8 December 1879 • Hartford, Conn. (Hartford Courant, 9 December 1879, UCCL 02808)
Sir: If you will allow me a brief word, I can furnish some information which, for excellent reasons, not two Americans in twelve hundred are acquainted with. It is this. The issuing of the wild postal edict of last September raised such a tempest of protestations in every quarter of the country, that the department, after enduring the siege for a few days, succumbed—partially. It did not retire from the fortress openly, however. That is to say, it surrendered part of its armament, but nobody knew about it, for the reason that the fact was not made public. The fact was printed in the Postal Guide—that is to say, it was secreted there. If it had got into the newspapers we should have heard of it, &Ⓐemendation our complaints would have assumed a diminished form. Here is the modification:—
“56. When postmasters and employes of the railway mail service know that matter deposited in their offices for mailing, addressed to a city without the name of the state being given, is intended for the principal city of that name, being for instance, addressed to a well-known citizen, firm, newspaper or institution of such principal city, or to a street and number which could only be found therein, it should be forwarded as directed in section 467. Otherwise the provisions of sections 437, 438 and 740, P. L. & R., 1879, are to be observed.”
If that had accompanied the original edict, there would not have been such a storm.
Hartford Courant, 9 December 1879, 2.