The overland mail-service to California by the Southern route by contract became an agitating subject, and under proposals approved by an act of Congress, March 3, 1857, various bids were made by parties for carrying the mail. The contract was made on the 16th of September, 1857, with certain parties, at a cost of $600,000 per annum. (See Report for the year 1857.)
Joseph Holt succeeded Aaron Vail Brown, who died March, 1858, in alluding to which Mr. Holt uses the following language:—
“Post-Office Department,
December 3, 1859.
“Sir:—In the month of March last, the sudden decease of my enlightened and deeply-lamented predecessor, immediately preceded as it was by the death of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General,—so long and so honorably connected with the administration of the postal revenues,—filled this department with discouragement and gloom. Associated with this double calamity came another, which awakened painful anxieties, not only from its intrinsic magnitude, but from the fact that the history of the government, from its foundation, furnished no parallel for such a disaster. My allusion is, of course, to the failure of Congress to pass the customary appropriation bill for the support of the Post-Office Department, whereby, with all its responsibilities resting upon it and the fulfilment of all its duties demanded by the country, it was still deprived of the use of its own revenues, and thus, necessarily, of all means of complying with its engagements to the faithful officers toiling in its service. The ordeal so unexpectedly prepared for it was, in all its aspects, as novel as it was perplexing; and disquieting apprehensions were naturally felt for the result.”
This was rather discouraging to Mr. Holt, who, however, displayed much business tact and perseverance under the circumstances, for he immediately issued the following notice:—
“To Postmasters and other Agents and Employees of the Post-Office Department.
“Congress having failed to make the necessary appropriation at its last session for the publication of a Manual of Post-Offices, Laws, and Regulations, now greatly needed, and the department not having sufficient clerical force at its disposal for the preparation of such a work, I have deemed it proper, in accordance with the course pursued by two of my predecessors, to purchase, for the use of the department, the necessary number of copies of a private edition, having first caused an examination to be made as to its correctness.
“The volume now sent is adopted as official, and you will be guided by it accordingly.
“J. Holt, Postmaster-General.
“Post-Office Department, May 15, 1859.”