Article November 15, 1900 Issue

Rural Mail Delivery

with contributions from Emerson

The Great Round World

Before the end of next June the Post-office Department hopes that it will have extended the system of mail delivery in the country districts so that it will accommodate a total of two million farm families. Since last June 776 new routes have been established, and before the year is over it is planned to have forty-three hundred in operation. The benefit of a free delivery to the farmers is more than the mere saving of time and trouble it gives them, for it brings them into closer touch with the world. In one county of Maryland, since the inauguration of the rural delivery, the quantity of fourth-class matter handled has increased ninety per cent. This means that the people have taken advantage of the innovation to purchase merchandise through the mails, a fact which is also indicated by an increase of fifty-four per cent in the quantity of circulars and advertising matter sent into the country from the large cities.

In different parts of the country the rural delivery has increased the newspaper mail from fifty to three hundred per cent. Before the delivery system the average farmer could hardly spare the time to go to the post-office every day, and accordingly contented himself with the weekly newspapers of his county, but the new system is making it possible for him to get the newspapers soon after they reach his post-office.

The large increase of the postal business due to the daily delivery will, it is thought, more than cover the cost of the system.—The Great Round World.

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