The postal system recognizes both the necessity of regulating the business and the importance of securing that economy which private interests impart. It restrains the powers, corrects abuses, reduces rates, increases facilities, confers no new powers on the Post-Office Department, but simply extends its operations by the employment of a new agency for the transmission of correspondence. It provides for the purchase of all existing lines at an appraised valuation, their incorporation into a company which at its own expense will furnish and operate the lines necessary for transmitting telegraphic correspondence between the postal telegraph offices, depending upon private capital, skill, and economy for success. The company will derive its entire profits from the receipts of the business, which are the only funds from which it can draw its income. It will have a direct pecuniary interest to see that the postoffice performs its share of the work promptly and efficiently. The present is substantially a railroad and not a postal system, and at many offices the railroad business has preference over all other. This places it on a distinct footing. The railroad telegraphic business will be managed by those corporations without interference by the government, and the telegraphic correspondence by the Post-Office Department.

The telegraph is shorn of its power over private correspondence and mercantile news by subjecting it to fixed and impartial rules and uniform rates, so low that all can freely use it. The power is divided between the department and corporation, so that neither can use it to the injury of the public, while the distinct interests of the two oppose combination.

The Postmaster-General has the same means for enforcing the prompt and accurate transmission of this as of all other correspondence. No monopoly is conferred, and any company can transmit telegrams if they can do so more satisfactorily to the public. The rates are fixed at twenty-five cents between offices not over 250 miles apart, fifty cents between 250 and 500 miles, seventy-five cents between 500 and 1,500 miles, and one dollar and a half for all greater distances. Letters are generally written after the close of business hours and sent by the night mail. To provide for this correspondence the rates for night telegrams are fixed at twenty-five cents for distances

under 1,500 miles, and seventy-five cents for greater distances. These rates will be prepaid by telegraphic stamps sold at the post-offices. The department will retain five cents for its service, and pay the rest to the company as full compensation for furnishing and operating the lines. The length of the telegraphic letter is increased to twenty-five words, including address and signature. Every post-office near a telegraph line is made a postal telegraph office, while others are established wherever they now are or may be required by the wants of business. This will make a reduction in rates of fifty per cent, and an increase in the length of the message of eighty per cent, and in the number of offices of over one hundred per cent. These great reductions and increased facilities will bring the telegraph within the reach of all, and, when in full operation, will give us the best telegraph system in the world.

The postal system recognizes the rights of property in the owners of the existing lines, proceeding upon the ground that' to make any new plan successful it must avail itself of the services and co-operation of the present able managers; that this can only be accomplished by paying liberally for the property it purchases of them, and that it will be much more advantageous to the public to secure this harmonious co-operation, even by paying a large price for its property, than to establish a system at a very much smaller price, but in competition with the Western Union Telegraph Company.

It is not contended that the postal system is free from defects, but that it removes many of the grave evils of the present system, without the introduction of new ones, and that the balance of benefits greatly preponderates in favor of the cheap rates, increased facilities, limited and divided powers of the postal system.

GARDINER G. HUBBARD.

ART. IV.—1. Report of the Commissioners appointed to investigate the Cause and Management of the Great Fire in Boston. Boston City Documents, 1873.

2. Records of the late London Fire-Engine Establishment. By CAPTAIN EYRE M. SHAW. London.

1870.

3. Reports of the Chief Officer of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade on the State of the Brigade and the Fires in London during the Years 1870, 1871, 1872.

4. Fire Surveys, or a Summary of the Principles to be observed in estimating the Risk of Buildings. By E. M. SHAW, Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade. American Edition. 1872. 5. Annual Report of the Fire Marshal of the City of New York for the Year ending April 4, 1872.

6. Annual Report of the Board of Fire Commissioners of the Philadelphia Fire Department, 1872.

7. Report of the Philadelphia Fire Insurance Patrol for the Year 1872.

8. Report of the Board of Police in the Fire Department to the Common Council of the City of Chicago, for the Year ending March 31, 1872.

9. Addresses of the President of the National Board of Fire Underwriters at the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings in 1872 and 1873.

