| Outgoing letters | 3,965,023 |
| Circulars | 1,917,190 |
| Second-and third-class matter | 1,620,250 |
| Parcel-post matter | 363,805 |
| Customs due matter | 800 |
| Collections on customs due matter | $ 2,500 |
One duty of the Mailing Division is the weighing of second-and third-class matter to determine the postage required thereon. The daily average of the matter thus weighed is approximately 343,000 pounds, and on this postage is collected to the amount of approximately $10,500.
In order to make clear what is involved in the handling of a great volume of mail such as is disposed of daily in this division of the New York office, it may be well to describe the course that is followed by a single letter. Assume that a letter is mailed in a street letterbox, in the district of a great terminal; it is brought in by a collector, who deposits it upon a long table surrounded by many employees. The table is likely to be what is known as a "pick-up table," which is one equipped with conveyor belts and convenient slide apertures for letters of different lengths, and into these apertures, with nimble fingers, the clerks grouped around it separate the mass of letters received, placing the letters with all the stamps in one direction. As quickly as they do so, the conveyor belts carry the letters, according to the different sizes into which they have been separated, to the electrically-driven canceling machines. These canceling machines are operated by a second group of employees, who feed in the letters, which are canceled at the rate of approximately 25,000 letters per hour. The whirling dies by which are imprinted the postmarks which cancel the stamps revolve at almost lightning speed. These postmarks are changed each half-hour, and the aim is to postmark the letters as rapidly as they come to hand, so that but a few minutes intervene between the time of mailing and time of postmark. This postmark is, in fact, the pace-maker. Once it is imprinted upon a letter, it can be determined by the postmark at any time just how long a time has been required for it to reach a particular point in the progress toward despatch.
From the postmarking machine the letters are carried, sometimes by conveyors, sometimes by hand, and sometimes by small trucks, to what are known as the "primary separating cases." These cases are manned by employees who separate the letters into groups, according to certain divisions which facilitate the secondary and further distributions. Thus at the primary cases the letters are likely to be broken up into lots for the city delivery, for many different States, for foreign countries, and for certain large cities. Each separation on the primary case will likely be followed by a secondary separation almost immediately. A sufficient number of men is kept on the facing or pick-up tables, on the primary cases, and on the secondary cases and pouching racks, to maintain a continuous movement of the mails. The aim is to keep the mail moving not only continuously from the point of posting to the point of delivery, as nearly in a direct line as practicable, but rapidly also, and with only an arresting of the movement when this is made necessary by awaiting the departure of the next train.
From the secondary cases the letters are carried to the pouching rack. By the time they reach the pouching rack they are made up into bundles, various letters for the same localities having been segregated and tied together. In some instances the packages of letters are tagged or labeled for States, in others for cities, and still others for railroad lines or for sections of such lines.
The handling of papers and circulars is much the same, so far as distribution is concerned, as the handling of letters, though there is considerable variation as to the details of segregation.
Carriers sorting mail in the General Post Office.
With this distribution of the mails there goes a system of despatches. In respect to these it may be said that it is essential that various clerks engaged in the process as described shall know the time of departure of the many trains leaving New York for different points. They must know how much time in advance of departure is essential between "tying out" the packages of letters and the actual departure of the train from the station, and thereby allow sufficient time, but no more time than is absolutely necessary, to make the connection. Every detail of the work is plotted; nothing is left to chance. At a certain hour and at a certain minute every clerk engaged in the same distribution at the same station ties out for the same office or route, and likewise at the pouching rack the pouches are closed, locked, and despatched according to a fixed schedule. If the pouch has to be carried from the rack to the truck a given number of feet, a time allowance is made. At a set time the truck that conveys the pouches to the station whence the train is to depart must leave. The time for the vehicle to traverse the prescribed route is fixed; sufficient time for this and not more is allowed. Also the time for unloading the truck and loading the train is fixed. When it is understood that this course has to be followed by every one of the millions of letters handled, and that there are 50,000 offices in the United States to which mail is forwarded, and that in addition to this it is being distributed for practically every city, town, and hamlet in the world, the complexity of the task becomes apparent. From the General Post-office alone there are as many as 457 despatches of first-class mail daily, and forty-five despatches of second-, third-, and fourth-class matter.