Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-09-11
.,,oyf, THE DEAD LETTERS


,o,o.;sh;ng Carol ss'.ess Of Bnssness M-''
=, Di-ccti,ag Lefteys--A Feiaabto Street
DIRECTORY. !
From the New York Tritunel
In the fiscal year ended June ~.
1881, about $500 letters upon which
there was no superscription whatever
were sent to the Lead Letter Office, at
Washington. That these letters were
mostly written by practiced business
men was evident from the fact that they
contained Enclosures of more than aver
age value, and from other facts also.
The number of packages received at the
Dead Letter Office is annually increas-
ing.
Mr. Dallas, the chief, has perfected
a device to put misdirected city letters
in the way to their proper destination.
This is a printed directory of the streets
and avenues of all the cities, except two,
in the United States where the mails
are delivered by carriers. The directory
embraces the streets of 40 different
cities. The arrangement Is alphaDe'icai
by streets. For example, the first en-
tryis "A"street, and the directory shows
that twenty cities, in as many different
States. have each an "a" street. When
heoan the preparation OF this directo-
rv" said Mr.. Dallas, Z" [ intended it as
manuscript directory for the use of
this office alone and ] at first intended
to include only the fifty principal cities.
As the work advanced, however, its
usefulness and value became SO apparent
that l determined to include all the
cities embraced by the carrier delivery
service, and succeeded in procuring
correct street directories of all of them
except Little Rock, Ark, and Zanes-
vile, Ohio. The Postmasters of these
cities did not appear to appreciate the
usefulness of such directory When I
had the manuscript completed, it was
found so useful in this Office that it oc-
CURED to me that it would be valua-
BILE adjunct in all the larger postofices
of the country. l submitted it to Pest
master General James and he warmly
approved the iden, and so we have had
it printed. We shall begin to distrib-
ute it in few days, as soon as the books
are received from the bindery. Post
masters Pearson, of New York, Hinde-
keper, of Philadelphia, and others, to
whom the work has been submitted, are
warm in its praise.
Mr.. Dallas called attention to certain
questions which the directory is designed
to answer. For example, letter is ad-
dressed to John Smith, No. $50 Charter
Oak avenue (city and State ortfitted).
By the directory it will be seen that the
only Charter Oak avenue III any city is 10
Hartford, CT. Again, take the case of a
letter addressed to James Thompson,
ESQ, corner Eighth and Enos avenues,
Springfield, Mass. The Postmaster of
Springfield, Mass, knows the letter was
not intended for that city, because there
is no Enos avenue there. Turning to
the directory he finds that the only city
which contains an Enos avenue is Spring.
field, Ill. Another letter is addressed
say. to William T. Moore, Common
street, between Basin and Franklin
streets Getty and State omitted). By
consulting the directory it is found that,
while there is Common street in each
OF seven cities, the only one which has
also Basin street and Franklin street
is New Orleans, La, and the letter
should therefore be sent to that city.
The directory will be interleaved in
order to render it convenient for thu,
correction of errors and the addition @,
desirable information.