Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1889-04-19
EXPRESS PARCELS.
QUEER PACKAGES THAT ARE
SENT OVER THE RAILS.
A View Of the Cellar storcroom Of n
Big Express Company HUI
man Freight Chinese
Bones Sent Cheap.

"Of the hundreds of men have m t
during the twenty five years have been
here you are the first newspaper man
who has ever been down these stairs"
said the old janitor Of the American Ex-
press Company's Building, on Broadway,
rs he showed u Star reporter the sub
cellar where the receipt books and vouch-
crs of the company are kept. The cellar
is merely an immense vault divided into
ten aisles a25 feet long, on both sides of
which are. piled from floor TO ceiling,
millions of receipts and statements Of
the 600 different agents throughout the
country arranged i'll alphabetical order.
There nrc SO very queer things
sent by express" Agent Rogers remarked,
while wandering through these subter-
ranean passages. IL have seen human
being boxed up in n crate and shipped
by express. lie was an insane mali go
ing from Staten Island to lupatic asy-
lum. That was some years ago. For
the past seven years we have not handled
live people, but before that we used to
ship meu, women and children. 1t was
too much bother to keep it up. We used
to charge double frst-c ass passenger
rates, and frequently took bright little
girl from friends here and delivered her
ut the door of friends in Iowa or Lakota.
Every few people, continued the
agent, "have an adequate idea what the
business of large express company
comprises at the present day.
SIS it not simply the handling OF
goods' No, indeed. We pay mems
taxes thousand miles away, act as
undcrtakers, do shopping for ladies,
and attend to the marketing for entire
families. 1t was not long ago we had
to exhume n body that had been in
cemetery ut Sioux City, Iowa, for years,
and bring it here. We gos nothing for
the work outside of the charge for
transportation. Our agent ut Sioux
City received instructions from this oil
to open such grave in n designated
cemetery, have the remains of certain
person placed in new asket, and
shipped to New York. He ordered the
work performed and sent the body on
with the vouchers of expenditures. II
is part of our business
"Whnt'is the strongest thing | have
seen forwnrdcd2 We'll, that is hard ia
answer. have seen nearly everything
shipped from needle to I'm elephant.
One of the strangcst shipments probably
was dead woman and her two live
bubics. The little things were twins ana
very small. y nurse had to accompany
them. You may remember the story of
an elephant that stopped the train by
pulling the bell cord. That is perfectly
true. Monkeys arc also great nuisance
and create no end OF bother to the mes.
sengcrs. There are only three things
that cannot be sent by express to-day,
and they are dynamite, gunpowdcr and
live people. The easiest articles to
handle arc goods from business house,
and the menncst is honey 1t leaks out
and gets over things.
"Ncxt to honey are packages done up
by ladies. They generally have to be
done over again. When you handle
from 10, 900 to 1900 packages day in
the New York Office alone, it becomes a
nuisance"
"rho Chinese have CUSTOM" said
one Of the heads OF department, who
came up at this stage OF the convcrsn.
ton, "of eXhuming the remains of their
dead and shipping them back to nina.
Did ii ever strike you how they do it2
They forward them rs merchandise Sand
get freight rates. oh, yes, it's against
the rules of all companies; but if rail-
way agent receives box said TO contain
cotton, for instance, he has no right TO
examine its contents. Cinnamon fire.
Gucntly come here and get orr rates to
San Francis, o, but they never send
corpse. | have made inquiries at the
other o ces, and find they have never
forwarded one. The rates are the samo
and are too high to suit them; so they
box them up and let them go by freight
at less than half the expense. | do not
see how the practice can be stopped. for
the very box that may be suspe ted is
liable to be all right"