The second of the methods suggested is, in my judgment, the most practicable. Under this plan, the proper official postage stamps and stamped envelopes might be prepared and issued to some responsible authority for distribution to the persons authorized to use them. A simple and practicable system of accounting for the number of such stamps issued and used could be easily devised, and would furnish most valuable information to this department in its efforts to determine the amount of postage on all mail matter, including that now carried free of postage under the franking privilege and penalty envelope, were it charged at the regular rate applicable to mail matter generally.

EVASION OF THE PAYMENT OF POSTAGE.

During the past fiscal year, the law governing the question of the concealment of matter subject to a higher postage charge in that subject to a lower postage charge, for the purpose of evading the payment of the higher rate properly chargeable thereon, has been modified by the act of March 4, 1909 (the Criminal Code), which was made effective on and after January 1, 1910. The former act (that of Jan. 20, 1888) provided for the payment of a penalty of $10 for each violation of the statute, but the act of March 4, 1909, provides as follows:

Whoever shall knowingly conceal or inclose any matter of a higher class in that of a lower class, and deposit or cause the same to be deposited for conveyance by mail at a less rate than would be charged for such higher class matter, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars.

During the year there have arisen under these two statutes 826 cases which, together with the 112 cases pending on July 1, 1909, make a total of 938 of such cases for the year handled in this bureau, which may be summarized as follows:

Cases closed:

Determined as no violation.........

Ten-dollar penalty paid under act of Jan. 20, 1888.
Penalty remitted by the Postmaster General..

Part of penalty remitted by the Postmaster General and part ($5) paid..
Alleged offenders unknown or not found...........

Cases pending June 30, 1910:

Under investigation by this office......

Referred to Chief Inspector for investigation.

Referred to Auditor for Post Office Department for collection of penalty.
Held for action of United States grand jury....

Grand total.....

771

37

3

1

52

In addition to the foregoing, the papers in several hundred cases which were reported prior to the transfer of jurisidiction to the Third Assistant Postmaster General, October, 1908, and which had been in the field for investigation in the hands of inspectors, were referred to this office during the year by the Chief Inspector for review. Collection of the penalty of $10 imposed by the act of January 20, 1888, was made by the inspectors in 59 of these cases; in 53 the collection was sustained by this office, and in 6 there was a return of the amount collected to the alleged offender.

MAILINGS OF THIRD AND FOURTH CLASS MATTER WITHOUT STAMPS AFFIXED DURING THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1910.

Under the act of April 28, 1904, providing for the transmission in the mails without stamps affixed of third and fourth class matter in quantities of 2,000 or more identical pieces, the mailings and revenues derived therefrom, as shown by reports of postmasters, were as follows:

POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT,

OFFICE FOURTH ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL,

Washington, D. C., November 21, 1910. SIR: I have the honor to submit the Annual Report of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910. Of the four hundred and five employees credited to this bureau, at salaries aggregating $448,660, three hundred and seventy-four, at salaries aggregating $430,200, are rendering service in the several divisions. The work of the several divisions is up to date.

I desire to express through you my cordial thanks and appreciation for the exhibition of loyalty to the service manifested by the employees of this bureau.

Through your action in combining under one management the services of rural mails, namely, those of star contract and rural delivry, the department will be able to meet more advantageously and conomically many requirements of rural communities which could not under other conditions be satisfactorily adjusted, and in order that the appropriations for rural mails may be used to the best advantage possible it is urgently recommended that the amounts estimated for the rural delivery and for the star contract services for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1912, be merged so as to be availble for the extension of rural mails of either character.

RURAL DELIVERY.

In the administration of rural delivery during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910, special consideration has been given to securing closer supervision of the service. At the close of the year rural delivery was in operation on 41,079 routes, and 40,997 carriers were employed. These routes and the work of the carriers are under the immediate supervision of 17,211 postmasters. The importance of postmasters being thoroughly familiar with road and other conditions on the routes under their direction and the necessity for a constant oversight of the work of the rural carriers have been developed wherever practicable through general correspondence relative to the service. It is believed that greater regularity of delivery and more efficient service along all lines have resulted.

Daily service is given on all routes except where the number of families patronizing the route or the amount of mail handled does not warrant it. In such cases delivery is made triweekly. On June 30, 1910, such service was in operation on 500 routes, a decrease of 167 as compared with the previous year.

GROWTH OF THE SERVICE.

During the year 510 new routes were established, 4 routes discontinued during the year were reestablished, and 1 route discontinued in a prior year was restored. Sixty-four routes were discontinued, leaving 451 as the net increase in the number of routes in operation.

In 862 counties the service had been adjusted on June 30, 1910, so as to extend rural delivery to the largest proportion of the rural population in each case.

The following table shows the growth of rural delivery during the fourteen years of its existence:

• Apparent discrepancies between the figures in this column and in the corresponding column headed "carriers" in previous annual reports are due to figures having been taken for periods other than fiscal years. Maximum salary of carriers increased from $600 to $720 per annum. Maximum salary of carriers increased from $720 to $900 per annum.

