Ann Arbor Post Office

Ann Arborkeeps putting on city airs. The latest is a real improvernent in tbe postal facilities and is a night mailing olerk iu the Aun Arbor office with a messenger service meeting the night mail trains. This in many oases wil! save 24 houre in letters to Chicago and will save in time in other letters sent east and south as well as west. The service began last Tuesday night with Beuj. E. O'Neil as night mail clerk. It was made possible by the appropriatioD by the post offioe department for an extra clerk secnred by the kindly serrices of Gen. Spalding, onr representatíve in congress, who entered heartiIy into the plans for postal improvemeuts in this city and who nsed his infiuence and made a telling argument bef ore the department. It will afford ouï bnsiness men muoh better facilities in getting out their mail. Por iDStance a business house in Chicago may write an Ann Arbor merchant at 9 o'clock Mouday niorning. The merohant gets tbis letter between 7 and 7 :30 o'clock, Monday night and if be answers it before 9:45 that evening, the answer will reach tbe Chioago honse on the first morning delivery Tuesday morning, or if his answer is in the Ann Arbor post office by midnight, it will leach the Chicago honse dnring Taesday foreuoon. Letters for Detroit mailed by 12:30 a. m. wil be delivered in Detroit on the first morning delivery. In the case of the Chicago letter nnder the oldregimo, if put in the Ann Arbor office after 8 p. m. it woold not bave reaohed Chicago until tbe close of business Tuesday. When our businness men come to understand the advantages gained by a night service many of them will make a practice of answering their correspondenoe in the evening. The chaDge will also permit the offioe to get out the second and third olass matter more proruptly. The nnmerous pnblications bere have in times past often congested the office, whioh oondition the inorease in the mailing foroe will greatly relieve. Tbe postmaster states that the mails in the office are at least a third heavier than tbey were when he took posseesion of the office. The mails received during the night froin the east, west and sourh are now brought to the offioe as soon as received instead of remaining at the depots ovei night as formerly and are largtsly distributed among the carriers and box sections by the night clerk. Regietered letters dispatcbed and received will also in many cases be greatly hastened by tbe change. The receipts of the Ann Arbor post offioe from the sale of stamps and the rent of boxes during the last three months of 1897 were $10,320.19, of which $130.50 was from box rents and $10,189.69 was from the sale of stamps envelopes and postal oards. The expenses of the office during this three months inolnding all salaries was $4,832.48,leaving $5,867.71 turned into tbe United States treasury. During the thiee montbs over half a million of stamps were sold, or to be exact, 533,308. This includes the stamps on envelopes and postal cards. The following is the number of each denomination of stamps sold: One oent, 91,395; two oent, 282,034; three cent, 2,603; four oent, 2,439; five cent, 5,023; six cent, 2,044; eigbt cent, 1,670; ten cent, 2,160; fifteen cent, 250; speoial delivery, 91; one cent postal oards, 59,483; two cent postal oards, 1,266; One cent envelopes, 5,867; two cnt envelopes, 73,223; five cent envelopes, 41 ; one jcent newspaper wrappers, 3,143. Figures are often hard to grasp and we can put these sales in another form. If the stamps sold were laid end to end with no space betwen them we would have a strip of postage stamp9 reaching from Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti. A big business was also done in the money order departmen) Here in the three months of October, November and December 6,480 domestio orders wflre paid amounting to $49.483.19 and 66 foreign orders were paid amounting to $953.37. In the same time 2,862 domestio orders were issued amounting to $14,4)1.58 on which the government received $144.61 infees and 140 foreign orders were issued amounting to $1,254.57 ca which the government received $19.90 in fees.