The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-11-16

correspondent doesn't send to the Dead
Letter Office and claim his money-the
money he sent so faithfully each month to
Maria Russell, even for ten years after
she was dead and gone. A large number
of claims have been made for the money
since the publication last year, and .
variety of singular stories have been told
to account for the manner in which the
correspondence was conducted.
One man wrote to inform the Postef1ce
Department that he was the person who
had been sending the money to Maria
Russell these forty years agone, but as
his manuscript was in every way dissim-
liar from that in tire original letters he
was at once pronounced an impostor.
A man in Sturgis, Mich, has told the
strangest story and put in the strongest
claim. He says that he is one of fam
lily of five children, four brothers and one
daughter. In 1885 his father and mother
separated, the father taking the boys and
the mother the girl, and the father agree
ing to pay five dollars month for his
daughters support as long as he lived.
but to have no communication with her
in any way whatever. He says, this man
in Michigan, that his father used to send
the money in the manner described as
long as he lived with him, but having
some differences about 1916 they, the
father and son, separated, the latter going
West, where he has resided ever since,
without having heard once from the rest
of his family He said he was in no need
of the money, but would like very much
to know if the strange correspondents
were his father and sister. He would
identify the writing, he thought, if they
would send him one of the letters.
Mr.. Russell's letter was strongly in
dorsed by several prominent residents of
Sturgis, who bore testimony to his good
character and general worthiness.
Mr.. Dallas, the Superintendent of the
Dead Letter Office, replied that while he
greatly desired to oblige Mr.. Russell, it
was not permitted to send any of the let
tiers out of the office; but if Mr.. Russell
was ever in Washington he would be glad
to give him any information in his power
and show him any papers in the depart
ment relating to the case. The law re-
quired that these letters and their contents
be reclaimed within three years, at the
end of which time the money Enclosures
which they cannot be recovered without
special act of Congress.
On a recent visit to the Dead Letter
Office saw the silent, inanimate relics of
this strange mystery. A pile of plain,
yellow envelopes, marked with some
hieroglyphics peculiar to the dead-letter
men, indicating their reference to the
books of the bureau. If they conld talk
what a strange story they might tell.
What theme for romance are these
dead letters-dead in every respect. For
lorn, too, the speechless wanderers, with
neither their writer nor their intended re-
cipient to reclaim them. opened one of
tiem-there was no date, no signature;
and written in the center of page of blue
note paper, with pale ink, in an old-fash-
toned hand that appeared to have been
uncertain with age, were these few un-
suggestive words:
inclose you the money as usual I
will send more the first of next month.
You need not write. ''-Wna. e. Curtis, in
fIhIrnn0 Infpr-0rp0n