The Postal System of the United States and the New York General Post OfficeJefferies, Thomas C.
History
The Postal System of the United States and the New York General Post Office
Jefferies, Thomas C.
Postal service -- New York (State) -- New York; Postal service -- United States
Many peculiarities are noted in the addresses of incoming foreign
letters. Very frequently a letter will bear upon the envelop a copy of
a business letter-head or bill-head. This is accounted for by the fact
that some one in this country when writing to Europe will direct his
correspondent to address the expected answer according to the address on
the letter-head or bill-head he uses, and the foreigner, not knowing
what to select from whatever is printed, takes what he regards to be the
safe course and copies all. A letter will sometimes be found to bear a
full list of everything sold in a country store, including hardware,
provisions, clothing, shoes, and periodicals and newspapers. In other
cases the senders cut short the addresses and are satisfied if, in
addition to their correspondent's name, they give "America" spelled in
any way that suits them best, and the ways are legion.
_Mailing Division--Motor Vehicle Service_
The Motor Vehicle Service of the New York post-office is in charge
of Mr. William M. Taggart. The fleet consists of 329 vehicles. All
these are owned by the Government. The Government likewise makes its
own repairs, employs its own chauffeurs and mechanics, painters,
upholsterers, and various artisans incidental to the operation, repair,
and maintenance of the vehicles. There are two garages, and in all 727
men are employed. The garages include fully equipped machine-shops, and
stock-rooms in which are constantly kept duplicate parts for all the
machines in use.
The magnitude of the service will be realized when it is known that
during the last fiscal year the vehicles traveled 4,330,102 miles, or
174 times the distance around the world.
During the last fiscal year the motor vehicle service made 646,967
trips, according to predetermined schedules, and 67,053 trips which
were not scheduled but of an emergency character. This gave a total of
713,020 trips. Of this vast number of trips, scheduled and emergency,
there were but 747 which were but partly performed and but 1323 which
failed.
[Illustration: _Mail trucks loaded with parcel post matter to be
transported to different stations in the city._]
These trucks are maintained in a condition for operation at all hours of
the day and night. No matter what weather conditions prevail, the mails
must be moved, and the motor vehicles must be maintained in a condition
of efficient repair to permit of their utilization in this work.
Every detail of expenditure for the fleet is maintained on a strictly
scientific cost accounting basis, the number of gallons of oil, the
service of the tires, the cost of operation per mile, with and without
chauffeur, are all a matter of record. The repairs made on each machine
are carefully recorded, with the cost for the parts and the cost of the
mechanical help figured separately, so that it is ascertainable from
the records what was spent under this heading for each vehicle during
each month and year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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