postal clerks travelled (in crews) 122,031,104 miles by railway, and 1,767,649 miles by steam-boats. They distributed 6,528,772,060 pieces of ordinary mail matter, and handled 16,001,059 registered packages and cases, and 1,103,083 through registered pouches and inner registered sacks. The service is in charge of one General Superintendent, who has his headquarters at Washington, and it is divided into eleven divisions with a superintendent in charge of each.

The majority of people who travel on railways (and how many Americans are there who do not?) have paid passing attention to the railway mail cars as they have stood at the station preparatory to the starting of the train, and have glanced through the open doors with more or less curiosity at the scene of energy and bustle witnessed within. At such a moment, no matter how great the curiosity, it is not feasible to investigate closely, for the workers must not be hampered by the prying public, however praiseworthy the motive. To supply this pardonable desire to know how it is done, I invite my readers to accompany me in spirit on a visit to the Grand Central Station, to witness the preparations for the departure of train No. 11, known in railway parlance as "the New York and Chicago Fast Mail," which leaves New York every night at nine o'clock.

It must not be supposed that everything has been left until the last moment, and that the mail matter has been tumbled into the cars on the eve of departure, to be handled as best it may in the short run to Albany; for under such conditions the task would be an impossibility even to an army of trained hands. Work has been in progress since four o'clock in the afternoon, and it has been steady, hard labor every minute of the time. The five cars have been backed down to the tracks opposite Forty-fifth Street, and have been so placed that they are convenient of access to the big lumbering mail wagons which are familiar sights in the streets of the metropolis. The crew of nineteen men, skilled in the handling of mail matter, and thorough experts in the geography of the country, reported to the chief clerk and took up their stations in the various cars at the hour named. At the same time the wagons began arriving from the General Post-Office with their tons of matter which had "originated" in New York, and were soon transferring their loads to the cars, where agile hands were in waiting to receive them. Since the removal of the deadly stoves from the railway trains the occupants of the postal cars have suffered to no small extent owing to the lack of heat. These cars are provided with steam-heating apparatus which is worked from the engine, but they are occupied for five hours before the engine comes near them, and in cold weather the hands of the men employed in distributing letters become numb with cold. This is a matter which should receive prompt attention.

Before we deal with the mail matter, let us look at the cars and the men who occupy them. The train, as it leaves New York, is made up of five cars which are placed immediately behind the engine, and are followed by express and baggage cars and one passenger coach. The car next to the engine is devoted entirely to letter mail, and the four following it to papers and packages. The letter car is fifty feet in length, while those for the newspaper mail are ten feet longer. All are uniform in width, nine feet eight inches, and are six feet nine inches high in the clear. When newly built, before long and hard service had told on their appearance, their outsides were white in color, with cream-tinted borderings and gilt ornamentations, and were highly varnished. Midway on the outside, and below; the windows of each car, is a large oval gilt-finished frame within which is painted the name of the car, with the words, "United States Post Office" above and below. The cars used by the New York Central are named for the Governors of the State and the members of President Garfield's cabinet. Along the upper edge and centre are painted in large gilt letters the words, "The Fast Mail Train," while on a line with these letters at the other end, in a square, are the words, in like lettering, "New York Central" and "Lake Shore." The frieze and minute trimmings around the windows are of gilt finish. The body of the car also contains other ornamentation, including the coat-of-arms of the United States. The running gear is of the most approved pattern. The platforms are enclosed by swinging doors which, when opened, afford a protected passage between the cars. This arrangement no doubt suggested the modern improvement now known as the vestibuled train. The letter car is provided with a "mail catcher," which is placed at a small door through which mail pouches are snatched from conveniently placed posts at wayside stations where stops are not made. Each car is divided into three sections, all fitted up alike with conveniences for the service to be performed. The letter car, however, is somewhat differently arranged from the others, to meet the requirements of that particular branch of the work.

In the first section of the letter car are received the pouches from the General Post-Office, which when opened are found to contain letters done up in packages of about a hundred, marked for Michigan, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Montana, Dakota, and California. When this mass of matter has been emptied out of the pouches and, in the vernacular of the service, "dumped up" preparatory to distribution, the section is clear for the registered mail which is worked in it. Before this is accomplished, however, much work is done; in fact, a sort of rough distribution is made. All packages which are directed to one office are distributed into pouches, which are afterward stored away until the towns are reached. The other packages are carried into the letter department for distribution, where a rack, similar to those seen in almost every post-office, although space is thoroughly economized, is used for the purpose. To give a slight idea of the work done in this section, it may be mentioned that the distribution for New York State alone requires 325 boxes. Still there is plenty of space, otherwise the third section of the car would not be used, as it is, for the distribution of Montana and Dakota newspapers. How closely everything is packed, and all available space utilized, may be imagined when it is stated that for this newspaper mail ninety-five pouches are hung in the section, and that there is still sufficient room for the storage of pouches locked up and ready for delivery, and also for the sealed registered mail. A separation of the California mail is also made in this car, so that when it reaches Chicago the pouches into which the matter is placed are transferred without delay, thus saving twenty-four hours on the time to the Pacific Coast, not by any means an unimportant accomplishment.

