The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-10-18
EPlST0LARY LYING.

Epistoiary correspondence is RESPONSIBLE,
Tor more stalwart lying, probably, than any
one thing known. And this remark ex-
Guides the falsehoods told in letters or
eVery otner subject. 1t is astonishing. the
amount OF procrastination there is about
answering social or friendly letters. and
the extent of genius exercised in FRAMING
excuses therefor. A sore finger. q painful
wrist, absence from home, an unusual press
Oh imperative business, illness-thsse are
Inc commonest forms of falsehood INDUCED
In. But as the heart yearns for variety,
Inc imagination is taxed for new pretexts.
One debated correspondent chad expected
10 Do IN your town before this
TO reply in person. Another mas
waited Tor news about a certain
matter which, not transporting, could not
defer longer" A third did wri tie, but his
letter, after provoking delay, was re-
turned as missent, having gone to the
wrong state. Still another is Mortified to
gel back bis screed OF such date, after it
having, through foolish bluuder, resche d
the dead-letter Office. Number five "only
Just received yours of the til ult., il
having got into the hands of another per-
son OF the same name" Number six has
looked high and low for the address Of his
correspondent, which was mislaid in house
cleaning, bat in sheer desperation has de-
cioeo to make guess at it, and so III the
superscrlption he locates his correspondent
In neighboring block, well knowing the
carrier will find him.
Inc perfunctory letter, the duty letter,
however punctual, is covered all over with
the spirit OF lying-like the peck mark ap-
pearance the ladies' new fashioned wells
gives to their faces. This letter snatches
few minutes from exacting duties to ans
wer your last charming epistle, and closes
hurrledly IN order to catch the mail-the
fact being that the writer is entirely ignor-
ant about what time the mail closes. and
nothing would be lost if it should happen
to miss one or two dispatches.
In old times, before the postal service
had arrived at anything like the present
stage of development, it was quite handy
to charge remissness in correspondence to
the delinquency of the mails. 1t was not
necessary to assert that a revenue instead
OF postage stamp had been inadvertently
used, or that the stamp hadn't stuck, and
the mistake was not discovered, etc. All
one had TO say as an excuse for not answer
ing a letter, was that he never got it, and
that went" sit permeatea.m
1t would occupy too much space to cata-
logue all the varieties of unlruths that
letter writing has, directly and indirectly,
tolsted upon the world, Men who are
otherwise reliable persons will become so
ashamed of carrying their wives letters in
their pockets, which they are expected TO
either take home or to post that they do
not hesitate, when they finally find them,
to tear up the missives unopened and would
take oath before notary that they had
never seen them.
These remarks are suggested by seeing
cut Of device which is called CHECK on
liar' letter box. a Mr.. De FREcE, of New
\ ork, wrote letter accepting a business
proposition which should have reached its
destination in few hours, instead of
which 1t was delivered to the addressee on
his return from Europe, and the delay cost
him about S2,500,000. Investigating the
matter, he learned it was the habit of liars
to hide behind the mails, and he went and
invented letter box which, receiving a
letter, stamps upon it where it was posted
the number Of the box. the hour, day,
Month and year.
But this invention is only an elaboration
Of system already in vogus in the post
office department. 1t does not reach the
masses of falsiiers, nor will any machine
hat does not provide stimulus for an
'wering letters within reasonable time
after they are received.