The Olneyville tribune. (Providence, R.I.) 1893-189?, 1894-01-20
DEAD LETTER OFFICE.
Sore Curiosities Of Uncle Sans
Unavailable Letters.

Sore c~uriosities Of Uncle SANS
Unavailable Letters.
The oldest class of unavailable let
tiers are the misdirected. These form
a. curious study, and are accorded
careful special treatment. They
number about two thousand daily.
They are forwarded daily from the
mailing Offices, not being detained or
advertised a. dead letters are. POST
masters are unable to deliver them
on account of some error or deficiency
in the address. or because the writing
is illegible. The clerks on this work
have from long experiece become very
expert in handling these letters, and
deliver many thousands yearly. Very
many errors occur from haste or
carelessness, and are at once apparent
to the corrector. For instance a let
ter may be addressed 40 Milk street,
Boston, y. H." OF course it must
mean Boston, Massachusetts, because
that is the only Boston we have with
named and numbered streets. Often
the State is omitted entirely some
times the State is given and no Office;
sometimes only a county, and so N.
Very frequently the name Of the Of
flee is spelled from the sound as pro-
nounced by some ignorant person.
'Senoch, Dickalp Co., ILL.,, " occurred
on such a letter, instead OF Somanauk,
De Kalb County, Illinois. Hay
Sugar, Miss" was intended for Has
huqua, and "~Eannchebo, La" for
T~angipahoa. When a letter bears an
address of special oddity, the clerk is
permitted TO attach to it a little
printed slip bearing the following re-
quest:
P~osT-oFFICE DEPARTMENT,
DEAD-LETTER OFFICE,
WASHINGTON, d.. Co.,. 1S@
POSTMASTER.-Cpon the delivery OF this
letter, please obtain the envelope, il agree
able TO the party addressed, and return il
to the Dead-Letter Office. II the letter
cannot be delivered you will, at the eNpir-
alton of seven days, stamp the letter with
You post marking stamp, and return II
and this circular 10 the Dead-Letter Office,
with your next return of unavailable let
ters, duly numbered and entered on the
list, Form No. 1922.
ID. p. LEIBHNRDT,
superintendent.
When the empty envelope returns
she has proof positive of the correct
ness of her work. An envelope thus
recalled was addressed I" Mr.. Brown,
Oil Corn, Miss" There is no such
p~ost-ohice in Mississippi or elsewhere,
but the clerk knew that there was an
Alcorn University, a negro college,
located at Jackson, Mississippi. SO
she wrote the new address in full on
an cir, a,1 can't thn latfnr forward
The return Of the empty envelope
within "a few days proved her surmise
correct. Sometimes when the title of
the Office is a descriptive one, some
curious changes Of phraseology take
place. A letter addressed TO Silver
Mountain, Colo.," was meant for
Silver Peak another written Green
Mound, H., =" was intended for Blue
Mound. Again Black Cock, Colo, >"
was written for Black Hawk. Cop
perfield, VT" did duty for Copperas
Hill.
For instance, a letter written IN
Rhode Island was addressed Miss
Baylies. Church Home, orner of
Herkimer ii. '-nothing more. There
are a number Of Herkimer streets and
of church homes, so the address
might have been more definite. The
clerk sent the letter to the Church
Charity Foundation in Brooklyn, New
York, and delivered it. Another odd
class are those that have only initial
to guide the clerk. One came thus:
~ p s Ohio" 1t was correctly
interpreted Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
Still another ran thus II ) y s"
1t belonged TO the Iowa State Normal
School, at Cedar Falls, Iowa. An
other read NO. 607 Bird st. G. N"
and was safely delivered at Camden,
New Jersey. A letter mailed at Cedar
Hill, Ohio, was addressed to Mr.. j.
r. Dodge, Statistician''-no more.
Mr.. Dodge was known to the clerk as
the statist.ician Of the Agricultural
Department at Washington, d. c.,
so she was able to forward the letter.
Occasionally an attempted witt
cism like this is perpetrated
sylvester Brown, a ed-faced scrub,
To whom this letter wants to 20.
Is %chopping cord-wood for his grub,
In Silver City, Idaho"