The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-28
STAMPS BY THE MILLIONS.
AZ ILLINOIS GIRLS RACKET THAT
Is KNOCKING OUT THE MAILS.

Is KNOCKING OUT THE MAILS.
Miss Edna n. Brown of KaneviIIe
Wanted "A Million Cancelled
stamps TO Aid Her Invalid Sister
seven Millions a Good Many
From savannab-Her Mail l. Aver
aging Thirty Bushels OF Letters
Day and the Little Village
Postoiiice l. Not Rig Enough to
Handle the Business.
Probably a hundred or more Savannah
ians have contributed TO the million can
celled-postage-stamp collection OF Miss
Edna r. Brown Of Kaneville, III. II may
be that some OF them have been gener-
Gus and charitable enough to put in few
uncancelled stamps, II they did not have
enough that We're cancelled.
Miss Browns racket seems to have
caught the public right and left. Instead
Of having a million stamps, if reports are
trueshe has. by this time, probably five
millions or six millions Of cancelled stamps
and enough uncaneelled to do her cores
pondence the rest of her life and to stock
first class postofice besides.
The Observation-Disclosures scheme is
not new one. It has been going the
rounds for the last half dozen years.
Sometimes it has been to start fund to
educate a missionary for China or Africa,
sometimes it has been 10 promote some
other scheme. It is nearly always to help
out some sort of charity. The Kanevine
enterprise seems to have overtopped them
all in its magnitude. 1t has burdened the
mails and the postmaster at Kaneviile has
had TO apply for extra help from the post
Office department to handle the business OF
his office.
Kaneville is little country place off
from any railroad line and Is reached by
stage. Ordinarily one small pouch is sum
Client to carry the mail. Since Miss Brown
has gone into the cancelled postage stamp
business the stage is loaded down with
pouches, and extra teams have been en-
ployed to haul the mail. The worst Of it
is her mail is increasing every day, and
If the chain in the spondence that
she started is not broken pretty soon, the
village itself viii not be big enough to hold
her mall The postmaster at Kaneville
wrote TO Washington a week ago that Miss
Browns mail was averaging q bushels Of
letters a day.
The scheme struck Savannah some time
last month. The first letters were reeeiv-
ed by railroad men. It did not seem to be
a fake and a good many charitably inclined
people fell into it. The scheme was in the
form Of a geometrical chain letter, the sort
that has been used before. 1t said that
there was a young lady in Kaneville, H.,
who had been cripple since she was ten
years old. A medical institution there
had offered to treat her If she would Sc
cure million Cancelled postage stamps.
The gist of the scheme was in the follow
ing paragraph:
please take three copies of this letter,
as we have done, only changing the num-
Der at the top, numbering them all the
same and sign your own name. Return this
letter with ten or more Cancelled postage
stamps, to Miss Edna r. Brown, Kane
vile. ILL.,, also the names and addresses
Of the three new letters, and they are ask
ed to do the same. Any one not wishing
to do this will please notify Miss Brown so
that she may know the chain has been
broken. The person receiving letter No.
50 will return it without making any cop
les. as that ends the chain"
The request was in nearly every in
stance complied with and the chain went
merrily spinning out in every direction.
The revelation came from the north. The
scheme had been worked over the entire
country and was producing such results
that inquiries began to be made as what
Miss Brown was going to do with so many
old postage stamps. A automatically in
clined gentleman, who had received one of
the letters sat down and began to figure
out what would be the geometrical in
crease at the end of the fftieth letter.
He found that instead of netting a paltry
100000 stamps, the result would be ex
pressed in eight places of figures. AS there
are little less than 2,OOO, 600 600 people on
the earth, 1t will be seen that there are
not enough to go round in the artful Miss
Browns chain"
The postmaster at Kaneville in reply
to an inquiry of one of the contributors
to Miss Browns collection asking if she
were receiving any letters, wrote:
Edna Brown does receive letters at this
office. In fact, she received twenty-seven
bushels of them to-day. She is collecting
stamps for her sister-in-law of this place,
who has been a cripple since six years of
age. They collect the stamps and sell
them, but no medical institution has offer
ed to treat her for Cancelled stamps. She
has already many times a million, and
please do not send any more"
Nobody has found out yet what Miss
Brown does with her stamps, but she is
not likely to get any more of them from
Savannah. Besides getting cancelled and
uncanceued stamps charitable people have
been sending her money postoffice orders
and all sorts of things, struck with a feel
ing of sympathy for her sisters infirmity.
Altogether Miss Brown seems to be MAX
ing a pretty good thing out of her enter
prise and Kaneviils is to-day about the
best advertised town for its size in Illi-
nois.