Word: postally
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When it comes to fluctuating prices in the current renewed surge of double-digit inflation, those for postage stamps are no exception. Uncertain as to just what the rate for first-class letter mail will be by Christmas, the U.S. Postal Service is printing 1.5 billion 1975 Christmas stamps that come in two designs but have one common distinction: no postage is indicated on them. Last week, however, it became almost certain that Americans will be paying more for first-class postage, if not by Christmas then soon thereafter. A new series of recommendations by the Postal Rate Commission could...
Maximum Fine. Originality is allowed, but postal regulations warn that posts or supports "may not be designed to represent effigies and caricatures that would tend to disparage or ridicule any person." Boxes must also be rust-free and "neat." Regulations for mail slots and apartment mailboxes are very nearly as detailed. Persistent violation of the rules can bring a halt to home delivery. Mail can, of course, be picked up at the post office, but that involves renting a box at rates that just went up from $21.60 to $25 a year, or using a general-delivery window, which often...
...mailbox that doesn't bear postage, and no one other than the owner, his agent or the letter carrier can take anything out. The person who puts mailable material into mailboxes himself to avoid payment of postage faces a maximum fine of $300 per offense. The Postal Service claims that otherwise mailboxes might become overstuffed and the security of the mail weakened...
...door. But in the mailbox itself, only mail with U.S. postage is legal. Without a monopoly, the service fears being stuck with costly deliveries to remote areas, while the more easily handled and economical urban and suburban routes are snatched up by private deliverers. Planned hikes in postal rates may increase pressures for private service, but a pending House bill to open first-class mail delivery to free enterprise has practically no chance of early passage. Nor do the courts find the present protectionism unconstitutional. Federal judges have turned thumbs down on private efforts to leave shopping guides atop mailboxes...
...remains an odd "private federal preserve, established and maintained at the expense of the individual owner," as the Evening Journal of Wilmington, Del., recently complained. Rural homeowners will have to go on putting up with such advice as is contained in Form 4056: "Your mailbox needs attention." But the Postal Service still offers the time-honored advice that whatever the restrictions, "this does not mean that you may not meet your carrier at the door if you desire and greet him as cordially as ever." After all, he probably has a mailbox...