Daily Los Angeles herald., 1884-04-20
ODDITIES IN THE MAILS.
unaddrcssed Packages that are
Collected Daily.
New York sun.I

New York SUM-
What they call "nice service"
in the postoflico is tho discovery
of the owners OF what are termed
unaddressed packages. Every
day there is a great hamper full
of small matter, the addresses OF
which have been either jostfed
of by the rough handling Of the
mail pouches or which have never
been put on. The problem is to
discover, in the heterogeneous
mass of packages and addresses,
which package belongs to a par
ticular address. One of the
methods Of discovery which Post
master Pearson has adopted is to
sort out all tho wrappers which
contain the address OF the sender.
Each wrapper or part OF an ad-
dress, or anything to identify the
package, is enclosed with note
from Postmaster Pearson to the
sender, asking a description Of
the article it covered, or to which
it was attached, in order that the
rightful owner may get tho prop
erty. In this woy many valuable
things are restored. At one time
tho carelessness Of publishers Of
foreign journals was 80 great that
q large part OF the delivery was
from the inquiry window. Last
year more than 1000 wrappers
were identified in this way, and
about 5000 packages restored to
the owners. In many cases, how.
ever, research proved fruitless,
and, for one cause and another,
about 5000 packages went to the
Dead Letter Office.
Every day many persons try TO
send through the mails things
which are not mailable, such as
hair oil, ointments, and other
liquids, explosives, grease, dead
animals, snakes, vegetables, candy,
substances with bad odor, edge
tools, unprotected glass, wedding
cake, etc. These things 60 straight
to the Dead Letter Office unless
called for soon. The owners OF
packages of value are promptly
notified that they had better take
their things away.
In one day the following-named
articles were received among the
unaddressed packages: Wall pa
per, watch cases, a fiat piece of
wood, wheels, wells, view of the
Giants Causeway. lady's shoe
upper, type, thread, pipe, six
samples of tea, n silk tic, q tidy,
a spool Of red twist, five spools Of
thread, a sheep skin, samples Of
satin, n spectacle case, rubber
car spring, six hanks of silk, o
paper OF screws, pair Of black
sleeve buttons, steel peg, a
wooden roller, ribbon, o steel
rod, copper rivet, four finger
rings, two papers of needles, Q
napkin ring, manuscript SER
mon, a measure, pair Of mittens,
lozenges, four keys, two knives,
baby's jacket, a lady's hat, a
dozen watch hands, pair of
hinges. a cast iron hook. pair OF
gloves, n white fichu, four elec-
trotypes, n package of ultramarine
blue, thirteen chromos, iron cast.
ings, china cover, ll3 Christmas
cards, three watch chains, two
collar buttons, visiting cards, a
baggage check, a rattan basket, a
plush basket, shoulder braces, n
white satin bow, a package of
postage stamps, a photograph
album, a package of yarn, two
razors, u child's skirt, toy books,
calico, buttons, sugar, coffee,
butter, pills, a shell hairpin, a
pincushion, gold lead pencil,
three gold pens, ladies photo
graphs, an alligator skin pocket
book, breastpin, a brass card
plate, n meerschaum pipe, and
ball of white yarn.
Wedding cake is confiscated
every day, and candy also. Not
long ago box of candy address.
ed to a child was found to con-
tain $45 in gold, which was re,
stored to the owlier. Among the
odd things recently found have
been large cactus weighing one
and a-half pounds, living horn
ed toad, coloring matter for adult
Grating beer, artificial eyes and
teeth, cigars and wine.
A curious feature of unaddress-
ed packages lately has been the
number of pocketbooks found in
the lamp post boxes. 1t appears
that the pick-pockets have taken
this means of returning to their
owners whom they have robbed
tho valuable contents of pocket
books, generally papers which are
OF no use to any one but the
owners. The thieves in this way
get rid of articles that might |
lead to their conviction, and at
the same time assuage tho losses
of the pocketbooks in some meas
urc. They OF course have no
time to do up II package, but |
drop the articles into tho most |
convenient boxes.
Money is often found loose in
the lamp post boxes and mail
pouches. Superintendent Jones,
of the Inquiry Department, shows
with pride receipts for various
sums returned to the owners,
varying from Sl0,000 check to a
few dollars. Tho check was put
in an unaddressed envelope. One
poor boy dropped his weeks
salary in by mistake, another
dropped S33 in an unaddressed !
envelope, and another $500.
Il