St. Paul daily globe., 1895-10-27

Charles w. Garman.
porter visited the place. There was
the house full of stamps, any one
could see, she had no explanation
and she left her husband to do all
the talking.
RECEIVES SOME LETTERS.
Yet this unsophisticated girl, now
the bride of the village blacksmith,
receives more letters in a day or
week or month than any other
person on earth receives or ever did
receive, and these letters contain ten
or more used postage stamps. She
has received in a single package as
many as 5000 Of these stamps. To
say, then, she has more letters and
more old postage stamps than any
oms, in the world is to make the stae-
ment with mild comparison.
She has received more than 25,-
100000 stamps, and they are pouring
in on her now at the rate of 100. 900
a day.
The opening of these letters alone
is a task too much for a dozen per-
sons. The neighbors and country
people for miles around have helped
in this work, taking the letters home
in sacks and wagonloads to open
and sort out the stamps. These hon
est country folks don't know what
to think about it all. They know
letters are coming "by the bushels
and bushels" Everybody within a
radius of five miles of Kaneville has
opened letters and sorted old stamps
until every hen house and corn crib
looks like a postoffice; till every
grain sheaf and corn shock and hay
stack looks like mail pouch or a
pile of mail pouches; till every chip
and rustling leaf is to the perforated
edges and gummed backs of their
rustic minds postage stamp. Kane
vile is buried under letters and post
age stamps, postal revenues and re-
ceipts is the topic there instead of
crops, and philately is studied in
stead of the weather indications.
The Kaneville postoffice is
swamped with letters. About six
teen out Of every 5000 letters received
there are for some of the other sew
enty-five or more residents of Kane
ville-all the rest are addressed to
Edna r. