Giving the Farmer Equal Mail Privileges With His City Cousins.

Some General Information Regarding Rural Free Mail Delivery

And Its Workings That May Prove Helpful

So many question have been asked us regarding the rural free delivery mail system and its working that we take this space to give our many readers and especially those desiring it what information we are able to impart on the subject.

In the first place it is the work of the government to deliver mail to people living in rural districts, the same as it has been done for years in cities. The system has been in practice for about four years in this country and was brought about by the instrumentality of the farmers in the more thickly populated districts in the east. Congress each year appropriates an amount of money as is deemed expedient, the appropriation being increased each year as it is found that the system can be wisely extended. The cost of it all over the country, as well as in each local community where a route is established, is paid by our Uncle Samuel the same as all other governmental expenses are paid, from regular revenues constantly being paid into the United States treasury. The only additional cost to the patrons along a route is for the mailboxes, which each patron must provide for himself. This is his own property and will cost from $1.50 upwards, the carriers being able to get boxes that are approved by the post office department for that price. The boxes of course must be placed by the roadside in such a manner that the carrier can drive up to them and place the mail inside without getting out of his rig. At corners where patrons living at a distance from the line of the route desire to patronize it they can put up boxes with their own names painted on them and supplied with lock and key. In some places people use these corner boxes though they are several miles distant. It saves them twice the distance to the town post office.

To get mail to come to their doors, patrons must notify publishers of their papers and their correspondents to change their address from which the route running south from Greenwood, wishing to take advantage of the delivery system would have his mail addressed thus:

Your Name

R. F. D. 1

Greenwood, Wis.

The carriers are a traveling post office. They are prepared to take applications for money orders with the money therefore, bring it to the main office where the order will be made out and returned to the applicant to place in the envelope and be mailed. Or they may make the carrier their agent to place the order in the letter already addressed and stamped, thus gaining a day for the sender. The carriers also receive matter for registration and must give a receipt therefore. They also deliver registered matter on the route, taking the receiver’s receipt the same as at any post office. Each carrier is provided with stamps, envelopes, etc., with which to supply the patrons, as they desire it.

Some have an idea that the carrier must be dressed in blue uniform—and possibly carry a gun or sword—but such is not the case. Uniforms would need to be dusted every mile during the summer to show their color and at any time of year would be more or less subject to dirt or storm, so that ordinary clothes answer for the business satisfactorily at present. Carriers, however, are required to wear an official band on their hats, by which they can easily be distinguished. While the carriers draw their pay from the government, they are under the direct control of the local office from which their routes originate. They are allowed to carry parcels and do errands so long as it does not conflict with their prompt delivery of mail. They are not allowed, however, to carry anything that is mailable.

One thing that may bother those living near to post offices who have been in the habit of mailing letters for parties getting mail at the same office, using only one-cent postage therefore, is the fact that such letters if collected by carriers either from the present boxes or from the government collection boxes which are placed at intervals along every route, must have two cents postage on them. All letters collected by carriers are canceled by them and where parties live on the route not yet reached in the day’s delivery they must be delivered when destination of letter is reached.

In closing, it may be well to say that the rural system of mail delivery has come to stay and will be extended as fast as the people can be served and the resources of the post office department will allow. At present there is such a demand for routes in regions where from a third to more than twice as many families can be served on a common drive of twenty-five miles or less, as there is in any place in northern Wisconsin, that it will likely be some time before any new routes will be laid out. Those getting in petitions first, of course, always come ahead. Clark County is fortunate in securing so many routes as she will have by the second of September, it will not be many years before the county will be one network of free deliveries, and the advantages of living in the country will be multiplied thereby four-fold. Those living on a route should make the most of their privilege at once. After they get accustomed to it, they will appreciate it doubly.