in 1884, received the post graduate degree in 1885, and was admitted to the bar of the District in 1886.

See what the Contract Division, the first of the Second Assistant's office, has to do. It prepares all advertisements, inviting proposals for star, steamboat, and mail messenger service, receives the proposals, prepares orders for the award of contracts, attends to the execution of the contracts, receives and considers applications for the establishment of new routes or for changes in existing routes, conducts the investigation as to the necessity of the postal service asked, determines the course of routes and the frequency of trips, arranges the time schedules on which the mails shall be carried on star and steamboat routes, receives, examines, and recognizes sub-contracts to secure to sub-contractors pay for their services, conducts all correspondence relating to these matters, prepares statistics and reports to Congress, as required by law, and notifies. the Sixth Auditor of orders affecting the accounts of mail contractors. But steps have to be taken in the Second Assistant's office, in establishing and maintaining a mail route, before the route is placed under regular contract service. When the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General, who has charge of the establishment of post offices, creates a new post office, he notifies the Second Assistant Postmaster General of that fact, giving the name and location of it. If it is not upon some existing route, or near enough to be supplied from one, the postmaster is authorized to employ a "special carrier" to carry the mails between his office and the nearest convenient post office, as often as practicable, for a sum not exceeding two thirds of the postmaster's salary (the rate fixed by law), which depends upon the number of stamps cancelled at the new office. This, however, is considered but a temporary arrangement, and as soon as the new office shows a considerable number of people to be supplied, or a fair cancellation of stamps or of mail matter handled, a regular star route is provided.

Whenever a petition is received for a new star route, an investigation is made to ascertain whether there is a postal necessity for it. Sometimes the petitioners state the reasons why they think the route should be established, which aids the Department in its work; or they may give very little information. But in any event correspondence is opened with the postmasters on the proposed route to

ascertain its length, what frequency of supply is needed, the time schedule upon which mails should be carried, the condition of the roads, whether there are streams, ferries, toll-roads, or mountains to be crossed, the number of people to be supplied, the amount of postal business at each post office, and so forth. All are invited to make such suggestions as they may think good, and in many cases of importance or difficulty a special agent of the Department is sent upon the ground.

When the papers are all in they are carefully examined. If it is decided that the route should be established the postmasters at the termini are instructed to post for ten days in a conspicuous place in their offices and elsewhere, notices which are furnished to them, inviting proposals for carrying the mails over the proposed route from the earliest practicable date to the end of the fiscal year, June 30. A copy of this notice is also posted on a bulletin advertisement in the Department. This is a temporary, or "bulletin board" advertisement, under which the service is limited by law to one year, and the advertisement and proposal are less formal than those required under advertisements for longer terms. All bids received by the postmasters are in envelopes and are forwarded to the Department, where they are opened; and the service is awarded to the lowest bidder, if the bid is considered a reasonable one. Contracts are then sent out for him to execute and return, when they are signed by the Second Assistant Postmaster General. The postmasters at schedule points are notified as to the service required, and instructed to keep reports, upon blanks furnished to them, showing how the service is performed, which reports are sent to the Inspection Division at the close of each month, where they are carefully examined; and if they show that the service is performed in compliance with the contract, a certificate to that effect is issued to the Sixth Auditor at the close of the quarter, who has a copy of the contract, and who states the contractor's account, showing the amount due him. A warrant or draft is drawn in his favor, which, after passing through a number of offices under a system of checks which effectually guards against mistakes or frauds, is mailed to the contractor.

After this contract has expired the service is continued under a general or miscellaneous advertisement for longer periods. For the purposes of the general advertisement the country is divided into

four contract sections, and all the star and steamboat routes in each section are re-let once in four years for a term of four years, the sections being in regular order, so that there is a general letting every year. The Second Assistant's office begins to prepare the general advertisement nearly a year before the new contracts are to go into effect. The advertisements are prepared in pamphlet form, one for each state, describing in detail all the star and steamboat routes in the state, and containing extracts from the Postal Laws and Regulations applicable to that service, with full instructions to bidders, and forms of proposals and bonds. This pamphlet advertisement is displayed in every post office in the state for at least two months before the letting takes place. All proposals must be sent to the Second Assistant Assistant Postmaster General by a fixed date.