There have been received in this car before it moves out of the Grand Central Station between 1,000 and 1,500 packages of letters and, in addition, forty or fifty sacks of Dakota and Montana papers. To handle this mass of correspondence there are six men in addition to the chief clerk, or superintendent. This official is not assigned to any particular duty, but he supervises the general work and lends aid where it is most required. The second clerk handles letters for Ohio, Dakota, and Montana; the third clerk takes charge of those for New York State; the fourth, Illinois; the fifth opens all pouches labelled, "New York and Chicago Railway Post-Office," distributes their contents, and afterward works on Dakota and Montana papers; the sixth, Michigan State letters, and the seventh, California letter mail. The salaries of these men, intrusted with so much responsibility and of whom so much is expected, range from $900 per annum for the lowest grade to $1,300 per annum for the superintendent.

The second, or "Illinois Car," is devoted, as are the others which follow it, to the newspaper and periodical mail. In it are handled papers for Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Wyoming. Two clerks and two assistants man this car. The first assistant, who "faces up" papers ready to be distributed, draws mails from stalls to case, and removes boxes as fast as they are filled, has gained the sobriquet of the "Illinois derrick," owing to the heavy nature of his duties. The second, who lends what aid he can in the heavy work on the run between New York and Albany, has become known on the train as "the short stop." The third section of the car is used for storing the bags of assorted matter.

The third car is used for storing through mail for San Francisco, Omaha, and points west of Chicago. In it are also carried stamped envelopes from the manufacturer at Hartford, Conn., to postmasters in the West. This car is frequently fully loaded with matter from the New York office when the journey is begun, and it is then found necessary to add a similar car to the train on its arrival at Albany for the accommodation of matter taken on by the way and bound for the same destination.

The Michigan paper car is the fourth. In it are handled papers for Michigan, Iowa, and the mixed Western States. In the first section are piled the Iowa pouches and those for points out of Utica, which have been distributed in the centre section, and in the third section the distribution for Michigan, Nebraska, and Minnesota, as well as for points reached from Buffalo, is made. Two men perform the work of the car, one of whom has already handled the registered mail and Indiana letters in the first car.

The fifth, or California paper car, is the last mail coach on the train, as it is made up when leaving the Grand Central Station. Besides the papers for the Golden State the car carries through registered pouches to Chicago and the West, which have been made up in the New York office, and, as a usual thing, a large lot of stamped envelopes for postmasters in the West. The California letter man from the first car looks after the papers for the same State, and has an eye to the safety of the car. On reaching Albany another car is added to the train, making six in all from that point. This last addition comes from Boston, brings the morning mail from Bangor, Me., and is manned by four men.

The run to Chicago for post-office purposes is divided into three divisions: from New York to Syracuse, from Syracuse to Cleveland, and from Cleveland to Chicago. Each division has its own crew, so that the men leaving New York are relieved at Syracuse by others, and these in turn at Cleveland. The New York crew go to work, as has been said, at 4 P.M., and if the train is on time at Syracuse, as it usually is, they arrive there at 5.35 A.M., after thirteen and a half hours of as hard work as men are called upon to do. The same evening at 8.40 they relieve the east-bound crew, and are in New York again at six o'clock on the following morning. Half an hour later they are to be found on the top floor of the General Post-Office building, comfortably ensconced in bunks and in a large and airy room, provided as a dormitory for their use by the postmaster of New York at the time of the inauguration of the fast mail service. Each crew makes three round trips and is then laid off for six days, but its members are all this time subject to extra duty, which they are called upon to perform with unpleasant frequency, particularly in holiday times.

After leaving New York, the first stop the train makes is at Poughkeepsie, but no mail is taken on there. At Albany the second halt is made, and there twenty minutes are spent in taking on the mail from New England and northeastern New York. At Palatine Bridge there is a brief stop, and after that comes Utica, where the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Ontario & Western, and the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg roads exchange mail matter. At Syracuse more mails come, this time from the Oswego, Binghamton & Syracuse, and the Auburn & Rochester branch of the New York Central. Here also comes welcome relief for the crew which left New York. Those who follow have much to keep them busy, but the heaviest part of the work has been already performed.

