Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1875-08-06
Writing Letters.

lren@us " makes some very sensi.
bly, suggestions in the New York Observer
which are put to any locality. We
make few extracts;
So many letters have been gathering
upon my table, from known and un-
known friends, that must be pardoned
for making general answer, without
copying the inquiries in full to which
these lines reply. Some letters l can
not write without fear of making mis-
take.
Mr., Mrs, OR Miss.
Thus A letter comes to me, and is
now opened, signed A. l.. Paterson.
1t is lady's handwriting probably, but
not certainly, for the distinction Is not
always very clearly marked; some men
making their style so feminine as to
deceive an expert, and so many women
writing in hand so masculine as to
assert their right to such recognition.
But there is no clue to the fact, and, if
| were to write in reply to the questions
in the letter, l could not address my
answer to Mr., Mrs, or Esq. for have
not the least idea of the personality of
my correspondent.
Another is from Hannah F. Wilson
Shall the answer be addressed to Miss
or Mrs, or shall it go without either ?
1t is not decorous 30 dispense with the
prefix, but who can guess, from the
handwriting of letter, whether the
writer is married or single? +?
The same perplexity is often occa-
stoned by the neglect of clergymen in
writing to those who are not personally
acquainted with them. They think it
not modest to give their title, Rev., and
their letters must therefore be answered
at venture | sometimes search the
list of all the clergy, in all the year
books within reach, to find out whether
or no an unknown correspondent is a
clergyman, and of course, if | do not
hit upon his name among twenty thou
sand or more, | assume that he is not
one of them. 1t has Just been decided
in England that, unless minister is in
the Established Church, he is not en-.
titled to the title of Rev, even ON his
gravestone. But as we have no ridicu-
lous institution as that in this country
it is well to put the proper prefix to q
mans name on the back of his letters
as we'll as on his tombstone.
WHERE FRoM2
You write to me, dating your letter
Greenville, or Cambridge, or Spring
field, or Newport, or New Haven. You
add no State, and the post-mark is, in
nine cases out of ten, mist and affords
no clue to your address. Then / take
my Gazetteer and find there are twenty.
three places by the name of Greenville
in as many different States There are
eighteen by the name of Cambridge
and as many more of fifty other towns
and how shall / know which of them
has the honor of holding you among its
accomplished inhabitants 1t is my
fault, perhaps that | have not learned
that you are well known as the princi.
pal person in the city of Plunket, To.
CANNON county, Texas but l did moi
know it.
In writing for the press, and especial.
ly in sending any money or notices, or
news, be very particular to direct the
outside envelope to the editors or pub.
fishers of the paper, and not to any in
dividnal editor of it. You send no
tice, or money order, or an item OF
news, addressed to one of the number.
He may be at the head of Moose Lake,
or suffering vivisection by the black
flies of the Upper Saranac. Your letter
will go toward him the next day, and,
in the course of week or two, it will
find him perhaps and perhaps not.
And, in the course of the summer or
fall, it will get back to the Office Please
bear in mind therefore, and all the year
round, that letters ON business should
be addressed to the firm as distinctly
announced at the head of every news
paper
AN APOLOGY
If there is degree of bluntness in
the hints given above let me make this
apology, that 1 wished to say things in
way to be understood and remembered
and in SO doing may have spoken
roughly. But you will not fail to COM
mand your production to the favor of
the printer, if you will bear these hints
in mind and practice upon them. But
if you forget them, and break over all
the rules here so rudely laid down, i
will still be your friend.
She tried to sit down in the street
car but was pinned back so tight she
could not. Old lady peeped over her
| snac's and asked her =