The proposals are placed unopened, as they are received, in a vault until the day for opening arrives, when, under the supervision of a committee appointed by the Postmaster General, they are opened by a large force of clerks, stamped, folded, arranged,

examined, and recorded with the utmost system. Accompanying each proposal and as a part of it, there must be as provided by law the oath of the bidder that he has the pecuniary ability to perform the service, a bond executed by the bidder and at least two sureties in a sum fixed in the advertisement, the oaths of the sureties as to the location, description, and value of their real estate over and above all incumbrances (which value must be at least double the amount of the bond), and finally, a certificate from a postmaster that, after informing himself, he believes the sureties to be good and sufficient.

When this work is completed the result appears in great books

showing a complete statement of each route, the service required, etc., with the names of all bidders for that route and the amounts of the bids. The awards are then made to the lowest bidders whose bids are in proper form. Then contracts are drawn and sent to be executed by the accepted bidders. Under the annual general advertisement and the annual miscellaneous advertisement there are received about 120,000 proposals and bonds, and about 5,000 contracts in duplicate are drawn. This does not include the bulletin, or temporary advertisements, which are issued almost daily. This is the method of letting star and steamboat routes. Contracts for regulation wagon service are made similarly.

In the last general advertisement for proposals for mail service, issued now almost a year ago, the number of routes in the several states advertised for was as follows: North Carolina, 638, South Carolina, 263, Georgia, 519, Florida, 206, Alabama, 576, Mississippi, 387, Tennessee, 719, and Kentucky, 717; or a total of 4,025 routes representing an annual travel of 22,646,694 miles. Proposals were also invited in this same advertisement for performing mail messenger, transfer, and mail station service in the chief cities of these Southern states. For this service wagons have to be built in accordance with plans and specifications furnished by the Department.

On the 11th of last March the Second Assistant's office announced that it was about to begin the preparation of advertisements inviting proposals for carrying the mails on all star and steamboat routes in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, and all postmasters and others were invited to submit suggestions along the trend of the following questions:

Has any post office more frequent mail supply than it needs?

Is the service on any route unnecessary in whole or in part?

Could any post office be better or more expeditiously supplied from some point other than its present base of supply ?

Does any post office need more frequent mail supply; if so, does the postal business at that office warrant the probable increase in cost?

Could the mail be advanced or better connections made by a change in any existing time schedules ?

If a new route should be established, what existing service could be dispensed with ?

The advertisements for the above contract section went to press in

August. The advertisement for the Southern contract section, referred to as having been issued late in the fall of 1891, was again referred to in an order of the Second Assistant Postmaster General, dated April 4, 1892. He announced that he had awarded contracts on four thousand star and steamboat routes, and would soon make awards for 1,600 miscellaneous routes. This order gives certain directions to sub-contractors, and quotes a section of the Postal Laws and Regulations, as follows:

"No postmaster, assistant postmaster, or clerk, employed in any post office shall be a contractor or concerned in any contract for carrying the mail. Postmasters are also liable to dismissal from office for acting as agents of contractors or bidders, with or without compensation, in any business, matter, or thing relating to the mail service. They are the agents of the Department and cannot act in both capacities."

In accordance with the spirit of the statute the order adds:

"The wife or husband of a postmaster should not become a sub-contractor; neither should a minor child of a postmaster when such an arrangement would result in the postmaster being pecuniarily interested."

In such and in almost numberless other ways are the Argus eyes of the Second Assistant Postmaster General's office required to watch the contractor and the postmaster, not so much that they need watching, but that they might need watching if they were not watched.

In another order of the Second Assistant Postmaster General, issued on the day after the date of the one last mentioned, it is directed that mails must never be dispatched in advance of the time named. The postmasters must see that all pouches are securely locked. Mail carriers have the right to transport merchandise outside the mails, but all communications relating to it must be verbal (the carrier must not carry outside the mail any written communication relating to merchandise); and the registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails must be actually and not mechanically kept. The order mentions that several postmasters have recently been removed on account of a persistent neglect to keep these registers properly- reasonably enough, for the postmasters are evidently the only check on the contractors. Now and then a mail contractor has been found to submit offers to postmasters to secure, upon the payment of money considerations, the services of persons to act as sub-contractors, and though there is a postal regulation against this,