Ten Years Among the Mail Bags / Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office Department

by James Holbrook

By the terms of contract with each railroad company, it is required to furnish a suitable car for the use of the mail or Route Agent when so requested by the Department. The Agent occupies this traveling post-office, or mail car, receives and delivers mails along the route; assorts, and gives the proper direction to all mail matter passing through his hands; mails such letters, pre-paid by stamps, as are handed him, and accompanies the mails in their transit between the post-office and the railroad station or steamboat, at the terminus of the route.

It is too often the case that persons of influence, in proposing a candidate for this responsible post, greatly undervalue the nature and importance of the duties to be performed, supposing that they involve merely the mechanical labor of delivering mail bags at the different post-office stations upon the route. The fact is, that the successful working of our postal machinery depends in no small degree upon the active, faithful, and intelligent discharge of the Route Agents' duties. In New England especially, and perhaps in some other sections of the country, a very large proportion of the correspondence passes through the hands of these officials, at some stage in its progress.

Much care, and a thorough knowledge of the topography of the sections of the country through which the route lies, as well as that of more distant portions, are therefore required for giving letter and other packages a direction by which they will reach their destination in the shortest possible time. And that essential preliminary, the ascertaining where a given package is to go, is a matter not always easy of accomplishment. For the most skilful interpreters of the species of chirography known as "quail tracks," are often taxed to their utmost capacity of learning and experience, in the endeavor to decipher the outside addresses of packages which they are required to "distribute" without loss of time.

Furthermore, in consequence of the improvements constantly progressing in many parts of the country, and the frequent changes in railroad, steamboat, and stage connections, resulting from that and other causes, what would be correct "distribution" one day, might not be so the next. The old adage, "The longest way round is the shortest way home," is often literally true in the sending of mail matter, for steam occupies less time in accomplishing a circuitous route of a hundred miles, than horses in passing over a direct one of twenty.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a long route by stage should be adopted, instead of a short one by railroad, owing to a want of the proper railroad connections.

When all these demands upon the vigilance and ability of the Route Agent are exercised, it will be obvious that it would be difficult to estimate the amount of injury that the public might receive from the employment of a careless, inefficient, or illiterate person in this position.

Among the Post Master General's instructions to Route Agents is one requiring them to receive and mail all letters written after the closing of the mail at the places where the writers reside, and before its departure. This privilege—intended solely for the accommodation of those who are prevented by unavoidable circumstances from depositing their letters in the post-office—has of late been used, or rather abused, to a degree never dreamed of by the Department. This abuse, in many cases, has proceeded to an extent which would seem to warrant the withholding of the privilege.

Tardy and indolent correspondents, who can save a few steps by taking their letters to a mail car or steamboat, instead of to the proper place of deposit, a post-office, find the hard-worked Route Agent an invention admirably calculated to facilitate the indulgence of their lazy habits, and do not scruple to avail themselves of the opportunity to the utmost extent.

There is also a numerous class who entertain feelings of hostility toward their post master for various reasons; not unfrequently from the failure of their own attempts or those of their friends to obtain the office which he holds. These persons show their resentment by withholding their mail matter from the post-office, and thus cheating the incumbent out of his lawful commissions. In carrying out this plan, they make the Route Agent an innocent accessory, by placing all their correspondence in his car just before the departure of the train, thus unnecessarily increasing his labor for the sake of gratifying their own malice.

Another class, fully persuaded of the truth of the principle that "seeing is believing," and unwilling to trust in anything less reliable than their own eyes, deposit their letters with the Agent rather than in the post-office, in order to avoid the innumerable perils which might beset them in their passage from the custody of the post master to that of the Agent! These cautious persons are not satisfied without ocular demonstration of the departure of their letters, so that if the letters should fail to reach their destination, they would still have the pleasing consciousness that they had done all in their power to avoid such a catastrophe.