Show AMONO A glimpse at one of uncle little there are some queer things in uncle sams household ho and none more curious than the dead letter office people in general have a vague idea of its importance and of the amount of work done in that apparently insignificant branch of the P ost office department but they have no conception of the wit and wisdom interred in that little cemetery of uncle sams in twelvemonth more than six million letters drifted into that office of buried hopes in a single year and something over a hundred thousand magazines papers and packages the daily supply of dead letters is about eighteen thousand not so very many some one re marked when you remember that there are more than sixty thousand post offices to be heard from but enough surely to prevent there being many idle hands in the dead letter office as most of the letters have to be opened all those containing money arc sent to the clerk who keeps a record of the amount received each day by the end of the year it sometimes readies the snug little sum of thirty five or forty thousand dollars which shows that there are people who have faith in alie postal arrangements of our country and their confidence is not usually misplaced as most of the is restored to the owners however when there is no it can not be returned the united states treasury is the gainer in 1888 over eight thousands dollars was thus added to the much talked of surplus why mail matter goes astray ia ac accounted for in various ways although many persons are inclined to hold uncle gum responsible for all mishaps no doubt postmasters are sometimes at fault but sins of omission on the part of the senders are more often the cause of loss and delay thousands of letters are not stamped while others have no address of course no one will believe there are many of the latter nevertheless in one year nineteen thousand one hundred and ten of those blank envelopes were sent to the dead letter office then again people are careless aas well as absentminded absent minded and often misdirect or only partially address letters which never reach their destination unless the clerk in the dead let ter office can supply the missing link in three hundred and sixty five days over four hundred thousand such epis were received so it would seem that a thorough knowledge of cities and towns as well as patience practice and considerable shrewdness is necessary to correct the blunders of the writing public who but a dead letter office clerk with all her wits about her for a woman has charge of that branch of the work would imagine that bill town danl was intended for williamstown Williams town in that enterprising state in the foreign department letters are not opened it would be impossible said the brisk little woman in charge you see we receive a thousand letters a week from italy about two thousand from england and the same number from germany not to mention other countries we look them over and if we have any information that furnishes a clew try again to find the owners otherwise they are returned unopened to the postal administration of the country from which they come foreigners have a way of ignoring the states that causes dire confusion A letter directed to fairfield america is as many sided as the tariff question and about as hopeless st duskin america was easily located as sandusky oi but some letters become all tattered and torn in going to and fro throughout the states seeking an owner the russians give us the most trouble volunteered a bright woman who for thirteen years has been deciphering hieroglyphics and understands nil languages except chinese sufficiently for her work who would imagine that it required such a linguist to straighten out the tangled web of foreign correspondence considerable general information is also needed a knowledge of many countries and nations and of the various states where the different nationalities most do congregate and even then eternal vigilance will not insure success what becomes of all the dead mail matter is often asked the thousands of magazines illustrated papers pic ture cards and valentines that can not ie returned to their owners are distributed tri buted by order of the postmaster general among the inmates of the various hospitals asylums and other charitable institutions of the district of columbia so they are made to serve a good cause by carrying brightness and change inta many weary lives and happiness to the little waife waifs without a home although every effort is made to find owners for the various things that drift into the dead letter office so many packages remain unclaimed that at the end of each year an auction ia held it is a sort of departmental house cleaning no other sale in the cita draws such a crowd as unde sams annual sale of dead mail matter th packages are sold unopened and al though the contents are known th value is not it an irishman would call buying a pig in a sack of course it is a heterogeneous tion as in these days almost every thing goes by mail from a tuning aorl to a wedding trousseau which hattei was bought in new york several yean ago and sent in the mailbags mail bags across the continent to the pretty bride on th pacific coast the museum of the dead letter of fic always interests visitors then they seo what extraordinary thing people try to send through the mail and many interesting relics there an two big axes on exhibition which 1001 formidable enough for weapons and cause sigh beer to wonder whose purse was conj enough to pay postage on such weight articles A hitching post a loaded revolver and sleigh bells form a ties most unexpected among mail matter an indian scalp and a skull are very appropriate relics for uncle sams cemetery but they must be uncanny objects to find in a mail pouch among the odd things which attract attention is a letter from the far northwest where lumber is evidently more abundant than paper written on a large shingle jt has long been an open secret that alligators homed toads and all sorts of reptiles are smuggled through the mails if possible and uncle sam has on exhibition several specimens of the animal kingdom which he has confiscated surrounded by many strange and incongruous things is an old mailbag mail bag stained with blood which tells the story of a brave mans devotion to duty even unto death an arizona mail carrier who was killed by the apache indians in 1885 another interesting relic is the ancient leather bound volume of fifty three pages in which benjamin Pr anklin kept the accounts of the government when he was ter general in a still smaller book is a record of the uncalled for or misdirected years from 1777 to 1788 which numbered three hundred and sixty five we have made rapid strides in a century to reach an average of eighteen thousand dead letters a day although many of these letters are resurrected sent out into the world again and finally reach their destination there are multitudes of course beyond the ken even of a dead letter office clerk that can not be returned to their owners alakl what misery and misunderstandings may have been caused by the loss of some of theae letters the happiness of a life time perhaps or the success nevertheless th eless do not lay all the blame af uncle sams door for you know not what you may have left undone that you ought to have done george canning once said 1 I can prove any thing by statistics except the truth those people who are of his opinion may still have doubts in spite of a peep behind the scenes of the efficiency of the dead letter office as the public no longer accepts the i tion that figures will not lie el P giddings in N Y ledger |