Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-11-27

stance, would ever suppose that Mao
i1annahs lie" stands for Mechanicsville
n. Y, or "Squill" or "Squelle" fol
Schuylkill, Pa? Schenectady" New
York, is f~earfully mutilated in some ad
dresses; and Key West, Florida, | saw
myself written as "Kivvest." Such minor
variations as "Sjikago" for Chicago, ant
"kesselgarten" for Castle Garden, are
only amusing, and not troublesome, while
they are easily excused and accounted
Tor by their evident Dutch or Germas
origin.
HaVlng thus enumerated the causes
which consign this vast multitude of let
tiers to the Dead Letter Office, we will now
see IN what manner they are disposed of
At the outset, we were informed that one
OF three things would invariably be the
tate OF every letter received in this office
the first Of which, although the least prob
able one, was the delivery of the letter to
the person to whom it is addressed, after
merely a temporary delay. Sometimes
the officials in this office succeed in deci
pherlng addresses which nave been given
up by the less expert officers in the other
departments of the office, or outside post
offices. again, in the case of a letter i'm,
perfectly addressed, the full address NAV
be ascertalned upon opening it, when it
can be forwarded accordingly, after the
necessary delay by passing through this
Office. These instances, however, are ex-
ceptlonal, as, in the majority of cases, let
tiers cannot be mailed to the persons for
whom they are intended, but only return
ed to the writers. Only when the name
and address of the writer cannot be as
certalned by opening the letter, or when
1t is found to be merely a printed circular
OF no value, is it consigned to the waste.
basket, and subsequently to the paper
mill: Thus, the number of letters with
out Enclosures remailed to the writer's in
1870 was 1,S42,325, of which 1,4S7, O21
were delivered, and 355, 3O4 returned to
the Dead Letter Office for the second
time, after having remained a month in
the post-Office from which they were sup
posed to be mailed in the first place. Re
turning here for the second time, they are
killed" and consigned to the paper-bas-
ket and the mill.
This business of returning letters to the
writers gives occupation to about sixty
lady clerks in the "Return-Letter Depart
ment," in the gallery upstairs. To them
belong the duties of r~e-enveloping the
letters in the well-known, yellow, dead
letter envelop, by which, under an act of
Congress approved June 10, 1866, these
are returned to the writers free of charge.
At another desk is a lady who tends ex-
clusively to the return of all request"
letters, by which, in post-otfice parlance,
is understood such as have the card or
address Of the sender printed or written
on the outside. These are returned ac-
cordingly, in their original envelopes, u n
opened and free of charge. Another lady
Is engaged in returning letters containing
postage-stamps and small amounts Of
fractional currency; and, close by, is
seated quite a bevy of fair clerks, indus
trlously engaged in ~rewrapping and mail
ing photographs, and the letters contain
ing them, to their senders. And the num-
Der Of this kind of letters and Enclosures
is very great. Thus, for instance, last
year there were returned to the send
ers 3S,O09 letters containing photographs,
of which 32,91S were duly delivered,
while 2,1S1 were again returned to the
Dead-Letter Office, and there "tiled for
reclamation" Since photographs have
become so cheap, the number which
daily passes through the mails is enOr-
nous. Especially during the war, pho
tographic cards were sent by millions,
and the receipts at this office were CORE
spOndingly increased, necessitating the
employment of an extra force to return
such of them as could not be delivered.
Thousands, however, came back to the
office for the second time, and these were
all inserted in an immense album, con-
tanning several thousand portraits, which
is kept in the sO-called "museum" at
tached to the Dead-Letter Office, and
shown to visitors as one of its CuriOSities.
In this museum, which is located in a
rnnn aijnjpIpr tho main hgll of tho n.aI.
Letter Office, is stored away a multitude
Of articles which form one of the most
heterogeneous and curious collections
that | have ever seen. If the objects
which are here collected were not for the
greater part new, they would remind one
more of a pawnbroker shop than of any
thing else. There are rings, watches,
brooches, earrings, chains, eyeglasses,
lace collars, c~igar-holders, embroideries,
fancy slippers, necktics, gloves (by the
gross, babies dresses, bOnnets, home
made socks, pocket handkerchiets, fans,
meerschaum pipes, and articles of bUou-
te11e without number. There is scarcely
an article that can pass through the mails
that is not represented here. There were
even sewing-machines, razors, models,
mantel clocks, and books by the hundred.
All these things are here stored away I'M
der lock and key, awaiting to be reclaim
ed by the sender. If no reclamation has
been made for a CERTAIN number of years
they are disposed of at public auctions and
the proceeds deposited in the United
States Treasury. In like all mon
ey not reclaimed at the expiration Of three
years is transferred to the Treasury; still
subject, however, to the call and DISPOSE
ton of any claimant who may appear and
prove his identity.
1t may not be uninteresting here to
give some of the experiences of the Brit
ish Dead-Letter office in regard to these
so-called property-letters. While with us
there can scarcely be said to exist any
certain section of the country from which
letters containing money or articles OF
property come in greater numbers than
from others Excepting in the large cities,
whose quota of these, as of all other let
tiers, is, of course, at all times %preponder-
ating over the rural DISTRICTS, the London
office has a different experience. In the
interesting work on "Her Majesty's
Mails" already quoted, Mr.. Lewins says:
1--WE are assured that the letters them
selves, and the articles found in the
Scotch and Irish dead-letters, illustrate no
little the character, the feeling, the habits
of the two peoples. The Scotch have,
comparatively speaking, the tewest dead
letters, and, as the writers are generally
careful to give their addresses inside the
letters, little trouble is said to be expert
enced in returning them, if it is neces-
sary. The Irish dead letters are more
numerous than either the English or the