XEW-YORK DAILY TRIBUXE. SUNDAY! JANUARY 12, 1908.
" sj f^B^^^^^^ > •eiP' >j f Worn Out in TenYear«=|: j| Inventor* Are Invited |i jTo £bnd In Improvements A?^*^**^ .^a^^, J sS^^ _^^^n____^->> \
• IFrom Th* —.bun* Bureau ) Washington. Jan. 11. "The Life and Advent- bbm of a Hail Bag by Uncle Sam," would be a. good title for a book much more interesting than many that find their way into print. No on» but Uncle Sam could do justice to the nar- rative, for no one but that dear, übiquitous old relative of ours could follow one of the busy pouches as it whirls across the continent, skims eve- the ocean or flies through space to bear its precious load of messages to the army of men, women and children anxiously awaiting its ne. Briefly, and to begin at the beginning, the par- ents of the young mail bag are Cotton and Leather. There is a—little iron and a little brass In its composition a strain -of strength you might say and it* birthplace is Lyons, X Y. That Is. ail the common pouches are born at Lyons. William Taylor, the man who has the government contract, might properly be called the rnai! bag's godfather. The registry- pouches hail from Trenton. N. J.. and at that place F. Coit Johnson stands sponsor for their careers. The cotton duck of which the bags are made comes from a mill in North Carolina, and It is woven so tightly as to be practically waterproof. In the weave there are thirteen stripes of blue. Ifyou don't find the thirteen stripes in a mail bag, you may know that It doesn't belong to Uncle Sam. Even if you do find th* thirteen stripes, how- ever, it isn't absolute proof that Uncle Sam cwns the bag. as the postoffice officials recently discovered to their surprise. A few days ago there landed in the big repair shop at Wash- ington a pouch with the name "Bucharest" in large black type across Its side. The bag was built like ours, and. what is more remarkable, gripes of blue woven tad the familiar thirteen TAYLOR IN LYONS, DISTRIBUTING MAIL FROM BAGS IN THE NEW YORK GENERAL POSTOFFICS. „ — into the white duck. After due investigation GIRLS SEWING MAIL BAGS AT THE FACTORY OF WILLIAM Th» Wodd'i Wot*. N. Y. it was discovered that the stranger hailed from Rumania, but how it came to be mixed up with summons oa the telephone out o! the service, shipped with all po««tbl» the pouches of the United State? Postoffice De- office Department and is taken in charge by the be kept supplied or the postal business of the "Before we adopted the bee bag the bees there was a loud not speed to the repair shop at Washington and Is partment the clerks could determine. Just equipment division. If there is no immediate country will go to smash. In the course of a shipped from abroad or to foreign countries bell. the future our d^ad," Graham, as he placed the there put in shape again for farther use. to prevent ouch occurrences in use for him he is sent to one of the "deposi- year more than eight million domestic raall from the United States generally arrived "Hello:" cried Mr. will address note to the his ear. No fewer than, sixty thousand mail sack*— Postmaster General a tories." where he may be found when wanted. bairs are received and shipped from Xew said Thomas P. Graham, chief of the bureau receiver to postal protesting '"This is New came a voice over the newspaper and letter, foreign and domestic- international authorities There are «=even of these mail bags depositories York. As there are fewer than two million in of equipment: "but since ras adoption there has York." adoption of the stripe bag — wire. "Send 1,000 No. 1bags at or.cc. Were pass in and out of the New York General Post- aeainst the thirteen ie the country at Xew York. Boston. Cincin- actual use. yon may imagine that they are kept not been a complaint. The bag- is large enough us Rumania or any other foreign power. The nearly out and want 'em bad." office each week, and in the holiday season th» by nati. St. Louie, St. Paul. Chicago and San Fran- busily moving in order to meet the requirements to hold an ordinary hive. It is so arranged number of stripes probably does not have any — of "All right; you"llget them this afternoon." number rises to more than one hundred thou- cisco and as soon as a mail bag in any part of the service. that the bees are given an ample supply p«r.t:mental for Rumania, and in all The chief put up the receiver, bur took it sand. It is hard to comprehend the vaatness of interest of the country is emptied and is not immediately fresh air, and there