When the pay-rolls are all turned over to the Paymaster, properly approved by each head of department, he notifies the Superintendent or Trainmaster of his proposed trip, mapping out in detail the route, which is usually the same each month. The signals or telegrams are sent ahead to the various foremen, and the car is ordered ready for the journey. The funds are arranged in denominations to suit the circumstances, with plenty of small change, and enough money for a day or two only at a time is provided. The pay for the flagmen at crossings, and switchmen on the road, as well as for the agents at small stations, is generally done up in envelopes, and, as the train speeds by, the packages are handed or thrown out at the proper places; and sometimes, to warrant a safe delivery, a forked stick is used, into which the envelope is put, thus giving it plenty of weight and saving it from being tumbled about promiscuously on the ground. Much time is saved in this way, and the pay-train is able to keep well out of the way of any regular train which may be following. So the pay-car flies along, only stopping at some large station where the number of employees engaged is sufficient to warrant it. These are quickly paid off, however, and the journey is continued. Perhaps at some junction a freight crew is met; and as these fellows have to get their money when they can, a stop is made on the road to give them a chance to do it. At some stations are found two or three gangs of section or track men, a watchman, an agent and his assistant, a pumper, and possibly a mail-carrier. Perhaps a discharged trainman will turn up also, who may have part of a month's pay coming to him.
Later in the day it may be a shop gang of five hundred or one thousand men, consisting of carpenters, painters, machinists, and boiler-makers, and these are paid in order, each set of men by itself. There is no noise or disturbance, everything goes like clock-work, as all pass through in regular order, each gang or class preceded by its foreman, and the men arranged in line in the order in which their names appear on the pay-rolls. When night comes, and two or three hundred miles of road have been covered, the balance of the funds is carefully locked up in the safe on board, the car run in upon some convenient siding, and the engine housed for a wiping and a thorough preparation for the next day's run. The car is generally provided with comfortable beds for the Paymaster and his clerks, and during the paying-off time they practically live in the car. This insures early starts in the morning, and on large roads the necessity for haste is very apparent, where possibly two or three weeks are consumed each month in paying off the rolls.
The average traveller, spinning across the country at forty miles an hour, is not apt to think of the countless details involved in the make-up of the train in which he rides or the track over which he is wheeled; but when he considers how safely the millions of passengers are annually carried over the one hundred and fifty thousand miles or more of railroad in this country alone, he may be brought to realize that quite as much depends upon the quality of the material entering into the construction of the train and tracks as upon the efficiency of the engineer in the cab, or the conductor, brakeman, switchmen, and train-despatcher who perform their respective responsible duties in connection therewith. Feeding a railroad, then, means a great deal more than the majority of mankind supposes.
[THE RAILWAY MAIL SERVICE.]
By THOMAS L. JAMES.
An Object Lesson in Postal Progress—Nearness of the Department to the People—The First Travelling Post-Office in the United States—Organization of the Department in 1789—Early Mail Contracts—All Railroads made Post-routes—Compartments for Mail Clerks in Baggage-cars—Origin of the Present System in 1862—Important Work of Colonel George S. Bangs—The "Fast Mail" between New York and Chicago—Why it was Suspended—Resumption in 1877—Present Condition of the Service—Statistics—A Ride on the "Fast Mail"—Busy Scenes at the Grand Central Depot—Special Uses of the Five Cars—Duties of the Clerks—How the Work is Performed—Annual Appropriation for Special Mail Facilities—Dangers Threatening the Railway Mail Clerk's Life—An Insurance Fund Proposed—Needs of the Service—A Plea for Radical Civil Service Reform.
