The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-03-19

OF maga zines, illustrated papers, pic.
ture-cards and valentines that can not
be returned to their owners are dis
trlbuted," by order of the Postmaster
General, among the inmates of the
various hospitals, asy lums and other
charitable institutions of the District of
Columbia" So they are made to serve
good cause by carrying brightness and
change into many weary lives, and
happiness to the little waits without.a a
home.
Although every effort is made to
ind owners for the various things that
drift into the Dead-Letter Office, SO
many packages remain unclaimed that
at the end of each year an auction is
held. 1t is a sort of departmental house
cleaning. No other sale in the city
draws such crowd as Uncle Sans an
nual sale of ''dead mail matter" The
packages are sold unopened, and al
though the contents are known, the
value is not; it is what an Irishman
would call buying pig in sack"
OF course, it is heterogeneous collec-
ton, as in these days almost every
thing goes by mail, from a tuning-fork
to wedding trousseau-which latter
was bought in New York several years
ago, and sent in the mail bags across
the continent to the pretty bride on the
Pacific coast.
The museum of the Dead-Letter Of
fee always interests visitors. There
they see what extraordinary things
people try to send through the mails
and many interesting relics. There are
two big axes. on exhibition which look
formidable enough for Administration
weapons and cause the practical sight
seer to wonder whose purse was long
enough to pay postage on such weighty
articles
ga hitching-post, loaded revolver
and sleigh-bells form trio of curiosi-
ties most unexpected among mail mat
ter. An Indian scalp and a skull are
very appropriate relics for Uncle Sans
cemetery, but they must be uncanny
objects to find in mail pouch Among
the odd things which attract attention
is letter from the far Northwest
where lumber is evidently more album
1
shingle.
It'has long been an open secret that
aldgators, horned toads and all sorts of
reptiles are smuggled through the
mails if possible, and Uncle Sam has on
exhibition several specimens of the ami
NAL kingdom which he has confiscated
Surrounded by many strange and in
congruous things is an old mailbag
stained with blood, which tells the
story of a brave mans devotion to duty
even unto death-an Arizona mail
carrier who was killed by the Apache
Indians in 1885. Another interesting
relic is the ancient leather-bound vol
ume of ffty-three pages in which Ben
jamin Franklin kept the accounts of
the Government when he was Postmas-
| ter-General. In still smaller book is
record of the uncalled-for or misdi-
rected letters during eleven years-from
1777 to 17SS-which numbered three
hundred and sixty-fve. We have made
rapid strides in a century to reach an
average of eighteen thousand ''dead
| letters day. Although many of these
| letters are resurrected, sent out into the
world again, and finally reach their
destination, there are multitudes, of
course, beyond the ken even of a Dead
Letter-Office clerk that can not be re-
turned to their owners. Alas! what
misery and misunderstanding may
have been caused by the loss of some of
these letters! The happiness of a life
time, perhaps, or the success. Never
theless, do not lay all the blame at
Uncle Sans door, for you know not
what you may have left undone that
you ought to have done.
George Canning once said: 81 can
prove any thing by statistics except the
truth Those people who are of his
opinion may still have doubts, in spite
of peep behind the scenes, of the
efficiency of the Dead-Letter Office, as
the public no longer accepts the tradi-
ton that figures will not lie. F.
Giddings, in N. Y. Ledger.
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