Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-12-09
WORKING DIRECTORY
Is What the City Post Office Will Pre-
pare.
On the Lines of the 1890 Directory
Practically n Complete List of
the Cities Inhabitants.

Several years .ago the officials at the city
post Office. in order to facilitate the deliv-
cry of mail in cases where the addresses
were defective, made for their own uses a
city directory which was wonderfully COM
plete as compared with the general bust
ress directory. This additional aid has
worked 50 we'll that Postmaster Sherwood
and Capt James f. Bell, the superinten-
dent of the city delivery division, have de-
cided to make another directory of this
sort, and next week the work of getting to-
gether the necessary informa ton will be
begun.
In most large city post offices a force of
officials is employed for the purpose of de-
ciphering addresses that to an outsider I'M
accustomed to the work should be absolute
ly uninteligible. Thus at the very begin
ming of the search a number of letters are
switched off the track to the dead letter
office by these expert workers There is
another class of letters, however, which are
more troublesome. Frequently after the adj
dress has been deciphered or when it is so
plainly written as to give no trouble on that
score the person for whom it is intended
cannot be found. He may not be well known
to the officials at the office and the address
may be that of house where he lived
years ago or nevei did live at all, or 1t may
bear a number and street not found in the
local geography. In this case the first
sort Is to the city directory to see If the
persons name is to be found there. This
Is not of SO much service as might be ex-
pected. for the city directory is reasonably
accurate only with the class of citizens
with whom the post office has COMPARE
w
ington has in ii less than 100000 names
while the population of the city is nearly
three times that number. There are no
names Of children in the directory. and yet
they are nearly as likely to receive misdi-
rected letters as are their elders. Thus 1t
is that the city directory is only of use to
d certain extent
OF Great Assistance.
In order to remedy this defect the city
post office made its supplementary direc-
tory, which contains the names OF a much
larger number of citizens. The directory,
as completed, and which has been of so
much assistance to the Office, fills twelve
large volumes some volumes having sew
eral letters in them, while others can only
accommodate one. Thus B has volume of
Its own, while A and are in the same
one, and larger sized book was needed
70 accommodate all the Ms. To the letter
NJ, for instance. the supplementary direc-
tory has added 6, TO names and Sl2O have
been added to B.
The practical advantages of such a work
need hardly any comment but it is interest
ing 10 Know that. with the aid of this book,
even before II was completed, more than 40
per cent Of the letters that were on their
way to the dead letter Office have been
saved and sent to their proper destination
However, the population of Washington is
VIGOROUSLY changeable one and the re-
suit Is that so many alterations have been
necessary that 1t has been decided best TO
make an altogether new set OF books.
Gathering Information.
Early next week n; the letter carriers IN
the city will be furnished with slips which
each will be expected to leave at every house
on his route. The slip reads as follows:
To the occupant OF No.. Street,
Please fill out this blank and write. with
ink, the names of all persons, including
servants. using Mrs. or Miss as A prefix in
case of females. with their own given names
In full, who receive or are likely to receive
any mail at this number. The given names
OF married women must be stated and not
those CT their husbands. For example: Mrs
Mary Brown must not be described as Mrs.
William Brown. Write in full one name on
line, and add number OF house and street
after each name. The information will en-
able your post office to promptly dispose of
man which would otherwise go to the dead
letter office. Notify Office of all changes of
address. Hand this name blank TO vo,,r
letter carrier, or drop in letter box when
completed. without preparing postage.
..................-..... postmaster.
Must BE Complete.
The residences of the various houses are
expected to fill out these slips in full, put
ting the full address of each individual in
its proper place. so that when the slips are
cut up for entering in the big blank books
1t will not be necessary for the clerk to fill
carrier will be expected to see that each
house along his route receives a COPY. Then
each carrier must see that these are prop
erly filled out and returned. In case no at
tention is paid to the notice, another will be
sent, and if this ELECTS no response, the car
rler will be expected to call in person at the
house and, If necessary, fill out the slip him
self. The carriers will not be allowed to
return their slips to the office until they are
all complete and a reply has been received
from every family along the route In the
early spring of 1870 many of the carriers
took a personal interest and pride in their
work, and as result the records of MANY
parts of the city are we'll nigh perfect. 9th
ers did not do quite SO well, but the work
as whole was very thorough and satisfac-
tory. After time enough had been allowed
for all reports to be turned in, the work of
sorting and arranging the names began
Arranging the Slips.
The system of arranging all these names
into books will be the same this year as il
was in the first case. Then the work was
begun by cutting up these slips SO that each
name was on a separate piece of paper
Then these all had to be arranged alpha
betically. 1t will be readily understood that
this was no slight task when it is stated
that there were 5000 more names in this
post office book than in the city directory
After they had all been arranged in perfect
order large blank books were obtained and
the names entered in these. On the right
hand pages were pasted slips from the
regular city directory. The slips with the
names written upon them were compared
with these and wherever the two CORE
sponded the written slip was thrown aside
to avoid entering the same name more than
once. Wherever the same name occurred
in both, but with different addresses, the
written address was used as being the more
recent and likely to be correct. Then all
the 1000 names not found in the printed
slips had to be entered by hand on the left
hand pages of the books directly opposite
to the corresponding letters on the printed
slips. Plenty of room was left for future
additions, and corrections were made with
out any trouble.
Pleased Everybody.
The directory made up in this city receiv-