Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-12-22

ums for saving money, there will be money
order funds left ION hand unclaimed at the
end of a year, 1T is a common practice of
those who go west to make money to buy
money orders postal orders they now are)
and send them east or carry them about to
be collected when they return to their
homes. Trustees have been known to in
vest small trust funds in money orders.
Many are found in old stockings and in
safe deposit boxes and in the drawers of
old desks. Curious stories are told about
some of the old-timers which come to the
Post CHice Department to be redeemed al
ter many years. But of those which are
never redeemed the people in the Office OF
the auditor for the Post Office Department
believe that q great proportion is torn up
by drunken mem CT sunk with drowning
men or lost in some disaster, like great
fire. The money paid for these goes to the
credit of the Post Office Department TN
der the law of 1888, and it is no inconsider-
able feature or the departments receipts.
business at Small Offices.
Still $4,000 or $4,000 a year is not so
much in view of the fact that the depart
ment handles s4O,0O0OO0 worth of postal
orders year. 1t is only one-tenth of 1
per cent of the whole. The losses of the
Post Office Department in the handling CT
the mails are, of course, almost entirely at
the small post offices. An office like Chi
cago or st. Louis or Cincinnati is a source
of great profit. In fact, there are few Of
not profitable
At a very small office, swherc the post
master receives 100 per cent of the cancel
iatlons, the Post Office Department has no
object in increasing business unless 1T can
be increased to the point where the post
master shares with the government-that
Is, the department has no sympathy with
a temporary increase, because that means
that the department must do more work
and only the postmaster receives more pay.
Ihe department is interested only In the
steady increase of business, which means
that the office is some day to become in a
degree self-supporting
Some time ago one of the auditors clerks
was astonished to find reposng among the
petty cancellations of a very small office
it We're records of 40 and 30 cents worth of
cancellations in a day. The account was
suspended and an inquiry was sent to the
postmaster. He replied that a man had
brought stamps aggregating $16o in value
to him and asked to have them Cancelled,
saying he wanted them for stamp coilec-
tiops. The cancelled stamp has greater
value to the collector than the stamp IN
Cancelled. The postmaster was notified that
commissions We're paid only matter
duly handled in the mails-cn stamps ''af-
fixed as postages." So the item of S165
was disallowed. This false claim was not
intentionally fraudulent; ii differed in this
respect from the cases Investigated last
year by the postal authorities in Missouri,
in which a number of indictments were
found. In these cases there was a con-
spiracy between stamp collectors and post
masters to defraud the government by the
cancellation of Columbian stamps of large
denominat ton and by division of the COM
missions. This conspiracy was so wide
spread that postmasters in every part of
the country were approached with view
to drawing them into 1t.
GEORGE GRANTHAM Balm.