Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-07-14
Safe Seals for Letters.

Safe Seals for Letters.
I, is the popular belief that when ..
,.4ter is registered for transmission
iie.onoh the mail P~ostoffice Depart
. .naut Guarantees the safe delivery Of its
ne s4snts. presumably valuable. It does
co 'aLinc Of the kind. All the Govern
noln . Undertakes to do is to guard the
ne eaer as far as possible against any
sen"u a,;nc with registered package
tal al lin which all registered letters
en-. ;nclosed) by employees of the Post
arr a;oa Department. 1t does not insure
' olav sender against possible loss, as the
tnr companies do. All it promises
eN tHhat if the letter miscarry, or be ex-
s,nnd from the registered package
onvelope, the letter can be traced from
en,ill' agent to mail agent until the
nn ,1 is discovered. If found he is
wished. but the loser gets no return
t"am the Government for the loss of his
locks. bonds, or money. 1t appear
.rom the official record that during the
l n" ending June 80. 1882, 1852
; !eri letters and parcels were
fon1nd to have been tempered with. OF
these 4,O76 were subsequently delivered
o. satisfactorily accounted for, but there
we're 2,513 missing packages which had
NOT been heard Of at the date of the
Postmaster Generals last annual report.
The owners of the missing property had
no redress under the law. Yet on the
lamp-post letter-boxes, directly under
the delivery timetable, appears this
notice. Letters containing articles of
value should be registered The fore
Going figures show that the present
system Of registration does not mean
security.
Nevertheless, so great is the public
confidence in the registration system,
that this department Of the postal SER
vice shows a steady increase from year
to wear. The report of the Postmaster
General for the fiscal year ending June
80, 1882, says that the total number of
registered letters and parcels handled
by7 the postotfice authorities during the
twelve months was 9,627,922; of which
1900, 118 were domestic letters, 1893, 10Y
letters to foreign countries, and 1,212,-
943 official letters and packages for
warded. by the Government. The amount
of registry fees collected was $751;
497.9 go, an increase over the previous
wear of $128,615 or 10 per cent. The
increase in the total number of letters
and parcels registered was 1889, 6O4.
The number Of registered envelope
packages handled in the city of New
York in 1872 was 4,599, 554; in Phila-
delphia, 817,404; in Chicago, 1,188, 035;
in St. Louis, 81, 1876, 7O5, and the total
value of the gold coin conveyed through
the registered mail was no less than
s7,295,OOO.
These figures show at a glance the
Importance of the system of letter regis
%tration, which is a daily convenience to
all the business interests of the country,
and it is greatly to the credit of the Gov
eminent that all the safeguards that the
law permits to be applied are promptly
put to use under the capable supervision
Of Third Assistant Postmaster General
defect that has not yet been mas
tered, and to the end that greater
security may be assured, a pat
ented registered envelope with a
metallic device, and without the use of
any glutinous matter, has recently been
devised for the better protection of the
public. The style Of registered envelope
now in use, of which about IA, 900, 900
are annually required for the service of
the department, consists of strong ma
nilla paper, with double flaps simply
gummed together. It is a perfectly
easy matter to steam open these flaps,
extract the contents of the envelope,
reseal it, and forward the package to
its destination, with no apparent indi-
cation that it had been tempered with.
The new device lately brought to the
notice of the Postmaster General substi-
tutes for the gummed flap a patent me-
tallic rivet, made of a compound of
hard metals, which is fattened by COM
preston after the envelope is filled, and
cannot be removed except by the mutt
lation Or destruction of the package.
The invention is as simple as tits effect
i've, and its practical utility is vouched
for by one of the experts of the registra-
ton division of the Postotfice Depart
ment at Washington, who frankly states
in a letter dated April 4, 1888, that, in
pursuance of his official duty, he at.
tempted, but in vain, to break open an
envelope so sealed.
Conceding that the registration Of let.
tiers is a large source of income to the
Government, and that there is no abso-
lutte insurance against loss by theft, i
IS manifestly judicious to make it a
difficult as possible to tamper with 6
registered envelope, and this end seems
to have been reached. The attention O
the officials of the Postoftice Depart
ment has been called to this device, ant
an examination into its merits is nov
being made.-National Republican.
Trailing After Savages.
An Indian outrage has been commit
ted. Troops accompanied by scout