The Mail System is Broken

The Government enters into a contract with the people, and the carriers with the Government, to transmit the mails, including everything of a mailable character, on schedule time, and the Postmasters are, under oath and bond, to deliver the same, when called for, without unnecessary delay. The time was, within our recollection, when these rules were strictly observed and rigidly enforced. With the increase of mail facilities, there has been a woeful falling off in the promptitude and efficiency of the service, and the controlling authorities take no measures to correct delinquencies. Contractors pay no attention to schedule time so long as they make the required number of trips, and whenever the amount of mail matter interferes with other carrying offered, it is put aside for a more convenient season. With a daily mail, our daily newspapers from abroad arrive here in clumps of from three to six or eight days at a time, with as many intervening days without any. This is proof positive of willful carelessness and neglect somewhere. Postmasters are consulted only for their own convenience as to time of distribution and delivery of the newspaper mails. Our Postmaster at this place is exceptionally accommodating, attentive and trustworthy, and he follows the general custom of making the newspaper mails await his leisure and convenience, to the great vexation of subscribers wanting the freshest news, and to the great discouragement of publishers who pay the postage for the transmission of their papers at their earliest convenience.