is a receptacle for sugar or the adoption of the number came There are twenty-eight different kinds of the rang sharply once these figures, even after seeing the countless likelihood needed by the office which holds it at the time. other* food that they may need in transit. We down again as bell Possibly Rumanian gov- mail bags in use. and they range in cost from piles of sacks which are sorted out each night about by mistake. the It Is sent to the nearest one of these cities. have mail bags for pneumatic tubes, made of more. cents to $2,156 each. The ordinary cotton their way as dally supply ernment ordered a mail bag- similar to that used 22 bags 'This is Boston. We need 500 No. 3a right and sent on the •? any a composition called 'leatheroid'; mail for by the United States, and the manufacturer. Xew York needs more mall bags than and leather bags, with ordinary use. will last away. How soon can we have them?" letters and newspapers sifts through the office. is the aae of horsemen, and mail bags for use in can issue a pmbably a German to whom "orders is orders," half dozen other cities in the country: and ten years, but the "catcher .pouch" that "They're on the way now." replied Mr. Gra- Any reputable publishing house the i&lan.l d- pendencies. We are Just now bags copied the pouch from clasp to bottom, even to all the year round, on an average, there are thrown on and off fast flying mail cars goes to ham. "You get them by to-morrow requisition for as many of these canvas getting out a special bag for u^e in the islands. shouid the in the duck. in transit two carloads of pouches from the pieces within eighteen months. TVre are mail the latest." as it needs. Ithas become the custom for Bach number at threads It has darker stripes than used in the morning at Pt Louis depository to Gotham. Sometimes pouches fnr almost every conceivable use. but those concerns to pouch their own mail for larg« cities ITS TRAVELS. bag," "States.' so that there will be less likelihood of THE labor at STABTING OK when St. Louis cannot supply the bags as fast the oddest one made is probably the "bee BAGS KEPT ON JUMP. and for states. It saves endless the tra. one going astray." it hastens the dispatch As soon as young Mail Bag is declared ready as they are needed other depositories are called which was built for the Internationa! "You've no idea," said the chief, as he turned General PostofSce. and Just as Mr. Graiia-u ended the last sentence the publication. When the bags, died with, for his travels he is turned over to the Post- upon: for great, big, hungry Now York must of honey bees. from the telephone, "how fast our supply of of mail, in the publisher gets a receipt. bags must be kept moving to supply the de- are turned sacks receipted for most tally mand. If they are not on the jump every The number of end the month with the number taken minute that they're not in actual use some of at the of If there is any difference in the account the big offices will get out and there'll be a out. publisher must pay for all missing bag*. terrible New Tbrk demands from the NAME. how-de-do. many years the was 60 cents a bag. IN For rate KING'S RESIDENCE ONLY week. The coun- us about 75.000 bags a whole the price canvas has gone up. and lost try uses 64,000,000 bags a year. and. as there but of — now cost |107. At that price few bag» will be considered d" bore, and that Is we!], PANELS FROM THE RUBENS CEILING. RECENTLY RESTORED, IN WHITEHALL are only 1,992,000 bags in use and as a certain bags "Our Palace of Whitehall" — axe lost or destroyed. corn-thing too dreadful for you at your tender PALACE. :.;ust.-a:ed Lundon >.>w». proportion of them are in the hospital for re- " would be impossible to estimate the dis- years to conceive pairs all of the time, the busiest pouches must It Really Government by a United States mail bag Is make a good many trips to keep up the average. tance travelled To-day Whitehall is the main thoroughfara of the ten or twelve years of lt» We repair about 4.fi bags a day here, and in the course Headquarters. between Trafalgar Square and the Houses of mail bag twenty round trips recently, when the department gave the life. A mar make Parliament, and in the superb and stately build- until York and Washington, than. by contract, all the registry between New and Ings lining it the various departments of the Kvork out we made soldiers, may be years there filled with mail for our dis- {CnjTT-arht. -* bj th? Br^ntwcxxj Company. A" rights