The Railway Mail Service. 353
of mail by railroad in 1852 amounted There is no branch of the government to 11,082,768, which increased to service that reaches so near and supplies 113,995,318 in 1882, with an increase the wants of the people as the Post- in the number of Railway Mail Service Oi?ice Department, and whose ramifica- employees from 43 in 1846 to 3,072 tion may not be inaptly compared to in 1882. This wonderful expansion the human system with its arteries filled was but proportional with the develop- with the life-current coursing through ment of the country at large. At the the veins and diffusing health and vigor close of the war of the Rebellion, busi- to the various parts ; in the same man- ness was at its height. Industry and ner the people in the different sections of intelligence were seeking together new the country interchange their informa- channels for their diffusion. The Pacific tion. The centres of art and literature, Railway was the grand conception that conveying to the vast producing region met this demand, and by its means were in the West the products of their refined united the borders of the continent, and taste, scientific research, and mechan- communication thus made more fre- ical achievements, keep alive and pro- quent and rapid bet\veen our interior, pagate the spirit of inquiry, making the West, and Europe : the most ancient remote parts of the nation homogeneous civiUzation of the world in the Orient in tastes, knowledge, and a common greeted the youngest in the Occident, interest in all matters of national and completed the girdle about the advancement.
earth. If a map of the United States with
The lumbering stage and caravan every railway that crosses and recrosses
laboring across the plains, and the its broad surface were laid before us,
swift mustang flying from post to post, it would appear that a regulated system
frequently intercepted by the wily for an expeditious transmission of the
savage, were but things of yesterday, mails in such an intricate confusion of
though fast becoming legendary. 'WTien lines, apparently going nowhere yet
those slower methods by which corre- every^vhere, would be an impossibility ;
spondence was conveyed at a great but by study and untiring energy this
expense and delay, and current litera- has been accomplished. ture was to a great extent debarred, The machinery of the Post-Ofiice
were supplanted by a continuous line Department is a system of cog-fitting
of stages, it was considered a revolution wheels, in all its component parts ; and
in the wheel of progress, and the con- were it not so, in the necessarily limited
summation. The possible accomplish- period and space allotted, the work in
ments of the present day, if entertained postal-cars could not be successfully
at all at that time, were in general con- accomplished.
sidered Munchausen, and not difficulties The interior dimensions of postal-cars
to be surmounted by practical engineer- vary, from whole cars sixty feet in
ing and undaunted perseverance. The length, to apartments five feet five
civilization of the world has kept pace inches in length by two feet six inches
with its channels of communication and in width. The most comprehensive
has accordingly rendered invaluable conception of the practical working of
aid to it. In our country the field in the postal-car system, can be formed in
this direction is exceedingly broad, a railway post-office from forty to sixty
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