The Postal Service

Very few people in this country seem to appreciate, or are able to full.y appreciate, the magnitude of the postal service and the vast amount of mail handled during the oourse of the year. The much larger amount of mail matter sent and reeeived in this country per capita as compared with that of all the countries of Europe, and the comparative expense of handling the mail in this country and in Europe will interest all progressive Americana. The following . clipped f rom an exchange contains many interesting faets in regard these matters : "The population of Europe is 380,000,000, that of United States 70,000,000, and it appears that one American writes as many letters as live Europeans. The United States Post Office handles as many pieces of mail in the course of a year as do all the offices of Europe, the total for each being; about 11,000,000.000 pieces. This is an average of 157 pieces for every person in the United States and 29 pieces for every European. This speaks well for our country. The better educated a people are, the more letters they write and the morb perfect postal system they have The only two countries of any considerable size or population now without the post office are China and Corea. In the former private mail companies carry letters and papers betweenlarge cities, and in the latter there is nothing reseinbling a post ornee. A few years ago an attempt was made to establish a post office in Corea, but the conservative inhabitants, alarmed at suah an innovation, turoed out and burned the postal building which had been erected, and the attempt was abandoned. The cost oí the post office in the United States is about $85,000,000 annunally. Europe spends $185,000,000 for the same purpose, just $100,000,000 more than our government. In but one respect is the European system superior to ours. There free delivery extends to the rural distriets, while here it is only in the cities that the mail carrier isseen. In Europe the mail troes to the farmer; here the farmer drives to town for the mail."