River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1891-08-13
TIE LETTER BURNERS.
a Society Organized for the Destruction
Enrraennndau-.

Society organized TOT the Destruction OF
Correspondence.
The new sect, more or less religious,
the Letter Burners, may be expected
to swell the census of societies The
members. who belong to all classes,
sexes and professions. bind themselves
to burn every letter they receive with
in twenty-four hours after its arrival.
Letters on business, containing stipu-
lations and agreements are not, of
course, included, nor are invitations
which it is desirable to retain as pieces
de conviction. in case the host or guest
makes an error about dates. But the
Letter Burners destroy all familiar, all
amorous, all friendly and unfriendly
epistles except when these are needed
in suits for hbel-not even yet an every
day deed.
People who write TO the Letter Burn
ers will know that they are dOubly safe,
for the first rule of the society is New
err show letter" the second is 'Burn
all letters" To show letter to a third
person without the writer's permission
is breach of confidence. Either the
third person learns, perhaps, to his en-
to know, or, what more frequently hap
pens, he is terribly bored by the unde-
sired privilege conferred on him. The
man who reads his wife's letters is a
brute, says the sage; ''the woman who
wants her husband to read her letters
is bore" Many brief " ould never
have fallen TO the learned in the court
of probate ana divorce if men and wom-
en- had only Joined the letter burners
They expect to enjoy receiving much
more humorous, entertaining, and may
add, more affectionate epistles than
other people, because they will be rec
ognized as perfectly safe. They do not
act on a motto ascribed to the duke OF
Wellington: write nothing, and burn
nothing" They burn everything, and,
as they only write to each other, all is
burned. The duke, by the way. broke
the first part of his own rule. We have
all heard how a lady tried to extort
money from him by threatening TO pub
fish his correspondence, and how he an
swered: Dear Fanny-Publish and be
hangedr'
Suicides, of course, will diminish in
Many suicides, as in NJ. Guy de Maupas-
SAINTS story, are caused simply by the
melancholy of rearranging and reading
old letters. Times past come back,
faces lost or estranged, dead summers,
faded happiness, return as you read,
and face you with their haggard checks
and melancholy eyes That which
might have been and never was creeps
to your side; you hear the voices you
shall never hear again, or never in
friendship.
TIL times right hand IS loosened from thy
hand,
And thy life-days from thee.
None of these spectators will awake
so vivid and so mournful if you have no
old letters to read-if they are all
burned. You will be safe from memoir
les, from ghosts, from ghouls, from all
the apprehensions of the foolish letters
which everybody has written reappear-
ing in some wrong place. Everybody
should Join the l.. b. S.-the Letter
Burners society-and the sooner the
better, for the peace of the living and
the reputation of the dead. Never write
to person, except on business, who ID
not letter burner. The most unex.
pected and unlikely people keep letters;
lie very careful, before corresponding
with any man, woman or child, to know
that they do not keep them, that they de-
stroy them in accordance with the laws
of the society. But be careful not to burn
an enclosed check with the letter, an
accident which has occurred more than
once to the society's pious founder.
Above all, burn angry letters from ac'
quaintances and relations. Unburned,
they tester and rankle; burned, they
cease to be venomous. And burn your
own epistles of this kind-before you
send them.-Illustrated News of the
World