Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1883-05-10
FREAKS OF THE MAIL
How UnstampeG and MiSdirected Let.
iers Reach Their DestinatiOn..-A
Chat with the Indianapolis Post

How Unstampei; and N1iSdirected Let.
iers Reach Their DestinatiOn...A A
Chat with the indianapolis Post
masters
From the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.l
Postmaster Wildman of the Indian
apolis postoffice gave the following inter
esting account of articles which have
found their way into the dead letter
Office and were placed on sale at auction
short time ago. There are some very
queer things which gothrough the mails
nowadays, and the postoffice has really
become an express office. "Now, here,
Office, arc all sorts OF ieaelry, little
badies' stockings, hair switches. samples
of merchandise, combs. shoes, dresses
everything imaginable. The oueerest
thing of all is that they now very fire..
quently send me bees through the mails,
queen bees, l mean. You know queen
bee is necessary to every hive to govern
it and make it prosper, and they arc
sometimes worth as much as SIS per sin
gle bee. Well, such bees as that are
shipped all over the country, just like
blooded stock. We had one pass through
this office once for some point away down
III Texas. 1t is fun to see bow much
afraid Of them some of The men in the
office are when they go TO handle the
mail and hear one of those big queen
bees buzzing among the letters. OF
course they are used to handling lots Of
sweetness in love letters that pass
through their hands, but such honey has
no sting for anybody except the sender
or receiver. and those queen bees are
liable TO sting the first fellow that inter-
feres With their business"
Glow do they fix the bees for mail
ing?" queriea the reporter.
"They put them into little e,fora-
ted box and drop them right in, Just like
any other mail matter. This is general
ly female, however, but it goes for the
same postage. 1t is astonishing how
many people there are who drop letters
into the office without stamps, or without
any address or with wrong address.
Every day we have such cases, we han
die from 1000 to 5000 letters aud cards
here daily, and there is an average Ct
seven or eight letters dropped in among
them which are either without stamps or
with wrong address. Sometimes such
letters reach their destination, and at
other times they don't. 1t is sold that
in London the average of instructed
letters that 60 into the postoifice depart
ment remains proportionately the same
year after year, and from that fact some
wise philosopher argues that there is n
law governing chance, just as laws gov
ern everything else; that is, there is no
such thing rs "cbance," but thcle are
just so many people out OF every thou
sand who will become careless Just Sc
many times year, and they will keep
on doing so until the end of time,
Yesterday young lady, with whom l
happened to be acquainted, came to the
office and dropped q couple of letters
into the box without any stamps When
the clerk picked them up aud saw there
were no stamps, he laid them aside to be
sent to the dead letter Office, but l saw
the address was that of relative of this
young lady 1 speak of, and The thought
struck me that perhaps the or some of
her friends had sent them. Itelephoned
to her and found that my guess was cor
rect. l pnt stamps on and they went to
their destination. A day or two ago
Mol. -, a lawy er, came into the cffice
considerably out Of humor, and said
well, there is certainly something the
matter with the mails either at this Office
or at -, Ill. Two weeks ago | sent a
letter containing $40 to my daughter, at
-, ILL.,, and she has never received it:
somebody has got it and spent it, sup
pose. There is certainly something
wrong Well, I knew just what was
wrong, for / had on the day before re-
ceived that very letter from the
dead letter Office. He had directed it
to -, Indiana, instead OF Illinois, and
it bad there been advertised, then sent
back to the dead letter office, opened
and sent back here before that Major
found out that there was something
wrong We had another case Just like
thut few weeks ago. A party here
wanted to send draft for 5000 to n
creditor in Johnstown, N. Y. Instead
of that he directed it to Johnstown, In
diana. There used to be postotfice by
that name IN Indiana, but few weeks
before that letter was sent it was aban-
doned, and its mail ordered to 60 TO Hub
bell, Ind. This letter followed both
those changes, ,and then, after lying there
three months, finally, through the dead
letter office, got back here to the send
er. The postmaster neglected his duty
by not sending it sooner. In the mean :
while the man to whom it ought to have
gone iu New York wrote here to know
why he did not receive his 5000. He was
told it mad been sent, and n pretty sharp
correspondence ensued, which was all
caused by the sender's carelessness in
writing "Ind." instead of IN. Y"
cat the dead letter Office there is a de.
partment where men are employed all
the time trying to decjpher names and
addresses.
"Ihey use magnifying glasses, twist
and turn the letters around, and hold
them up to the light in all sorts of shapes,
in order to study out the addresses.
These men understand four or five Ian
guages, and become very expert in deci-
phering bad writing. Then they have
maps of all the principal cities, and
sometimes cause letters to reach their
destinations that have never had the ad-
dress written on them. 1 remember one
letter that went to the dead letter office
directed simply "NIrs. Sarah Brown,
No. 6 Massachusetts Avenue" There
was no city or state en- the envelope, but
the officer remembered that in Indiauap
oils there is Massachusetts Avenue,
and he sent it here and we delivered it to
the right party. Gen. - once wrote a
letter to Col. Dudley, commissioner OF
pensions Mt Washington, d. c., but .di-
rected it to Washington, Ind. The
clerk here, however, knew that
Dudley was at Washington, D. G.,
and he sent it there, and
it reached its destination, notwithstand-
ing the carelessness of the sender. There
used to be postmaster who said that
d. G. stood for the Dominion of Canada,
and he always sent all letters directed to
Washington, ID. c., over into Canada.
We delivered hat here last winter that
had no name on it at all. It came
wrapped in piece of brown paper, di.
rected simply to indianapolis. Inside
that paper was another wrapper-a news
paper which had the name of man
away out in Kansas. / wrote then to
the postmaster at that place, and asked
him If there were such a person as that