The morning call., 1891-03-08
MIXES BY TIE SCORE.
How Stray Letters Are Handled
by the Mail Service.
''Nixes!'

"Nixesp
1t was a sharp voice that startled the half
dozen employees in the railway mail service
Office with the word, which, to a CALL re-
porter, who was present, seemed so strange.
He looked up hastily, but only in time to
see an empoye pick up bundle of letters
on the floor and put them on the table.
There were, perhaps, forty letters in the
bundle, closely wrapped up and tabulated.
Assistant Superintendent Flint noticed the
look of inquiry, and venturrd the informa-
tion that mixes are letters so addressed as
to make their forwarding impossible. I'VE
get all kinds of letters her that we cannot
forward to any address, and they come IN
thirty. forty, sometimes fifty on each trip,
and have TO be gone over by some one au-
thOrlzed to change and suggest addresses, a
thing no clerk operating on board OIL Train
is allowed to do.
THAT bundle of mixes just handed in is
the result of one trip from Ogden to san
Francisco, and PIl open it up and show what
we have to do in such cases. First | must
tell you that misaddressed letters are OF sew
eral kinds and may be classified. we get
about One-half of the mixes from the in
falltble addresSers in business houses
throughout this country.
NEARLY every large firm has one or two
such 'inlallbles.' They can't make a mis-
lfkt Ill all dlEItSS, Gllu lllG Only way ~ SllON
them that TO err is human is 10 send them
the results of their work. About one-fourth
are the results of haste or bad spelling, and
tue rest are the result of the Ignorance of
foreigners with our geography and orthog
raphy.,
first class" continued Superintendent
Flint. " Here is letter dated from we'll
known New York olive oil company and ad-
dressed to Ell Quito Olive and Vine Farm,
CAL That is Il locality and its proper
postoffice is San Jose. Here's another to
certain number on Bedford avenue, Jer-
sey City, CAL Now. there are only
four avenues in the United States named
Bedford, and book we have shows one Of
them to be at jersey City, \. D., instead OF
California. So there it goes.
Sometimes this class of writer's fail to
name the town, but are very particular about
the county, and in such cases We send the
letter to the county seat as being the more
likely 10 lie the proper place. One letter
here is from an Ohio Sheriff. l. is addressed
to 'Phcsco, Phesco County, Cal 1t is not
a great stretch Of Imagination to see the
meaning may be Fresno, and TO Fresno 1t
goes on trial.
Lets see in this bundle what haste and
bad spelling do toward making our lives
miserable On one letter Tulare' is spelled
Tue Lare'-that is not bad. Oakland is
called Oakley Pueblo is spelled 'PueDe-
la Here are two Italian letters. One is
addressed to 'Beis Side, Ambolett Counte,'
and the other to Ri G eoakee Flete.' We
are used to those addresses, and know at
glance that the first is for Bay Side, Hum
Uoidt County, and the second for Big Oak
Fats
Talking about known misaddressed let
ters-that is, letters We receive so regularly
rs to loo for them-here is one in point:
1t is addressed from Nice. France, to
Cannes. AT the bottom is the underlined
word California and those letters always
reach this Office. while they should be sent
direct from Nice to California street.
Cannes und thereby save journey of 1900
mil S. Again, COL is not always the n bre-
Walton Tor Colorado but sometimes means
'colOred,' and culOred gentleman Is the
addressed New and 'Neh' and Me-
and Mo- are often COMPOUNDED, and we get
the letters while the writer's are cursnG the
slowness Of the mails. 1t would be a great
boun to the human race if mixes were
thinpS nf tha rast -