Over eight hundred contractors report that they are subject to no charges of the kind; and the remainder have not, as yet, answered the circular of the Department. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, To the Hon. JOHN WHITE, Speaker of the House of Representatives. 2d Session. P. O. Dept. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT-PERSONS EMPLOYED. LETTER FROM THE POSTMASTER GENERAL, TRANSMITTING The information required by the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 16th July last, respecting the number, duties, and compensation of all persons employed in the Post Office Department, &c. MARCH 31, 1842. Referred to the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, March 31, 1842. SIR: The resolution of the House of Representatives adopted July 16, 1841, did not come under my notice until the 22d of November last, when orders were immediately given to procure and imbody the information. which would enable me to respond to them at an early day of the present session of Congress, but the incessant accumulation and pressure of business upon the Department have delayed my answer longer than I desired. The first of these resolutions requires the Postmaster General to report the number of persons employed, directly or indirectly, in the service of the Department, either in or out of Washington city. It also requires him to report the duties required by law, and performed by all such persons; what portion of their time is required in the performance of such duties; what is their compensation, severally; and what reform and retrenchment may be reasonable and practicable in diminishing the number of persons so employed. This resolution throws the persons in the service of the Post Office Department into two divisions-those employed out of Washington city, and those employed within it. Those employed out of the city comprehend the following classes: 1. Special agents. 2. Postmasters. 3. Mail contractors. 4. Mail agents on railway cars. To the preceding four classes, who are all directly connected with the Department, may be added others, whose connexion with it is indirect, viz: Assistant postmasters, clerks in post offices, letter carriers, mail stage drive.s, and mail carriers, printers of post office blanks, and manufacturers of mail bags. But as the Department has no means of ascertaining the number of all these persons, and as they are not presumed to have been within the intent of the resolution, I proceed, without further notice of them, to make such remarks upon the classes first named as the requirements of the resolution seem to demand. 1. The duties of the special agents are various, and are attended with much labor and responsibility. It is especially their business to examine post offices, give instructions to postmasters, investigate all cases of depredation upon the mails, give directions to mail contractors, see that they faithfully perform their contracts, and to take all lawful measures deemed necessary to correct errors and abuses in the mail establishment. These duties and the correspondence they induce employ all the time not necessarily occupied by them in travelling upon public business. Their present compensation is twelve hundred dollars per annum, with the addition of two dollars and twenty-five cents a day, and the cost of their transportation while actually employed. These agents were originally seven in number, at a compensation of sixteen hundred dollars; but, soon after entering upon the administration of the Department, I found it necessary to increase their number to ten, and therefore reduced the compensation to $1,200 per annum. 2. The duties of postmasters are fixed by law, and by the regulations prescribed by the Postmaster General; the time occupied in the performance of their several duties varies according to the greater or less importance of their respective post offices. The name and compensation of each postmaster, as well as the nett revenue derived from each post office in the United States, are stated in the Biennial Register for 1841, to which I respectfully refer. 3. I would further state, that the Biennial Register contains the names of the mail contractors in the several States and Territories, with the compensation paid to each. 4. The mail agents on railway cars attend to the reception and delivery, at the end of their respective routes, of the mails transported thereupon; and also to receiving, assorting, making up, and delivering at the way offices, the mails destined for them, respectively. Their names are also stated in the Biennial Register, and their compensation. In giving a statement of the number of persons in the service of the Department within the city of Washington, it may be most satisfactory to arrange them in accordance with the organization produced by the act of July 2, 1836. By that organization the Department was subdivided, for the convenience of its administration, into four bureaus, each having a distinct assignment of duties, and having at its head an officer charged by the Postmaster General with the immediate supervision and direction of the persons assigned to the performance of those duties. The bureaus referred to are designated as follows: 1. Contract office. 2. Appointment office. 3. Inspection office. 4. Miscellaneous bureau. 1. The contract office is under the immediate charge of the First Assistant Postmaster General, to whom are assigned the duties of arranging the. connexions of the mails, adjusting their speed, fixing on the frequency of their trips, and the mode of conveyance; making out advertisements for mail service; receiving the bids and preparing them for the action of the Postmaster General; preparing forms of contracts, sending them out and causing them to be executed; examining and preparing for decision all propositions for changes in the mail service; fixing on the location of distributing post offices; giving distribution instructions, and directing the course of the mails; preparing the statistical tables of mail service for the annual report to the President and the annual reports to Congress of all bids and lettings, of all contracts executed, of all additional allowances and curtailments, and of all land and water mails otherwise ordered; reporting weekly to the Auditor and the inspection office all changes ordered in the service; ascertaining and reporting distances, on the calls of the accounting officers of the Government; investigating and reporting upon all special claims for mail service arising on applications to the Postmaster General, or on reference from the Auditor, or from Congress; and, generally, of conducting the correspondence and performing the acts necessary to put the mails in motion, and regulate their conveyance, speed, and connexion, and of preserving and reporting the record of the same. In the discharge of the foregoing duties, the First Assistant Postmaster General is aided by the following persons, viz: A principal clerk, (compensation $1,600,) who opens, reads, and distributes the letters addressed to the contract office; receives from the corresponding clerks the cases prepared for decision, revises them, and presents them, with the requisite written or verbal explanations, to the Postmaster General or the First Assistant Postmaster General. If the First Assistant Postmaster General be sick or necessarily absent, his general duties devolve on the principal clerk, and are performed by him. A topographer (compensation $1,600) is employed in drawing diagrams exhibiting the post offices and post roads of the United States, and in ascertaining the geographical positions of all the new post offices established. Six corresponding clerks, whose duty it is to take charge of all letters and communications relating to mail transportation, and to the general distribution of the mails; to changes of routes and schedules; claims for mail service, &c.; to brief all letters received, keeping a record of such as come from members of Congress; to investigate and present all facts connected with each case to the First Assistant Postmaster General or the principal clerk; to prepare the correspondence sent out in all except special cases; to keep an index of the decisions of the Postmaster General; to prepare advertisements for occasional lettings of mail routes; to file, in numerical order, all communications received, and to prepare statements, reports, &c., when called for. Compensation-five at $1,400, and one at $1,200. Four route-book clerks, who record in a day book all decisions of the Postmaster General and First Assistant Postmaster General, whether affirmative or negative, affecting the contract service, and transfer to the route register all affirmative decisions; keep an index of the post offices in their respective sections, noting upon it all changes of name and locality, offices newly established, and offices discontinued; prepare notices to the postmasters at the end of each route, and to the contractor, of the changes thereon; keep at: alphabetical list of mail contractors, with their several residences, and the numbers of the routes for which they have contracted; ascertain and record the distances between the successive offices upon each route, together with the county and State in which they are respectively situa |