[Illustration: Transfer of Mail at the Grand Central Station, New York.]
[Illustration: Pouching the Mail in the Postal Car.]
In the first section of the letter car are received the pouches from the General Post-Office, which when opened are found to contain letters done up in packages of about a hundred, marked for Michigan, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Montana, Dakota, and California. When this mass of matter has been emptied out of the pouches and, in the vernacular of the service, "dumped up" preparatory to distribution, the section is clear for the registered mail which is worked in it. Before this is accomplished, however, much work is done; in fact, a sort of rough distribution is made. All packages which are directed to one office are distributed into pouches, which are afterward stored away until the towns are reached. The other packages are carried into the letter department for distribution, where a rack, similar to those seen in almost every post-office, although space is thoroughly economized, is used for the purpose. To give a slight idea of the work done in this section, it may be mentioned that the distribution for New York State alone requires 325 boxes. Still there is plenty of space, otherwise the third section of the car would not be used, as it is, for the distribution of Montana and Dakota newspapers. How closely everything is packed, and all available space utilized, may be imagined when it is stated that for this newspaper mail ninety-five pouches are hung in the section, and that there is still sufficient room for the storage of pouches locked up and ready for delivery, and also for the sealed registered mail. A separation of the California mail is also made in this car, so that when it reaches Chicago the pouches into which the matter is placed are transferred without delay, thus saving twenty-four hours on the time to the Pacific Coast, not by any means an unimportant accomplishment.
There have been received in this car before it moves out of the Grand Central Station between 1,000 and 1,500 packages of letters and, in addition, forty or fifty sacks of Dakota and Montana papers. To handle this mass of correspondence there are six men in addition to the chief clerk, or superintendent. This official is not assigned to any particular duty, but he supervises the general work and lends aid where it is most required. The second clerk handles letters for Ohio, Dakota, and Montana; the third clerk takes charge of those for New York State; the fourth, Illinois; the fifth opens all pouches labelled, "New York and Chicago Railway Post-Office," distributes their contents, and afterward works on Dakota and Montana papers; the sixth, Michigan State letters, and the seventh, California letter mail. The salaries of these men, intrusted with so much responsibility and of whom so much is expected, range from $900 per annum for the lowest grade to $1,300 per annum for the superintendent.