SUPERINTENDENTS. The DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT usually has the supervision of a large area of Express operations, but rarely exceeding one or two States. Commonly the route agents in his territory, with all of their responsible and arduous duties, are under his direction. He is expected to go over routes himself, to see that all employees are doing their duty. If any abuses exist, which the route agents fail to correct, it becomes his duty to remove them. Usually, he is empowered to settle losses and to approve settlements of claims for damaged goods. It is an important position, and no sinecure. THE ASSISTANT GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT has the charge of a grand division, portions of which are supervised by superintendents, acting under his orders, and amenable to him for any irregularities. It is next in rank to the chief or General SuPERINTENDENT, who stands in the same relation to him that the general of all the national armies bears to the commanders of divisions. Indeed, there is a certain resemblance between Express and military organization. HINTS TO PERSONS DOING BUSINESS WITH 1. Before you visit an Express office with a package or collection, ascertain, if possible, if you are visiting the right office. "Uncle Samuel's" territory is very extensive; Expresses are numerous, and they naturally and of necessity run in different directions. Please bear this in mind. 2. Do not infer, because an Express clerk patiently listens to a long-winded complaint or a tedious series of interrogations, that his time is of little value. Remember that the railroad train or the steamboat never waits for delayed way-bills or belated passengers. 3. Never vent your indignation upon the expressman because he fails to collect a demand, and charges you a reasonable fee for his trouble, especially when such collection has defied all your previous efforts to effect a settlement, and is only given to the expressman as a dernier resort. 4. In sending a bill C. O. D., always send the goods with the bill, otherwise the cabalistic letters C. O. D. on a package, are more ornamental than useful. Never send fresh fish, lobsters, or ice cream C. O. D., unless you are prepared to receive and pay charges on the unpleasant remains in case they are returned for non-payment of bill. 5. Don't pack a demijohn in a trunk of dry goods samples, and call on the expressman to liquidate the bill for damages in case of breakage. This hint is especially intended for "commercial travellers." 6. Be careful in directing packages; a package for Springfield, Mass., directed Springfield, Ill, involves a pretty big bill of Express charges. 7. Keep an "Express List" always posted in your counting and delivery rooms.-Tucker's Waifs from the Way-Bills of an old Expressman. PART V. EXPRESS MISCELLANY. Our melange of miscellaneous reading, succeeding this chapter, is only partially original. We are indebted to personal friends for many excerpts, and especially are acknowledgments due to "OUR EXPRESSMEN;" also, to the worthy editors and correspondents of "THE EXPRESSMEN'S MONTHLY," and to Mills, O'Brien, C. Woodward, and others. MORAL PRINCIPLE. Alvin Adams' sentiments in regard to personal purity were very emphatic as well as honest. Discovering, while he was yet comparatively a young man, that a partner of his (long since deceased) was flagrantly immoral, he wrote him a letter saying that he would not be associated with a person who was unmindful of the decencies of life. This led to a rupture, and dissolution of the firm. Profanity and ribaldry were very obnoxious to him, and he would not have an employee in his office (Boston) who was in the habit of indulging in either. He seemed to think that a fellow who would swear, or tell smutty stories, or sing indecent songs, must have a mud-puddle in his head, through which all his ideas had to pass before they were uttered. It was the secret of the once famous Woodward's strong hold upon Alvin Adams' respect and affection, that the bulky driver, big as he was, had a mild, pleasant voice and manner, and never was known to utter a foul word. Woodward was, indeed, that rare combination-only an illiterate driver, and yet gentlemanly, and incapable of an unworthy act. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE BUSINESS WEST. When George H. Price, of Louisville, Ky., disposed of the magazine, "OUR EXPRESSMEN," to J. Henderson, that gentleman (since deceased) found a wheel-horse for his little team in that experienced expressman and right worthy citizen, Charles Woodward. The magazine was published, as its still more able successor, "The Expressmen's Monthly," now is, in Cincinnati. "C. W." was in the Adams Express office, in that western metropolis, fairly settled down to desk work, after many years of more active life, in all capacities, from messenger to superintendent, and, to favor the new editor and publisher, would, every now and then, jot down on paper some amusing or interesting incident in his chequered life. It would be a treat to my readers if I had transferred many of them into this my last record of Express experiences, but limited space denies us this enjoyment. In the summer of 1874, we find him saying, that twentyfour years had passed since he commenced the Express business. (So, in 1850 he was a neophyte like myself.) At that time, the St. Louis merchant, who, twenty-four years later, grumbled if his goods did not come through to him from New York in forty hours, was satisfied (the west being very short of railroads) when the transit was accomplished in nine days. The passage from New York to Philadelphia was by rail and steamer; from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by rail and canal; thence by the Ohio to Cincinnati, Louisville, and Cairo; and by the Mississippi river from "The Mouth" (Cairo) to St. Louis. Of course, "the stage of water" (depth of water in the rivers), and if the Ohio was so low as to float only a "chicken thief," the New York goods, instead of getting through in nine or ten days, might be indefinitely delayed at Pittsburg or Wheeling. In 1850 or 1852, E. S. Sandford, R. P. McCullogh, and Harry Gorman were in the Philadelphia office; S. M. Shoemaker and W. H. Trego in the Baltimore; E. S. Smith in the Washington; Henry B. Plant in the New Haven; Charles Haskell, Wm. Melcher and "Joe Stone" were Boston brethren; N. Pigman was in Wheeling; George Mowton (not yet gone to Aus tralia) was in Cincinnati; J. A. Jones, in Louisville, Ky.; John Walker in St. Louis; J. H. Rhodes in Brownsville, Pa.; and C. Woodward in Indianapolis-then a town with 4,000 inhabitants, and not a rod of railroad to the west of it. As has been said, in the editions of 1858-9 and 1860, Alfred Gaither was the first superintendent of the Adams Express Company in the west. In 1854, he became the manager of its operations, with its headquarters at Cincinnati. Laboring under a physical infirmity, it did not interfere with his usefulness, but rendered his extraordinary success in a position demanding so much activity and physical endurance the more remarkable. C. W. says, that "to Mr. Gaither, more than to any other man, is the business indebted for its wonderful growth west of the Allegheny mountains." And this reminds me of what the present president of the "Adams" said to me in 1858, when declining some tribute of respect for his own share in building up the Express service in New York and the east: "You give us too much praise, Mr. Stimson. The fact is, that it is not we who have made the Express business; it has been made by circumstances. When the old mail-stage lines had to step out before the incoming railroads, and the drivers were consequently compelled to abandon the routes which they had so long accommodated by their parcel and errand work, it created a public want, and Harnden, Adams, Wells, and the rest, who were in at the outset of this business, came forward to do the work. It has grown upon our hands, certainly, but we are not entitled to any credit for it." This way of putting it did not do full justice either to the speaker, or to his Express brethren; but there was a good deal of truth in it, notwithstanding. So, too, in the west; Mr. G. would deny that he had any claim to praise for the large patronage almost immediately afforded to the Express when he assumed its supervision, a quarter of a century ago. I very well remember Cincinnati in 1839, having lived there two months (being forbidden, first by a malarial fever, and then by the low stage of the Ohio, to go any further until fall), when it was sanguinely expected that the river, then crossable to Covington on foot, dry shod, would rise. It was a wide-awake, |