San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-09
ODD THINGS IN THE MAIL.
CURlOSITIES AT THE WASHINGTON
DEAD LETTER OFFICE.
Love Letters, Ak Handles, Clothespins,
Human Skulls and Bootjacks Among
the Collection-why "The Letter He
Looked For Never Came"

Human Skulls and BoOtjacks Among
the Collection-Why "The Letter He
Looked For Never Came"
The dead letter office is in one sense the
greatest museum in the world, for here are
daily received the queerest things imaginable.
Everything that goes astray in Uncle Sans
charge goes to this Office, and in the course of
a year everything is received there, from
package of needles or a bar of soap to an ak
handle Once every year the department
has clearance sale of all the miscellaneous
articles that accumulate, and on an average
about 10000 articles are disposed of at each
SALE
1t is estimated that every day in the year
about $4,000 parcels, letters and packages go
astray in the mail, all of which find their
way to the dead letter office. As fast as re-
ceived, this mass of mail is assorted opened
and classified. The dead letter office is not
very large, but it is a very busy place at all
times of the day.
SHE IS DIRECTORY OF ALL CITIES.
The operators employed opening, asserting,
correcting and returning the stray mail mat
Ter are nearly all women, and they are count
ed far more skillful than men i'll handling
the Uom, piled high with letters and parcels.
About twenty-five men and women are en-
gagged in asserting and opening the letters.
In the gallery above are seated about sixty
young women who read the letters. They
are of all kinds, from the tender message of
love to the more prosaic business letter.
These women determine whether these letters
are Of sufficient Importance to be returned to
the writer. Many are the ardent messages
of love that are daily consigned to the flames,
for all letters that are not returned to the
writer's are destroyed by fire. If these girls
would talk, many are the mysteries they
could unravel, and tell why 1.-THE letter that
he longed for never came.''
Instructed and only partially addressed
letters are turned over to a lady operator,
who from long experience has acquired great
skill in studying out addresses, and who
knows every city, town, village and hamlet
in the world. She also knows all the streets
In fact, she is a veritable city directory of ali
the cities. From her almost infinite knowl-
edge of names and places, the faculty of de-
ciphering all kinds of illegible chirography,
and familiarity with English, German,
French, Spanish, Italian and Russian, the
young lady is enabled to send to the rightful
claimants about 50 per cent. of these misdi-
rected or partially addressed letters I'm
opened.
AS rule, English, German and French are
the prevailing languages used in addressing
letters Occasionally letter is addressed in
Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Russian;
and, in fact, all other tongues creep into the
mails, and, after they reach New York from
their ocean voyage, are sent to the dead letter
office to be deciphered and readdresSed in
English, so that the postmaster whose lin.
guistic accomplishments are limited may de
liver it in the good old Anglo-Saxon.
All letters that cannot be deciphered with.
out being opened are turned over to another
force, who so through them removing al
valuables. After all valuables are taken out
they are put into packages of 100 letters each,
and sent to the sixty readers in the gallery
Money, checks or drafts taken from the letters
are returned to the sender, unless the party
for whom it was intended can be found
Last year nearly $lO,O00,00O was taken from
the mails, and about $1,000 could not be re-
stored to the owners.
IN THE MUSEUM.
queer museum is connected with the
dead letter office, where curious articles that
come in the mails and cannot be restored are
placed on exhibition. All around the room
are placed cabinets, in which the articles are
placed Among them can be found a display
of toys, jewelry and pictures. One of the
rarest of the Curiosities is a sheet of parch.
ment, on which is penned the Lords Prayer
in fifty-four languages. 1t came to this
country from England in the mail in 1912,
and as no trace of its owner could be discov
cred, it was sent TO the dead letter Office. II
is said to be a duplicate of a parchment
which hangs in ST. Peters at Rome. A beau
tiful crucifix of solid gold rests in a case il
one cabinet. 1t reached the Office marked
''unclaiued". from a southern postofiice
For whom it was intended is not known. A
lady'S fan made of stork feathers the plumes
being rarer and richer than the finest ostrich
plumes, is without question the prettiest
thing in the whole collection.
1t is magnificent fan and no doubt graced
the costume of some court beauty of the Old
World. In one of the cabinets, partially
concealed in an envelope, is a lock of dark
brown hair. An inscription reads: This Is
a lock of my hair. Charles Guiteau.n 1t
was put into the mail by the assassin of
President Garfield.
A human skull gTins from one of the cases.
1t is brown with age and had apparently lain
in the clay for years before it started on its
journey through the mail. On the frontal
bone of the grinning skull is the inscription
Jimmy McDutf." \ murderer was executed
in a western town number of years ago, but
it is not supposed to be his skull \ novel
letter is in the form Of pretty pink shell on
which is inscribed a tender message OF love.
1t reached its owner in a Massachusetts, town,
who refused to pay 2l cents due, and was sent
to the dead letter Office.