ST. JOHN B. L. SKINNER, Principal Clerk, Appointment Office...New York....... C. F. MCDONALD, Principal Clerk, Finance Office... .Virginia........ 2,200 1,800 ..........New Hampshire........ 1,800 .........Massachusetts..... 1,800 ....Pennsylvania......... ..Connecticut. 1,800 1,800 2,000 JAMES S. HALLOWELL, Disbursing Clerk and Sup't of P.O. Building.........Maryland....................... ORGANIZATION OF THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. The management of the Post-Office Department is assigned by the Constitution and laws to the Postmaster-General. The Appointment Office, at the head of which is the First Assistant Postmaster-General, attends to the establishment and discontinuance of postoffices, changes of sites and names, appointment and removal of postmasters, and route and local agents, and the giving of instructions to postmasters. It provides them with marking and rating stamps and letter-balances. It provides blanks and stationery for the use of the department, and superintends the several agencies established for supplying postmasters with blanks. It has the supervision of the ocean-mail steamship lines, and of the foreign and international postal arrangements. The Contract Office, at the head of which is the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, arranges the mail service, and places the same under contract; corresponds and acts respecting the trips, conveyance, departures and arrivals on all the routes, the course of the mail between the different sections of the country, the points of distribution, and the regulations for the government of the domestic mail service. It prepares the advertisements, receives the bids, and takes charge of the annual and occasional mail-lettings, the adjustment and execution of the contracts; applications for the establishment or alteration of mail arrangement, and the appointment of mail messengers. All claims for transportation service not under contract are to be recognized by the Contract Office, as authority for the proper credits, at the Auditor's Office. Postmasters at the ends of routes receive from it the statement of mail arrangements prescribed for the respective routes. It reports weekly to the Auditor all contracts executed, and all orders affecting accounts for mail transportation; prepares the statistical exhibits of the mail service, and the reports of the mail lettings, giving a statement of each bid; also of the contracts made, the new service origi nated, the curtailments ordered, and the additional allowances granted within the year. The Finance Office, the head of which is the Third Assistant Postmaster-General, supervises the financial business of the department, not devolved by law upon the Auditor, embracing accounts with the draft offices and other depositaries of the department, the issuing of warrants and drafts in payment of balances reported by the Auditor to be due to mail contractors and other persons, the supervision of the accounts of officers under order to deposit their quarterly balances at designated points, and the superintendence of the rendition by postmasters of their quarterly returns of postages. It has charge of the dead-letter office, of the issuing of postagestamps and stamped envelopes for the prepayment of postage, and of the accounts connected therewith. To the Third Assistant Postmaster-General all postmasters should direct their quarterly returns of postage; those at draft offices, their letters reporting quarterly the net proceeds of their offices; and those at depositing offices, their certificates of deposit; to him should also be directed the weekly and monthly returns of the depositaries of the department, as well as all applications and receipts for postage stamps and stamped envelopes, and for dead letters. To the Inspection Office, the head of which is the Chief Clerk, is assigned the duty of receiving and examining the registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of route agents, and reports of mail failures; of noting the delinquencies of contractors, and preparing cases thereon for the action of the Postmaster-General; furnishing blanks for mail registers, and reports of mail failures; providing and sending out mail-bags and mail-locks and keys; the suppression of all cases of mail depredation, of violation of law by private expresses, or by the forging or illegal use of postage-stamps. POSTMASTERS IN THOSE TOWNS OF THE UNITED STATES WHERE THE COMPENSATION EXCEEDS $500. [Corrected at the Post-Office Department, November 20, 1862.] |