pouches. In the last six or seven may government are housed. Itis an avenue nearly patched direct to the Philippine!". There it r»servmi.) have been many improvements made in the two hundred feet in width and passes through spend years in the interisland service before Whitehall, which has been recently much in character of bags in use. The old-fashioned the great *>urtyard cf old Whitehall palace. it is shunted back across the Pacific with letters public eye through the wonderful restora- say. bags weighed about ten pounds apiece. Those - the To what it owes its name 1 am unable to for in Francisco. tion of the paintings which adorn the now in use weigh less than five pounds, and or papers Rubens PhilipIIof Spain was equally at pea about the bag may travel for years, making Inigo banqueting house, is a endeavoring further to lessen the load Again, a ceilings st Jones's matter, and it is known that some time before we are round trips between Me* York name known from one end of the civilized world by substituting aluminum or some other lighter Indiscriminate he dispatched the Armada he caused his am- and Eoston. New York and Chicago, or between to the other as the seat of a considerable por- metal for iron and brass in the clasps and pouched, bassador in London to inquire why the home other big cities to which mail is di- lion of the central government of the British fastenings. Mai! bags have been in am about of his sister-in-law. Queen Elizabeth, should be rect, and then it may be filled with papers far empire The Admiralty and the War Office, the eighty years. Before the adoption of hags the known as "Huytal"—that being the Spanish dispatch to. some distant Alaskan poatofflc*. ta of Agriculture and of Education, mail was carried in boxes of tin or wood." departments spelling cf the pronunciation. Perhaps it was reach which it may be carried for miles on a Office, Office, the Local The Department has in its James- the Home the India once upon a time it was the London Postoffice Board, Office, because exhibit, the Building dos sled. Government the Privy Council headquarters of a religious order known as the town still in Government Board of Trade and the Treas- by Hampton Road?, an ancient looking GOT LOOSE the Government Black Friars. They had acquired it by bequest down DLPETHEHIA GERMS ury are all situated in "Whitehall. So, too, are mail pouch, bearing upon its timeworn canvas in the thirteenth century from Hubert de Burgh. interiors of our mail bags are protected the Foreign Office and the Colonial Department, a nark r.ed stain. This bag was picked up be- Tne Ear: of Kent, who is on record as having erected postal regulations, which exclude gie.*s. since Downing Street, which is given as their side the dead and mutilated body of a mail by the a mansion there. In 1248 they sold it to the instruments, chemicals and most liquids address, forms part and parcel of Whitehall. carrier who lost his life in its defence. Over sharp Archbishop of York, and from that time forth was only the other day. how- \u25a0 -—- from It More than \u25a0 hundred million of more or the old mail pouch hangs a placard bearing the the mails. until the reign of King Henry VIIIit was the ever, mail bag lost its lifeprematurely at less dusky natives of India are subject to the following inscription: that a metropolitan residence of the archbishops of Augusta, Me., because a mailing tub* contain- directions issued from Whitehall, which reach York, the last «>f them to occupy it being Cardi- THE INDIANQUESTION. ing a culture of a case of possible diphtheria them through the agency of the highly orna- nal Wolsty. Upon hi.- disgrace the Bluebeard As it applies to the office Department. was in transit. Th- bag which held tna mental Viceroy at Calcutta. Every man-of-war About Ip. m. on July 23. MB*. while F. M. Peter- broken monarch confiscated it and removed there from ordered to be destroyed. cf England's great navy, no matter in what Bon. mail carrier on route 40.153. Crittenden to culture was therefore his old palace at Westminster, which, situated I^ochiel. P.ma County, Arizona, was ob bis re- and many other bags were thoroughly fumi- quarter of the world it may happen to be cruis- turn trip from Lochiel, \u25a0\u25a0- was killed by the on the site of what is now Palace Yard at West- After :: _ the gated. Surprisingly few bags are lost after they tsg. moves in obedience to commands sent out Apache Indians. iriv.rri-! carrier the minster, had into ruin