The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-05-09
Extracts from Christian NeighbOr
How Should Mail Matter Be Ad"
- dressed?


.-f. dressed?
Recently some of the papers have
been discussing the form OF addressing
letters.
The Carolina Spartan sets the mat
ter before it's readers in this wise:
How shall we address our letters?
Some of the business houses are now
sending out return. envelopes with the
post office first in largest letters. Thus !:
COLUMBIA, S. c., -..
SMITH & MoNTEITH.
Several years ago Rev. Sidi H.
Browne advocated that style in his
Neighbor and gave as his reason
that the destination was the most i'm
portant, because that was the only
thing that concerned the postmasters
and route agents until the letter was at
its journeys end. The postmaster at
its destination was the only one re-
quired to read the name of the person
addressed. The postal regulations
give no instructions as to the order
in which the different parts of the ad-
dress should come. It is said that,
now and then, postmasters refuse to
send letters addressed as above, be-
cause they claim that they are improp-
erly addressed. There may be a rul-
ing from the department on that mat
ter, but if there is not, it would not be
safe for q postmaster to make an issue
on that point.
As reference is made to the NEIGH
BoR and its editor it may not be out of
place for us to say that we have many
years, with occasional exceptions,
practiced the form in the example CIV
Ell by the Spartan with this difference: {:
We have the State first, the post office
second, thus:
SOUTH CAROLINA, (or S. c.
COLUMBIA,
SMITH AND MoNTEITH.
If it Is desired to give the address ad-
ditional particularity as may be neces-
sary in large cities the name of the
city is followed by that of the street
with the No. of the house. Thus:
KENTUCKY (or KY.)
LOUISVILLE,
CHESTNUT ST., 321,
WIN. B. JOHNSON.
Some persons, among them a few
postmastsrs, to whom we have sub.
mitted this form of address have said
it would be great advantage over the
old style If the people would only
adopt it.
Such is the force of long existing
custom that it would take a long time
to effect such change in addressing
letters even with majority of those
who use the mail. We know of some
persons besides ourself who observe
the new form of address. 1t is pre-
sumed that they do so because of the
natural order of the several parts OF
the address.
IF this later form of address were
generally adopted it would save much
time and labor of postmasters and
would doubtless reduce the number of
mistakes which are almost unavoida-
BILE when the amount of mail matter to
be handled and read by postmasters is
taken into the account.
It will be seen that the new depart
ure simply places the last part of the
old form first and the first part last.
In adopting the new form we have
never claimed originality further than
TO say we did not know OF hear that
any person had adopted it before our
rel1 nor have we, since the beginning,
learned anything to the contrary. .
Postal, officials, including mail
agents aud city carriers and all who
send matter through the mails are re-
spectfully requested to compare the
two forms in point of advantage, re-