work performed, and generally consists of four men, excepting the fast
lines, New York to Chicago and Pittsburgh, where more than one mail-car
on a train is required. With four men in a crew the clerk in charge is
classed 5, and others successively 4, 3, and 2, and paid at the rate of
thirteen hundred dollars, eleven hundred and fifty dollars, one thousand
dollars, and nine hundred dollars per annum. In the event of a vacancy
in class 5, the records of examinations and errors made in the
performance of work are scanned, the relative working capacity of the
eligible men in class 4 considered, and a copy of the records, with
recommendations, forwarded to the General Superintendent. The gap caused
by the retirement of one of class 5, and filled by one of class 4,
necessitates promotions from classes 2 and 3, and also a new appointment
into class 1, probationary, and after that period is passed into class
2, thus preserving a uniform organization.

The selections for promotion are made from the clerks on the entire
line. Thus it will be seen that a graduated system of promotion exists,
based upon merit and competitive examination, and which to the fullest
extent is practical and theoretically satisfactory to the most exacting
civil-service reform doctrinaire. The general supervision of the Railway
Mail Service is under a General Superintendent, the Honorable William B.
Thompson, located in Washington, District of Columbia. It is divided
into nine sections, with offices in Boston, New York City, Washington,
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Cleveland,
and is respectively under the superintendence Messrs. Thomas P. Cheney,
R.C. Jackson, C.W. Vickery, L.M. Terrell, C.J. French, J.E. White, E.W.
Warfield, H.J. McKusick, and W.G. Lovell,--men who have risen from
humble positions in the service, step by step, to their present
positions of responsibility.