Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-07-04
odd THINGS IN THE MAIL.
Ia MUSEUM OF cURIosITIEs IN THE
DEAD-LETTER OFFICE.
iAbout $4,000 Letters Go Astray Every
Day-A Box OF Lively Rattlesnakes
in a Consignment.

lAbout $4,000 Letters Go Astray Every
Day-ABox OF Lively Rattlesnakes
in Consignment.
The Dead-Letter Office in this city is,
hn one sense, says Washington letter to
the New York World, the greatest muse
Tum in the world, for there are daily re-
@ceiyed the queerest things imaginable.
Everything that goes astray in Uncle
SSam's mail goes to that Office, and in the
course of year every conceivable kind
Aof an article is received. Once each year
the Department has a clearance sale of
the miscellaneous articles which have ac-
Acumulated during the twelve months,
land about II, 900 are disposed of at each
=sale.
1t is estimated that every day in the
year about $4,000 letters, parcels and
packages go astray in the mails, nearly
all of which find their way to the Dead
Letter Office. As fast as received this
great mass of mail matter is assorted,
opened and classified. The Dead-Letter
Office is not very large, but it is one of
the busiest places in the National capital
at any hour of the day. The operatives
employed are nearly all women, as they
,are more accurate and skilful than men
in'Opening, asserting, correcting and re-
turning the stray mail matter.
All about the room are tables piled
high with letters, parcels and packages.
About twenty five men and women are
engaged here. In the gallery above,
seated at tables, are sixty women, who do
nothing but read the letters received, in
aorder to determine if they are of sufficient
importance to be returned to the writer's
All kinds of letters are subject to their
perusal, from the daintily perfumed bill
let-doux filled with love and endearing
terms, to the brief and prosaic business
letter of the hurried commercial man.
Many are the ardent messages breathing
the hearts sweetest emotions that are
perused by these unsentimental women
and then consigned to- the flames, for all
letters that are not returned to the writers
are burned. If these women were given
to gossip, many are the mysteries they
could unravel, the tales they could tell,
land in many cases perhaps explain the
reason "that the letter that he longed fo!
never came"
Misdirected and only partially addressed
letters are turned over to woman who
from long experience has acquired great
skill in studying out addresses and who
knows every city, town, village and ham,
let in the country. She also knows the
names of the streets in the different cities
:and is, in fact, veritable United States
Gazetteer. From her almost infinite
knowledge of names and places, the
faculty of deciphering all kinds of illegi-
BILE chirography and her familiarity with
English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
and Russian she is enabled to send to the
:rightful claimants, unopened, about fifty
per cent. of the misdirected and partially
addressed letters received.
As rule, English, German and
French are the prevailing languages used
in addressing letters, although those in
;scribed in Italian, Hebrew, Spanish,
Arabic, Persian, Russian, and, in fact,
every other tongue, reach New York
from sea voyage, and many of them are
:sent to the DeadLetter Office to be de-
sciphered and readdressed in English, SC
that the postmasters, whose linguistic ac-
accomplishments are limited, may deliver
them in the good old nglo-Saxon.
All letters which cannot be deciphered
by the expert are turned over to force
.of clerks, who open them and remove all
-valuables. They are then put up in
packages of 100 each and sent to the
sixty readers. Money, checks, drafts
and all valuables taken from the letters
ARE returned to the sender, unless the
party for whom they are intended can be
found. Last year nearly $40, 200, ,00(
was taken from letters, all of which wa!
returned except about $4,000, the owners
.of which could not be found.
Connected with the department of the
Dead-Letter Office is a museum where
the many curious articles that come il
the mails and cannot be restored are
placed on exhibition. All about the
room are upright cabinets in which tht
articles are displayed. Here can be seer
toys, jewelry and pictures of every de-
.scription. One of the rarest curiosities
ever received and now on exhibition, il
"a sheet of parchment on which is penne6
the Lords Prayer, in fifty-four different
languages. It came to New York in
1912 in the mail from England, and as
no trace of the owner could be discov.
sered it was sent to the Dead-Lettel
Office. 1t is said to be a duplicate of 6
parchment which hangs in St. Peters
at Rome. A beautiful crucifx of solid
gold rests in case in one cabinet. Il
reached the Office marked ''unclaimed'
from Southern postofice, and no trace
%of its owner could ever be discovered.
lady's fan, made of stork feathers, the
plumes being richer and rarer than the
finest ostrich plumes, is without question
the handsomest thing in the whole collec'
ton. 1t is a magnificent. fan and nc
doubt graced at some time the costume Of
IA court beauty of the Old World, for il
was received in the foreign mails. In
"one of the cabinets is lock of dark
brown hair, partly concealed by an en-
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