Excerpt from A Life Span and Reminiscences of Railway Mail Service

In the late Summer of 1908 I wrote a reminiscent article on "The Railway Mail Service, " which was published in the September issue of "The Railway Post Office." This article was prepared in response to the request of a large and important association of the splendid men who had served with me, and under my supervision, during part or all of my long career in that most remarkable branch of the civil service of our government.

The reminiscences began with my entry into the service - March 5, 1866 - nineteen months after the inauguration of the first railway post office, and when the whole corps of its employees, railway postal clerks, route agents, mail route messengers, and local agents, numbered only 703, and more than a year and a half before the first full railway post office car was placed in service.

As I wrote, my memory awoke and presented in the order of time, clear recollections of events with which I was connected in the earliest years of the improved service and they were chronicled so that those who joined the devoted corps later might become familiar with the details of its inception, inauguration and development, the hardships and disadvantages under which the work was performed, the desperate struggle preceding its firm establishment, and the gradual breaking of the clouds between the rifts of which could be seen the coming of the magnificent service of to-day.

As the story progressed, the educational methods employed to strengthen the minds and memories of the clerks, to increase the efficiency of their work while its scope was enlarging, and its character becoming more complexed, the system of discipline instituted to insure obedience of orders, instructions, regulations and laws, and thus gain the confidence and support of the public, were introduced and discussed.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.