During the fiscal years 1899 to 1910, inclusive, on account of the establishment of rural delivery service 23,699 post-offices were discontinued, aggregating a saving of $8,102,262 in postmasters' salaries. During the same period the saving on account of star-route service discontinued amounted to $18,307,126.48, or a grand total saving of $26,409,388.48.

It has not been found practicable to estimate the increased postal receipts in city offices incident to delivery of mail on rural routes, although that increase has undoubtedly been large.

The total mileage of the rural routes in operation on June 30, 1910, was 993,068, the average mileage per route being 24.17, and the average number of miles of daily travel by rural carrier was 986,993. The average cost of the service per mile of route is $35.96 per annum, and the average cost per mile traveled $0.1178, both exclusive of substitute and of toll and ferriage service.

Changing conditions and closer supervision of the service make it continually possible to effect a more systematic arrangement of routes, frequently with a reduction in cost, without impairing the service. The discontinuance of 64 routes, the reduction of frequency of service, the curtailment of routes, and other readjustments resulted during the last fiscal year in an actual saving of $42,873.55, and an annual saving of $86,566.

The service in a large number of counties is now under investigation with a view to its readjustment along more systematic and economical lines. The results in several counties already investigated are gratifying, in that a larger number of people are served with a net decrease in cost.

Urgent demands for the extension of existing routes and restoration of daily service have been met at an actual cost of $105,193.60, and an annual cost of $182,536.50.

PARCEL POST ON RURAL DELIVERY ROUTES.

The great value of rural delivery to the citizens of the nation is attested on every side, but the facilities now in use can be made of greater utility to the farmers and business men on rural routes and at rural delivery distributing points by providing special rates of postage for the carriage of packages of merchandise by rural carriers, limited to the territory supplied from rural delivery post-offices.

During the past summer, by your direction, I visited many States, involving travel aggregating nearly 18,000 miles. My experience and observation, fortified by the views of prominent persons in those respective localities, convince me that the establishment of parcel delivery along the line of rural routes should not be longer delayed. Every consideration of practicability, business expediency, and good administration favor the plan as being a probable source of large revenue and great public accommodation. A proposal to establish rural parcel delivery has been under discussion since 1905, when I had the honor to urge its adoption. This recommendation has been repeated in my report for each succeeding year, and strongly indorsed by each Postmaster-General. Many farmers are demanding this facility, now unavailable because the present rate of postage on merchandise is prohibitive of the carriage of packages by rural carriers from merchants located at the distributing post-offices or on rural routes, to the patrons of rural delivery.

The establishment of the service would insure the earning of additional revenue amounting to millions of dollars, and at the same time benefit the farmer by enabling him to have merchandise delivered when ordered by telephone or postal card, which probably would not otherwise be purchased owing to lack of facilities.

The plan I suggest is to render a service to merchants or dealers who are bona fide residents of a delivery route which will permit the transmission of articles mailed at the distributing post-office of any rural route for delivery to a patron of that route, or mailed by a patron of any rural route for delivery to a patron of that route, or at the distributing post-office from which the route emanates.

Each day's experience in this bureau has sustained the desirability of the adoption of the suggestion made by you in the annual report for 1909, that the Postmaster-General be authorized by appropriate legislation to introduce the proposed package service experimentally in a limited way so that all questions connected with it can be settled by a practical test."

CHANGES IN PERSONNEL.

Of the 40,997 rural carriers in the service during the year 228 were dismissed for cause, an increase of 53 over the number dismissed in the previous fiscal year.

During the past fiscal year 4,035 resignations of carriers were accepted, which is 10 per cent of the number of carriers in the service June 30, 1910, and which is almost 60 per cent greater than the number of resignations accepted during the preceding year.

RURAL MAIL BOXES.

In view of the large and important place that rural mails has reached in the service, it is urged that the dignity of the Government requires the discontinuance of the practice of making deliveries to every kind of receptacle along the highways. The same uniformity which prevails in the city delivery service should obtain in the rural service, and it is respectfully urged that all mail deliveries to or collections from patrons in rural communities, whether by rural or contract carriers, be made to or from approved boxes with arms attached which will render them easy of access without requiring carriers to dismount, and that these boxes shall be supplied by patrons after a fixed date; that all boxes shall be uniform in design, manufacture, and cost, the price to be fixed by the Postmaster-General after selection of a type of uniform box shall have been made, and that after such date all rural boxes and posts shall be kept painted white by patrons, whose names and the numbers of their boxes shall appear in plain black block letters on the boxes.

COMPENSATION TO INJURED EMPLOYEES OF THE POSTAL

SERVICE.

The law now authorizes the Postmaster-General to pay the sum of $2,000 "to the legal representatives of a railway postal clerk or substitute railway postal clerk who shall be killed while on duty, or who, being injured while on duty, shall die within one year thereafter as the result of such injury," and also authorizes the payment to such employee, while suffering from injuries so received, of his salary for a period of one year. Other legislation, namely, the act of May 30, 1908, contemplates the extension of financial aid to certain classes of artisans and laborers employed by the Government.