Japan's Model Postal System.
WE clip the following from a Kobe (Japan) letter to the Philadelphia Press:— The postal system of Japan is often pointed to as a model in its way—one of the foremost departments of the Europeanized Government. And, indeed, it must in all fairness be acknowledged that much credit belongs to Japan for swiftness in the dispatch of mails, while fettered with a lack of railroads. In the first place every train carries mail, and in Japan, be it known, the imperial railroads run through passenger trains every two hours, and on the Yokohama railroad nearly every hour. Thus, while in America three mails each way daily would be esteemed the climax of facilities, the minimum between the various cities here is about ten mails each way daily. This applies merely to the railroads, of course. The delivery of mails is also very prompt, and takes place a good many times a day. A person may mail a letter in Yokohama for Tukiyo, one hour's ride to the north, as late as dusk, and yet receive an answer the same night, providing his friend is prompt. While in Yokohama I took occasion to mail a letter in a post-box as late as six o'clock one evening, at a point fully a mile from the post-office. It was soon collected, delivered to the one to whom it was addressed over on the bluffs, and the same evening I received a call from the recipient. Every effort is made in the case of foreigners to deliver their mail to them promptly. So anxious are the authorities to deliver mail that one of the missionary ladies in Kobe says when last summer she went up among the mountains, six miles distant, a special man was despatched from the office here, really against her wishes, who came all the way on foot, and was not content until he hunted her up and delivered her the mail. The city carriers have mail carts painted red, with which they deliver mail upon the arrival of the large mail steamers. They go about the city at a dog-trot. This applies, of course, to the large port cities. In the interior mail is carried from town to town by messengers, who also travel at a dog-trot, in cases where stage lines do not exist. With all their ceremonious haste it is amusingly incongruous to notice that little effort is made to protect mail—doubtless because, in this poor country, valuables are not much transmitted through the mails. In summer the overland mail-carrier transports the mail from place to place by means of two nets attached to the end of a pole balanced over the shoulder. In case of rain these nets are wraped in oiled paper. To one who has been accustomed to the iron mail wagons of America, it is a peculiar sight.