New Orleans daily crescent., 1866-08-28

a female correspondent of Life Illustrated
gives the following account of visit to the dead
letter office at Washington:
We had been fortunate enough to procure the
eat-ee TO this place. through special favor ana IN
iuence, although as a general thing no yislloTs
are admitted twas large, light room VIII wv w
or three desks, at which were seated aged 9LaeeEs
in silent occupation among literal drifts y ieissLs
The walls were lined on every side WI WIN fose
mail sacks, which had been retnfle9 Iuli % au-
claimed epistes, from myriads Of postolnces'
There might have been fifty ora hundred OF these
sacks, and each probably contained thousands on
ov rsn;Siv =, ron dispose of them said
watching 4he spsed with which the clerks tore
open the epistIes giancing over them to see that
no GRATIS chses ss N then threw them upon an i'm
nense hespof opened letters at their feet
II r all habit, ma'am,n said the gentleman
nearest me. q We are accustomed to open GER
faiDnumher daily, and to those who donot under
stand the expedition and accuracy with which We
work it would seem, indeed, almost Incredible
As he spoke, a tiny gold ring rolled from the
folds Of rosetinted letter, whose pages were evi-
IDENTIFY written over by a delicate female hand.
9. chldis ring, = he said, taking it up, would
ven like to look at it, ma am ~
took it in my hand-it was fairy circlet Of
virgin gold with the words g Mary to Z. VI en-
grayed within-and I wondered who the Mary
was and whether the little E. W. who never
received the tiny gift, was dead or living.
Meanwhile the clerk had been taking rapid
survey of the signature, direction, etc.
"What will you do with it ~ inquired, return
ing the ring to his care.
1--WE lay all such things aside, in case they
should be called for.o
stAnd are they often TedeemedE
g Not often-not once in hundred instances, y
he replied, taking little gold dollar from beneath
the seal Of another letter, and laying it carefully
under the desk.
We stood in silence regarding the pile Of
opened letters which was growing higher with
every moment. 1t was strange medley of
styles and handwriting. Some were inscribed on
huge sheets of foolscap, in manner that con-
veyed the impression to your mind that the writer
must have grasped the pen with both hands, and
gone at the paper as he would dig spade into
earth and folded with glorious disregard of all
geometrical precision; others, again, were daintly
written on colured tissue paper, and some were
in that easy, flowing hand that bespeaks energy
and refinement of character in the calgrapher.
ss'0h, how IWould ike to read these letters,'
The official smiled. ssThis is what all the ladies
say. 1t would be almost impossible to preserve
our charge from the curiosity of the female sex,
if, fortunately, our rules do not protect US from
many visitors.
Do you ever read them?p
Never, unless they seem very important or
contain Enclosures of amount. 1t is all we can
do to keep up with the arrival of the dead mails
now. If we were to stop to read one letter in a
hundred we shall be lamentably behind hand; be-
sides the privacy of these letters is a point of
them here, when unnecessary, than to pry into
any other personal secrets.'
Here one of the clerks leaned over and handed
our companion tiny package.
9 From one Of the lettersn he said, g /
thought the lady might feel interested in It,"
1t was single curl of golden hair tied with
bit Of pink ribbon, and wrapped in a little piece
hair n Esp't' 3 60 IT 49, DaDs :
Iknew the history Of that letterin an instant,
though had never looked on its folds. ! could
see the fair young mother parting the sunny
tresses from the infant head, and placing it with
smile and half tear within the closely written
page that was to gladden. the heart Of the far
away husband. And he never received the letter.
Perhaps he died under the mighty shadow of
Sierra Nevada; perhaps the turf of some Missis-
sippi valley lay close on his pulseless heart,
while she, the faithful wife, was growing more
sad, less hopeful with every day that brought no
Baby7s hairl' could not bear that the
bright curl should be thrown earelessly among
the host Of letters; il seemed like Dissertation.
May keep this little lockn
Certainly. ii you Hke.H
and placed it carefully in my retieule with
tender hand. / know not where the sorroWing
young mother hearts breaking, day by day, but
certain am that there is aninvisble bond Of sym
pathy between her soul and mine clashed by a
lock Of curling, silky gold" "baby's hair"
It would be in vain to attempt to chronicle the
numerous Enclosures which dropped from the va
Tious letters which were opened during the short
space Of time we stood there. Bits of rainbow
silk, sent for patterns, tiny muslin collars, news
paper paragraphs bank bills, gold, cards, coarsey
written messages from little ones at home, whose
handswere guided by the mother or sister, so that
the absent father, cousin, or brother, might have
little letter, and numerous other affecting
relics.
Where do all these letters go when they have
been opened and examined; are they burned?i
Mo- that was formerly the custom, however.
We used to make bonfres of them, but aside from
the fact that bits of written papers would escape
aI1T IL,
letters, it was found that many people made it
business to seek among the ashes for the gold
levels, dollars etc., which often escape our no
tiee here and 60 out in the opened letters So
now they are all sent to paper mill and remanu-
faetured as writing material .
We passed into another room where many me-
mentoes ofth good old days before the law Of
prepaylng postage went into effect. There were
Two OF three huge stones which had been sent for
2 3oke,' involving an immense amount of postage,
fobe paid by some unfortunate who luckily never
received the pOnder0us package, q gigantic rag
baby, said TO have been sent to some vinegar
laced old maid-a neatly manufactured night cap
which some indignant old bachelor-nare not re-
eorded--refused, in high dndgeon to receive, and
winch consequently found its way here, and 4 da.
guefreotype Of young man, which had been
cracked across the nose, and wrathfnlly sent back
by some fair damsel with whom he had quarreled
We asked the postmaster general TO whom we
were introduced, how it happened that all the
employees in the dead letter Office happened to be
gray-haired old men.
because Ihey nave more discretion and less
curiosity he said smiling. Younger men could
not be depended upon; they would probably read
the letters oftener.n
And why do you not employ ladiesg I am
quite sure they could discharge the duties ADM.
Tably.p
lndeedn said the postmaster general, mis-
chievously Fam afraid their curiosity would be
so aoextreme that the department would fall into
inextricable confusion, to say nothing of the num-
ber Of secrets they would ferret out of the dead
letters'
We were SO indignant at this horrible and heret-
1cal opinion, that we asked no further questions
but took our leave, much gratifed with our novel
and interesting experience in the dead letter Office
at Washington.
MoRE AMOUR THE FIsH.-Co Concerning the accom-.
modahons for the shad in the Susquehanna, men
ton Of which was made yesterday, the Wrights-
yAte star says; Workmen are now engaged in
forming coner-dam, fifty by seventy eight feet
m lts dimensions, to be stuck ia the river ifnme-
diately above the site selected for the erection Of
the Snsquehanna canal company, of a sluce OF
passage way in the canal dam below this place to
facilitate the passage of fish up the stream The
sluce Will be made in the dam about one-thirt the
distance over from the York county Shore 1t is
to be forty feet in width at the lower edge of the
dam, and will extend up the river the distance Of
sixty feet, narrowing to twenty feet width at the
upper end, and will extend thirty feet M stream
4r0u the end M ha