From Syracuse to Cleveland there are several distributing points where mail matter is also received on the train, and the routine is continued much as already described until the crew is relieved at Cleveland. There the men of the Western Division take charge and continue the work until Elkhart, Ind., is reached. There a special force from Chicago meets the train, takes possession of a portion of the letter car, and makes the distribution for the main office and stations of the city of Chicago, thus saving much time. When the train arrives in Chicago, it makes connection with a fast mail train on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, as also on a like train on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. The former train arrives at Council Bluffs about 7 P.M., and there overtakes the train which left Chicago on the previous evening. The Pacific Coast mail is thus expedited just twenty-four hours. A similar train on the St. Paul road also saves twenty-four hours' time on the trip to the northwestern portion of the Pacific Coast.

The appropriation for special facilities for the year ending June 30, 1889, was $295,987.53. The uses to which the appropriation referred to is put are explained in the following table.

A careful perusal of this table develops the fact that the greater portion of this money is expended south of Philadelphia, the railroad companies in that section not having sufficient weight of mails to warrant fast trains without some additional compensation. It will also be noted that with the exception of the sum of $25,000 for a special train to Poughkeepsie, which leaves New York City at 4.35 in the morning, the New York Central receives no compensation except that earned by them as common carriers of so many pounds of freight-mail matter carried, being paid for in accordance with its weight. It will also be observed that the Pennsylvania Railroad, on its trunk line, is not even so fortunate as its great rival.

There may be more dangerous pursuits in life than that of the railway post-office clerk, but there are not many so, and there are few in which the risk to life and limb is so constant. The everyday citizen who is called upon occasionally to make a railroad journey of a few hundred miles feels it to be incumbent upon himself on such occasions to make special provision for those dependent on him in case injury or death should come while riding in the thoroughly appointed and luxurious coach placed in a portion of the train least likely to suffer from accident. But too little thought is devoted to the safety of those poorly paid but efficient servants of the State, in the forward cars, without whose services the business of the country, as conducted to-day, would come to a stand-still. To show that the importance of this service is not here exaggerated, it is only necessary to recall the condition of affairs in New York City, and other cities as well, in March, 1888, when the great blizzard fell upon the land. There were then no mails for several days, and the prostration which came upon the community is too well remembered to need comment. The danger to those within the postal cars, however, is recognized by the railway people, and efforts have been made in the way of providing safety appliances, but it is, of course, impossible to lessen the danger to any great extent. All that American ingenuity suggests in the way of construction, both inside and outside of the cars, is provided. The body of the car is most substantially built, the platforms and couplings are of the most approved patterns, the trucks are similar to those used under the best passenger coaches, and the air-brakes and other safety apparatus are all brought into requisition. Within the cars are saws, axes, hammers, and crowbars conveniently placed in case of wreck, and safety-bars extend the length of the cars overhead to which the clerks may cling when the cars leave the track and roll down embankments, as they often do. In the year ending June, 1888, there were 248 accidents to trains upon which postal clerks were employed. In these wrecks four clerks were killed; sixty-three were seriously, several of the number permanently, and forty-five slightly injured. The official report of the accidents shows that the majority of them resulted from collisions, while others were due to the spreading of the rails, the failure of air-brakes to work at critical moments, and obstructions on the track.

In every case where cars were wrecked the postal car was among the number.

In many instances the cars were telescoped, and on such occasions the clerks were found buried in the wreckage or pinned under the engine or its tender. And many times true heroism was shown by the injured men. Over and over again the General Superintendent reports that, notwithstanding severe injuries received by the clerks, the scattered mail matter was collected by them and transferred either to another train or to the nearest post-office. Several times trains in the West were held up by robbers, who, after sacking the express car, visited the postal car, introducing themselves with pistol-shots. One clerk was seriously wounded in the shoulder. An instance of self-possession is reported in Arkansas, where the robbers, before visiting the postal car, had secured $10,000 from the express safe. When they came to clerk R. P. Johnson he suggested that they had secured booty enough, and that under the circumstances they might let the mail matter alone. The masked men agreed with him, and did not molest the mails.

