Busy Season for the Local Aids to Santa Clans
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HUGE FREIGHT VANS THAT UVMlll.K ALL DAY LONG rhoto by a Staff Artist.
EXPRESSMEN ARE BUSY PAY AND NIOHT Photo by Staff Artist.
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COMING WITH LOADS OF CHRISTMAS FREIGHT rhoto by Staff Artist.
DELIVERY TEAMS OF A RETAIL STORE LOADING UP rhoto by a Staff Artist.
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MAIL CARRIERS WHO INVADE THE
THEIR ROUTES Photo by a
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T WOULD not bo exaggerating a
great deal to say that tnce con
ditions were such that a Christ
mas present started from Omaha
to a baby In San Francisco, New
York or Tampa would reach that baby about
e time he was ready to marry and run (or
sheriff. Now the gift could be delivered at
Ihls front door In approximately sixty hours.
Then the number of presents sent and
received each year was about equal to the
number of teeth In a young hen's mouth.
Now they are bo numerous that whole
i armies of men are required in their
i handling and whole trains for their trans-
jMjftatlon. Christmas giving has progressed
iA In proportion to the progression in car
rier service.
Carrier service, used In this connection,
must be accepted as a broadly comprehen
sive term. It suggests great cars drawn
over expansive prairies and towering moun
tains so speedily that one town has scarce
waved them a parting before another waves
them a welcome. It suggests lumbering
wagons hauled over slippery pavements as
fast as the snow and the city ordinances
will let them go. It suggests sturdy mes
senger boys flitting about with tiulglng bags
and a reckless determination to win a tip.
It suggests bundle-smothered mail carriers
plodding from door to door with aching
arms and a temporary yearning for some
)ther occupation. It suggests a general ac
i "jivity as strenuous as the president of the
ftnited States, but equally cheerful and
well-Intending.
For millions of people the late December
holidays are the busiest days in all the
RESIDENCE DISTRICTS WITH LOADS
Staff Artist.
year, and yet they are happiest then. The
man In the wired wagon misses his meals;
the man In the gray suit misses his rest;
the boy in the red sweater misses both. Yet
all are cheery, all are glad and all are will
ing it should be so. They do not pause to
tell people their troubles. It Is no time for
tales of woe. No one cares to hear them
not even the policemen. It Is a time for
willing sacrifice at the altar of common Joy
and each must spare his brother the pain
of a personal grievance. More people con
trive either to forget their troubles or to
keep still about them during Christmas
week than during any other period of the
year.
And that is how it happens that so few
have any adequate conception of the amount
it labor required in accomplishing the
prompt transmission of the gifts that are
sent each year from every town In the
United States to every other town In the
United States and to some towns that
were not In the United States until the
c( iiHtitutlon followed the flag and the su
preme court followed the trend of public
sentiment.
For example, take the work of the serv
ants of Uncle Sam, in his postal depart
ment. At the Omaha postoffice the out
going mall averages, through the year, be
tween three and four tons per day. Be
tween December 20 and January 1 It aver
ages eight tons per day. In the number
of packages received there is an Increase
of 150 per cent over the normal. The fifty
three carriers who serve the residence dis
tract, making from two to four trips per
lay, carry, in ordinary times, about thirty
five pound of mail at a load. During
OF PRESENTS WEIGHING FROM SIXTY TO EIGHTY TOUNDS, AND WHO MAKE TWO AND THREE TRIPS A DAY OVER
Christmas times they carry sixty-five and
even eighty pounds when they sturt from
the omce. In the registered mall depart
ment last month the total of domestic
letters was 2,132, of domestic parcels 40!,
of foreign letters 210, and of foreign parcels
30. The total for December will be five
times as great. In the money order de
partment the foreign orders average ten
per day in ordinary tlmee. Now they
averago fifty per day and the foreign
orders are not more than 5 per cent of the
total. Already this year the local office
has issued f8,575 money orders, represent
ing $44S,637.45 In money, and has paid
2."X,816 orders, representing $2,181,020.87.
No package sent by mail can exceed four
pounds in weight yet packages sent are so
numerous that nineteen clerks and two
truckmen have all they can do to handle
the outgoing and an equal number of men
are busy in the office dint ributing the in
coming. To be behind the wicket at any
time during Christmas week i as Interest
ing and as dazing as to be behind the
scenes while the spectacular opera Is on.
The actors in the former place wear more
clothes and longer clothes than do those in
the latter, but they are Just as much occu
pied and Just as hard pressed for time.
Carriers come in from their trips with
stitches in their sides and perspiration on
their brows, but with 3tories to tell of the
little girls who have come to meet them at
hundreds of doors, and of little boys who
have hailed them from hundreds of front
porches, sometimes with rewards ami some,
times with bitter disappointments.
On the railway mail cars which bring the
gifts to Omaha and carry them away, and
which perform the same work for the people
cf other cities of the United States there
are constantly working about 4,600 clerks,
and this number Is increased a third during
the Christmas rush, the extra men being
drawn from among those who are at that
time supposed to be enjoying vacations.
One hundred and twenty-five of these start
from and return to Omaha. An equal num
ber are accredited to Council Bluffs. They
are among the hosts who make sacrifice of
time during the holidays for the pleasure
cf other people and who cheerfully heed the
Instructions from headquarters to take par
ticularly good care of the Christ mas pack
ages and keep them undamaged If possible.
To the express companies Christmas
means even more. Their business then Is
twenty times as great as ordinarily and the
force at each office is Increased to double
capacity, with every man doing double duty,
for the three days preceding Christmas.
The outflow begins about December 19 and
continues until Christmas day. It Is esti
mated that at least twenty full carloads of
Christmas presents will be sent out of
Omaha this year by the four principal ex
press companies. In addition to these there
will have to be handled about an equal
amount of incoming business. And that is
why the manager closes his deBk with a
slam and lets his correspondence pile moun
tain high without opening any of It. That
Is why he engages meals at the nearest
restaurant for all his men and lets them
see nothing of home or of families day after
day. That is why accommndat ions at a
hotel convenient to the railway stations
were engaged long ago for the men In the
express offices there. That is why no man
in the business stops long enough to say
even "Hello" to his best friend and dashes
over the town as though pursued by a
demon.
Indeed, he Is pursued by a demon. It Is
the demon of fear that he will be "burled."
Once an express force Is "burled," noth
ing can save it. The men would rather
work straight through the night than be
gin the new day twenty minutes behind with
their work.
What do the express companies haul as
presents? An easier question would be
"What don't they haul as presents?" They
haul anything and everything from a dia
mond stud to a baby elephant; from a neck
tie to a wedding gown; from a tooth brush
to a bath tub; from a toy wagon to a horse
and buggy; from a box of candy to a side
of beef. Uncle Hezekiah of Perkinsvllln
Bends his nephew, William, of the state
capital, the dressed half of an undressed
hog much oftener than some people who
haven't any country uncle ever wmild sup
pose. The Man Who Likes to See Things spends
ome very pleasant hours at the express
offices in the railway stations at this time
of year. Wagons are lined up there at the
edges of the platforms like so many am
bulances at a foot ball game. They have
come loaded and they leave loaded. The
sweat never dries on the horses that haul
them, culd as the weather may be, and the
drivers never know what time It Is from
daylight until dark. When they haven't
anything else to haul, they haul oysters,
for at Christmas time the bivalves come
to Inland cities such as Omaha not by the
(Continued on Fourteenth Tage.)