THE improvements which have been made during the past forty years in the apparatus for extinguishing fires are quite as wonderful as in any department of the mechanical arts. The old-fashioned manual engines have been sent into the country to keep company with the stage-coaches; the bellringer has been superseded by the electrician; and the painted leather buckets which adorned the halls of careful householders have given place to chemical fire-extinguishers. But with all these advantages in the application of steam and electricity and chemical forces, the newspaper reporters still rejoice in extensive "conflagrations"; and when all our ingenious contrivances fail to arrest the progress of the flames, we fall back upon the primitive method used more than two hundred years ago by the terrified Londoners.

Our modern inventions appear to have left us where we were in the beginning. The new forces brought into óperation for putting out fires are neutralized by the increased facilities for the spread of fire. The large cities in this country have grown up without any restrictions in regard to the construction of buildings; and it is within the last half-dozen years only that municipal governments have considered that they had any concern in the matter. Since the insurance offices have taken everything under their protection, from a granite warehouse to a lady's wardrobe, and paid fire departments have been organized, the sense of personal responsibility in the protection of property from fire no longer exists. This is seen in the reckless manner of constructing buildings, and in the general neglect of all precautionary measures.

There is another reason why we have failed to secure the full benefit of the modern improvements in fire apparatus. The introduction of steam and electricity necessitated a complete change in the organization of these departments. In place of the numerous bodies of volunteers who hauled the old machines to the scene of the fire, and manned the brakes, a small but well-trained and well-disciplined organization was required. In many cities the volunteer companies looked upon the introduction of steam fire-engines with the same feeling that the English hand-loom weavers looked upon the introduction of steam machinery to facilitate their labors. As the American engine company was a political power, it was necessary to give it a large share in the new organization, and, as a consequence, the traditions of the old system govern the new. There is much display, noise, and enthusiasm, but very little training or discipline.

Captain Shaw, the chief officer of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade of London, after inspecting the fire departments of the principal cities in the United States, in 1868, said that the telegraph makers and steam fire-engine builders had done much for the departments, but that the officials had done very little for themselves, either by instructing the makers of their machinery as to the real requirements of the service, or by exercising and practising themselves in the use of such appliances as they had. The cause of this he found in the fact that,

"the chief officers, or, as they are called, chief engineers, of most of the American fire departments, and the principal assistant engineers, are elected, not promoted, and that political influence is commonly paramount in the elections. In some towns, the chief and his assistants were appointed by the mayor, and this was probably the better mode of the two; but in whichever way they obtained their places, the appointments were generally only temporary, and varied in duration from one to about three years, according to local arrangements. It was hardly to be believed that in the midst of a practical nation like the Americans, the chief of an important department, requiring a considerable amount of skill and special training, should be obliged every year to enter into competition with his own subordinates and others, and either to stand continued fresh elections or to lose his place. Such was, however, the case, and the effect of the system is, of course, fatal to the advancement of the professional work of the department. The Americans had now powerful and weighty machinery and appliances, drawn about by large numbers of horses, and worked by enormous bodies of men; but it could hardly be supposed that the cities would long continue to supply funds for the payment of heavy expenses rendered necessary chiefly by the want of skill and practise on the part of those concerned. It was a very singular and unaccountable fact, that the Americans, in their admiration for steam fire-engines, had forgotten or ignored the use of hand-worked engines, and had abolished them altogether, thus absolutely depriving themselves of the means of instantly extinguishing fires at their own doors, leaving themselves in this particular point far behind the most backward nations of Europe. He had asked in every city why this had been done, but he had not received as much as one reply giving the slightest reason; on the contrary, the answer generally was, that hand-engines were of no use, a statement quite without meaning in the face of the fact that some of the principal cities in the world are still entirely protected by them." *

In a communication written since the fire in Boston, Captain Shaw says:

"When I was last in America, it struck me very forcibly that, although most of the chiefs were intelligent and zealous in their work, not one that I met made even a pretension to the kind of professional knowledge which I consider so essential. Indeed, one went so far as to say that the only way to learn the business of a fireman was to go to fires, a statement about as monstrous and as contrary to reason as if he

*London Herald, September 28, 1869.