In view of the dangers to which employees of the Railway Mail Service are exposed, it may be permitted to quote from the last annual report of General Superintendent Bancroft on the subject of insurance. No action, he points out, has ever been taken by Congress toward providing for the care of clerks permanently injured in the service, or those dependent upon them in case of death, notwithstanding frequent recommendations by the Department. He attributes this to insurmountable objections on the part of the people's representatives to the creation of anything of the nature of a civil pension-roll. He therefore suggests that there shall be deducted from the pay of each and every railway postal clerk ten cents per month, to be paid into "The Railway Postal Clerks' Insurance Fund," the custodian of which is to be the United States Treasury. In case of death from injuries while on duty, $1,000 is to be paid to the clerk's heirs. While this proposition is in the right direction, it hardly goes far enough. Provision should be made for the disabled, and to do so, the clerks doubtless would not object to an assessment of double the amount suggested. That they should be compelled to resort to such a mode of relief, however, is a reflection upon the Government of the United States.

The first great need of the Railway Mail Service is an adequate appropriation by Congress to extend its usefulness, and to keep it up to the demands and the needs of the public. Where speed is required to make connections, the Department should have the cash on hand to buy what is necessary. The railways are business institutions, managed as such, and when the Department desires extra facilities it should be prepared to pay in coin and not in talk. In this connection it is a pleasant duty for the writer of this very imperfect sketch to say that during his term of service in the post-office at New York, and at the Department, he always found Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mr. J. H. Rutter, of the New York Central; Mr. John Newell, of the Lake Shore; Mr. George B. Roberts, Mr. A. J. Cassatt, and Mr. Frank Thomson, of the Pennsylvania system; Mr. R. R. Bridgers and Mr. H. B. Plant, of the Atlantic Coast Line, ready to grant any reasonable request for the improvement and extension of the service. Time after time Mr. Roberts has run a special train with the Australian transcontinental mail from Pittsburg to New York, that it might catch an outgoing steamer; and he and Mr. Vanderbilt practically re-established the fast mail, by taking letters on their limited trains. Mr. Roberts gave, in addition, an extra mail train from Philadelphia west at four o'clock in the morning, and Mr. Vanderbilt placed a postal car on the 4 P.M. train from New York, receiving in return--what they had a right to demand--an extra weighing of the mails, and, what was not a matter of surprise to them, unmeasured abuse on the floor of Congress for giving these additional facilities to the people of the country.

The last and greatest need of the postal service is the total and complete elimination of partisan considerations as affecting appointments and removals in the working force. The spoils method invariably brings into the service a lot of do-nothings or a race of experimenters, whose performances never fail to breed disaster and to crush out substantial progress.

There is no position in the Government more exacting than that of a postal clerk, and none that has so many requirements. He must not only be sound "in wind and limb," but possessed of more than ordinary intelligence, and a retentive memory. His work is constant, and his only recreation, study. He must not only be proficient in his own immediate work, but he must have a general knowledge of the entire country, so that the correspondence he handles shall reach its destination at the earliest possible moment. He must know no night and no day. He must be impervious to heat or cold. Rushing along at a rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, in charge of that which is sacred--the correspondence of the people--catching his meals as he may; at home only semi-occasionally, the wonder is that men competent to discharge the duties of so high a calling can be found for so small a compensation, and for so uncertain a tenure of official life. They have not only to take the extra-hazardous risks of their toilsome duties, but they are at the mercy of the practical politicians who believe that "to the victor belong the spoils." There are no public offices which are so emphatically "public trusts" as those whose duties comprise that of handling the correspondence of the people, because upon the proper and skilful performance of that duty depend--to a far greater degree than in the care of any other function accomplished through government agency--the business and social welfare of the entire community. The effects of ignorance, carelessness, and dishonesty in any other branch of the public service, although to be deplored, are not to be compared to those which follow the existence of such evils in the Post-Office. Can there be a more flagrant abuse of a "public trust" than the perversion of a branch of the public service into an agency for furthering the ambitious ends of local politicians and their partisans by allowing them to distribute its "patronage" as rewards for party services among those who, by reason of inexperience--if for no graver cause--are incompetent to replace the skilled workman who must be routed out in order to give them room? This evil should be corrected at once. The Railway Mail Service must no longer be left at the mercy of the local partisans. The reform is not only a present necessity, but it was one in the past and will be in the future, until the force of public sentiment shall compel acquiescence in the reasonable demand that what was so eminently meant for mankind shall not be given up to party; that the non-political business of letter-carrying, which the Government has monopolized, shall be conducted by it solely with a view to prompt and expeditious carrying of mail matter, and not with the object of bolstering up local "statesmen" or carrying elections.

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The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and AppliancesChapter III: Use and Abuse of Cars (2)

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