The mails — Mail contractors.
Congress has wicaly exempted these officials, under certain restrictions, from military service, and it is understood that hereafter all such persons will be held to a rigid accountability by the Department for the faithful performance of their duties.
It has not escaped the notice of the
Government or the press that in many remote regions the contractors have subjected the wives and mothers of our galliant soldiers to unnecessary pain and distress of mind by the irregularity of their delivery of public mails.
In some counties of
Southwestern Virginia, and in the
Northern parts of
North Carolina, these irregularities have amounted in many cases to insupportable grievances, and the people at large have determined that in future those who enjoy the advantages secured by the possession of these contracts, shall perform their duties, or accept the alternative proposition of being reported to the Post-Office Department.
These grievances were patiently submitted to during last winter; but indolent or speculating contractors need not hope for the same immunity in the future which they have enjoyed in the past, and the corrective will be applied in all cases in which they are reported for neglect of duty.
That corrective will be the punishment of the offender by the loss of his contract and the transfer of his name from the civil list to the muster roll of the nearest camp of instruction, in which position he will be able to appreciate, in part, the painful anxiety which our brave soldiers and their families feel in consequence of irregularities in the transmission of the mails.
