The year’s report shows large extensions of both star-route service and railway mail service, with increased postal facilities. Much higher accuracy in handling mails has also been reached, as appears by the decrease of errors in the railway mail service and the reduction of mail matter returned to the Dead-Letter Office.
The deficit for the last year, although much less than that of the last and preceding years, emphasizes the necessity for legislation to correct the growing abuse of second-class rates, to which the deficiency is mainly attributable. The transmission at the rate of 1 cent a pound of serial libraries, advertising sheets, “house organs” (periodicals advertising some particular “house” or institution), sample copies, and the like ought certainly to be discontinued. A glance at the revenues received for the work done last year will show more plainly than any other statement the gross abuse of the postal service and the growing waste of its earnings.
The free matter carried in the mails for the Departments, offices, etc., of the Government and for Congress, in pounds, amounted to 94,480,189.
If this is offset against buildings for post-offices and stations, the rental of which would more than compensate for such free postal service, we have this exhibit:
Weight of mail matter (other than above) transmitted through the mails for the year ending June 30, 1896.
Class Weight Revenue Pounds 1. Domestic and foreign letters and postal cards, etc 65,337,343 $60,624,464 2. Newspapers and periodicals, 1 cent per pound 348,988,648 2,996,403 3. Books, seeds, etc., 8 cents a pound 78,701,148 10,324,069 4. Parcels, etc., 16 cents a pound 19,950,187 3,129,321 ----------- ----------- Total 512,977,326 77,044,257
The remainder of our postal revenue, amounting to something more than $5,000,000, was derived from box rents, registry fees, money-order business, and other similar items.
The entire expenditures of the Department, including pay for transportation credited to the Pacific railroads, were $92,186,195.11, which may be considered as the cost of receiving, carrying, and delivering the above mail matter. It thus appears that though the second-class matter constituted more than two-thirds of the total that was carried, the revenue derived from it was less than one-thirtieth of the total expense.
The average revenue was--
From each pound of first-class matter ........... cents 93.0 From each pound of second class ................. mills 8.5 From each pound of third class .................. cents 13.1 From each pound of fourth class ................. do 15.6