LOWER POSTAGE TO ENGLAND.
Two-Cent Rate on Letters Goes Into
Effect October 1.
Announcements made yesterday in Washington and London that after October 1 there will be a 2-cent postage between this country and the British isles did not cause much interest here. The British mails here are light. According to Postmaster J. H. Harris they will not run over 250 letters and about five sacks of other matter daily.
"We handle more business correspondence between Great Britain and this city than we do between Germany and this city, but there are more personal letters in the German trade than in the British. The English do not write letters. The Germans write regularly."
It is expected that when the official bulletin arrives, it will add that the domestic post card rates will apply to the British trade. This post card business is one of the wonders of the department. For 4 cents one may buy a foreign "return card," the United States getting and keeping the 4 cents. On being delivered at the other side the recipient there detaches the return portion of the card, bearing the United States coat of arms, writes the reply and deposits it in the foreign mail box. The foreign postoffice department forwards the card without ever getting pay for it, "and it never will," said postmaster Harris. "We keep all we get in this game of postoffice. The presumption is that one letter brings out a reply and, in this return card business it is reckoned there will be as many bought on one side of the ocean as on the other. I never saw a foreign return clear through my postoffice, though."
