The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1891-01-21

happiness TO the little waits without
a home
Although every effort is made TO
find owners for the various things
that drift into the Dcad-Lettcr
Office, so many packages remain
unclaimed that at the end of each
year an auction is held. II is sort
of departmental house cleaning
No other sale in the city draws
such a crowd us Uncle Sans an
nuaI sale of sdead mail matter
The packages are sold unopened,
and although the contents are
known, the value is not; it is what
an Irishman would call abuying a
pig in sack. OF course it is a
Heterogeneous collection, as in these
days almost everything goes by
mail. from tuning fork to we'd
ding tronsseau-whieh 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
Office 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. A hitching post,
a loaded revolver" and sleigh bells
form Il trio of curiositics most un-
exp .cted among mail natter. An
Indian scalp and a skull are very
appropriate relics for Uncle Sam Is
cemetry, but they must be uncanny
objects to find in mail pouch.
Among the odd things which at
tract attention is q letter from the
far Northwest-where lumber is
evidently more abundant than
paper-written on large shingle.
1t has long been an open secret
that alligators, horned toads and all
sorts of reptiles arc smuggled
through the mails if possible, and
Uncle Sam has on exhibition sever
al specimens of the animal kingdom
which he has confiscated.
Surrounded by many strange and
incongruous things is an old mail
bag stained with blood, which tells
the story of brave man devotion to
duty-even unto death-an AriZo-
ma mail carrier who was killed by
the Apache Indians in 1885. An
other interesting relic is the ancient
leather bound volume of fifty-three
pages in which Benjamin Franklin
kept the accounts of the Govern
ment when he was Postmaster Gen
eral. In still smaller book is "a
record of the uncalled for or mis-
directed letters during eleven years
from 17T7 to 1ISS-which num-
bered three hundred and sixty five.
We have made rapid strides in a
century TO reach an average of cigh-
teen thousand "dead letters day.
Although many of these letters are
resnrrected, sent out into the world
again, and finally reach their desti-
nation, there are multitudes, of
course, beyond the ken even of n
Dead Letter Office clerk that can
not be returned to their owners.
Alns! what misery and misunder-
standings may have been caused by
the loss of some of these letters!
The happiness ola lifetime, perhaps,
or the success. Nevertheless, do
not lay all the blame ut Uncle Sam s
door, for You know not what you
may have left undone that you
ought to have done.
George Canning once said: "I
can prove anything by statistics
except the truth" Those people
who are of his opinion may still
have doubts, in spite of peep be-
hind the scenes, of the efficiency of
the Dead Letter Office, as the pub
lie no longer accept the tradition
that figures will not lie.-.E. r. Gid
dings, an Ne,e York Ledger.