The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1884-04-19

show us through announced his
readiness and we start upon cur
tour. We enter q large room in
which are nearly . hundred clerks,
busy as bees On every hand
there are mailbsgs and great
heaps Of epistolary corpses and
papers readyto meet their fate.
"Here,n says the guide, as we ap
preached long desk. where half
a dozen ladies with quick eyes and
nimble fingers are busily at work,
us where the dead letters are re-
ceived, from more than fifty thous-
and different postoflices in the
United States. You see they are
all done up in packages, the wrap
per showing the nature of their
contents, and addressed to this
office. About 14,000 letters are
handled at this table every day.
Our force is inadequate to do our
constantly increasing work, and
our "openers," are now two or
three weeks behind. In that large
case you see yonder are over 300,.
900 letters tied up in packages of
100 each, waiting to be opened.
"Let me open for you one of the
packages that has just come in this
morning. Here is o large ono
from Chicago. That will show
you the different classes of letters
We have. These ladies look them
all over and sort them, and then
they are sent to other desks for
examination. Now look at these
letters. The first we come to, you
see has no stamp. We get about
600 of these every day. Strange,
isn't it, that SO many people,
through carelessncss, mail un.
stamped letters. That letter is
not dead and II legibly address
cd we send a notice to the person
to whom It is directed, informing
him that q letter for him is held
here for postage. The chances are
q hundred to one that he will im-
mediately send the required stamp,
and we stick 1t on his letter and
mail it to him. If we get no an
swer to the notice in due time, 1.-The
letteris then treated as dead, open.
ed and returned to the sender.
That Is the way that class is dis
posed Of"
"Now here Is another kind.
This one is misdirected; 1t has
the town and county but no State.
The postmaster could not send II,
and had no alternative but to for
ward It to the dead letter Office.
We get more than a thousand a
day that come under this head.
They embrace all sorts Of errors in
address, as well as those that are
illegible, for you know some peo'
pie try to write when they can't,
and the result Is, nobody can read
1t. The department does not al
low $4,000 postmasters to do the
guessing. liza letter is not prop
erly and legibly addressed II mus
be sent here, and we have some
experts whose solo business 1t il
to do the guessing. And they ar'
good guessers too.
"Look at this one. tits proper
, " sealed and stamped, but the en-
velop Is blank, there isn't th'
scratch of . pen upon 1t anywhere
Forty or fifty Of these come her
daily. Of course such mistake
are attributed only to carlessnes
or inadvertence. And 1t is q Sin
! gular fact that a much greater pei
, centage Of these unadressed lei
ters, than Of any other class W
get, have valuable Enclosures, sue
/. as money, checks and drafts, the
!. are largely business letters, show
, ing that they are mailed from off
= ces and counting-rooms, the fats
r omissions resulting from the hui
~ and confusion Of business
!. But it seems queer that there VT
a SO many of them. We can d
o nothing but open and return then
f Here are a number returned frof
A hotels. We have no possibl
q means of knowing the permanen
Q address of those persons, and W
can enly treat them as dead.
Q "These, you observe. were mai
d edin Germany, England, France
T etc. They will be returned III
a opened, to those countries. Her
y are couple of registered letter.
d They undoubtedly contain value
n which will be returned to the sens
ers. But it often happens that
man sends money or q draft,
i either a registered or an ordinar
i letter, while travelling. He date
u his letter at the place where h
Q happens to be. We can only sen
a 1t to him there, and Of course
J. comes back to us again. Pos