deca;. From Indians cut open the pouches and entirely de- with mail. The system of checking is Whitehall, those fallen and . mail, fragments ancontainer which bears the fol- Stuart eras was enacted. The Virgin Queen, bbs mail hi their charge. of Whitehall. In fact, royal proclamations and lowing: saved although she at Richmond, was brought in postal great papers of stat* bearing the sign manuu.l died One incident remembered the ser- to by water. refers IF THE ALMIGHTY PLEASES. ago *,? dated from "Our Palace of thence Whitehall Cunden vice happened a year or two near Pitts- the monarchs are panegyric ceased to the incident in his memorable of I-pt this envelop", having arrived at the city of burg. A mail train was stalled by washouts Whitehall." although the latter has to Calcutta, in the neighborhood of Calootolah. at the her majesty, which begins as follows: not move in direction. exist as each. It is no exaggeration, accord- . counting house of Sirajoodeen & liandaInigo Jones as architect. Owing BURSTING CHRISTMAS ventor of or any other country thinks fa* with parts They find regiment, a third the pardon of \u25a0 rich offender, this elementary knowledge monetary and other obstacles and de- from all of the world. will ways making mail or v ho has even the most troubles them, a of crown land on easy terms. During holiday times the wear and tear on has evolved and means f.>r Inigo Jones's designs there, also, many other things to interest a fourth lease at English history, there are comparatively few lays, the only part of his pleasure that a briefless mail bags is especially hard, and the demand is bags lighter, stronger or lonsrr of lit* than as the banqeting hall, aft« being used^by the If the King notified America! traiellers who have taken the trouble which was carried out was the construction of a Judge or thai a liber- a third greater than at any other period of the will be his chance to come forward and ssaba first three rulers of the House of Hanover as a lawyer should be made to investigate this hub of the British universe. the beautiful banqueting house, the only part raised to the peerage, the grav- year. For two or three weeks before an 1 after good. If he dees make good the grrrvrSßMßt chapel, has now been devoted by the King to tint.- baronet be Tfcey visit the Tower of London, the Eritisli of the oldtime palace that stands to-day. Charles Interest, therefore, Santa Claus's time-honored and annually re- v.-ill adopt ,he prize taking device or davtcaa Royal United Service Museum, where all est councillors submitted. tnc Kensington museums, the National I. at the beginning of his reign, employed the the peated chimney climbing exploit, th mail bags and enter into a contract that In time ought f» South military are preserved. drew a constant press of aoiton to the sates West- great painter Rubens, who had kinds of naval and relics bursting packages every description not bright enough to hiss to Art Gallery, the Houses of Parliament. services of the of the pals \u25a0\u25a0 and these gates were always wide are with of the inventor enable Among these are an old gun of the Marie Rose, rc:ns:er Abbey and St. Pauls Cathedral. But been sent to England by the Infanta Isabella as open. The King kept open house every day and and bOßßßbbbmm they actually do burst. As soon fill other mail bags full of Christmas paek»c%* far Flanders, a famous man-of-war in the reign of King somehow or other Whiuhall has not thus Ambassador from to decorate the ceil- all day long for the good society of London. No as a mail bag gives out in this manner it i.*taken for •sent friends. Henry VIII: the canteen trunk of General appealed to them. White they are acquainted ing.. The sketches were made by Rubens on gentleman had difficulty in making his way to a chair used by Bismarck or Napoleon with the annals >A all the institutions that I the spot. But the actual paintings wen exe- Wolfe: the royal presence. . Bystanders whom 111 on the occasion of the capitulation of Sedan, . . House of Hanover to be found in the ante- soon ina blaze, sad before midnignx the entire nave Just enumerated, they know little or noth- cuted and completed in Antwerp in the fear his majesty recognized often came in for a Whitehall, in IT",and a gun manufactured and used by chambers of Walpole, of Pelham, and of Pitt. palace, including the ancient chapel where »-• irj: about the story of beyond ihe Charles was also in treaty with Vandyke courteous word. This proved more successful 1537. defenders of Mafeking during the last Bo*r dinal Wolsey hail celebrated mass and the t&c; of the windows of the ban- walls the banqueting hal! the the any that his father or grand- .-..\u25a0 from one to paint on the of kingcraft than by Inigo war. ABANDONED BY WILLIAM in. more modern sacred edifices embellished tha qaetsag house designed by Jones— all that history of the Order of the Garter. But the father had practised, and many a veteran cava- V-rrla, With the revolution which drove the Stuarts chisel of Gibbons and by th* pencil cf ren.ains of the old metropolitan palace of Eng- the artist prevented him from entering ITS lier in whose heart the remembrance of unre- — death of CHABLES GAY COURT England and brought of Orange where James IIh3d performed his devotions, as land's rulers the unhappy Charles Iissued task, and the outbreak of the civil war qnlted sacrifices and services had long been from William on his Although 11, whose extravagances well as th.- office of the Privy Council. th« f'jrtii scaffold on Jan- Charles festering compensated in one moment for to the throne the glories of Whitehall as a to lose his head on the would have prevented him from completing it the was to were Bud) as to p!ac« him throughout kind royal paiace and as the principal court of the Treasury, that celebrated gallery or ballrooa* BM7 50, I?4S. They even in doubt as had be lived. Owing to abominable neglect and wounds and sequestrations by Charles's ... greater part of his reign in a state of finan- sovereign William, spite his being which so many pageants, i.i mhica window he emerged, from on that fateful vandalistic char- nod and God bless you. my old friend!'" waned in of had witnessed attempted restorations of \u25a0 dependence upon the rulers and Netherlands, so of honor t» as the side of th<- cial of France Georges canio to the throne th«» a native of the found the damp of which many maids had listened Dioruing. and are Ignorant to acter, paintings of Rubens seemed to be to di When the — the of other Continental powers, was unable by so injurious to his health he was a the vows and Catteries of gallants. Ml a prey building on whicn the scaffold was erected. hopelessly ruined, the original tints had com- court did not retain its influence. Society Whitehall and anything toward completing the grandiose de- sovereign in his martyr to asthma— that he at last abandoned to the flame* On the following day nothia* <^eor?e Russell, in his "Collections Recol- pletely disappeared from view; and the paint- degrees discovered thnt the politician signs of [nigo Jones for the reconstruction of it as a royal residence, removed to Hampton remained of th«» palace of "Whitehall saw th* lections." r»iates how. nh»n a Tory accumulated dirt r-ii.J coat upon coat individual capacity had little to give, that coro- ings, from tli« palace of Whitehall, and remained content embassies, Court, his ministers complained banqueting hall, though its graceful coicmns brought his young hopeful i,.Lord BeaconsfieM varnish, but brown nets and fep.rter3, bishoprics and and when of of \u25a0land were little \u25a0 with the ugly and inelegant, yet spacious, by shortly death, in order that, lordships of the treasury, nay. even charges in its remoteness ft \u25a0 the capital brought into and capitals were so much blackened anaa> before the latter's blur. series of buildings which extender] all the way hardly discerned, th* from I.;:. some word of stud bedchamber, were really existence Kensington Palace, which thereafter that their form could be fort- lad might receive years, they have Guards down to lhc» river's edge. the -royal and advic*- throughout his subsequent For nearly two however, j from the Horse Kir.g. but by his Cabinet became his favorite home. In January. 1833, a unately the books and records of the Treasury to treasure restoration, '->- ] enjoyed bestowed, nut by the. aj been undergoing a process of yet it was then that Whitehall its life, Disraeli solemnly addressed the boy officers. Every ambitious man saw that he woman— patriotic journalists and pam- and of the Privy Council w*re rescued and ar» cording to the most approved and modern •m att-bt period of brilliancy «.-: a royal court. *fillpreserved. Henry to follows : would consult his interest better by rendering phleteers of that time did not fail to note that VIIIhad bcilt clea* methods, and so liaaiaflfairj has the work been 1( was the centre of political intrigue '•\u25a0'! of — "My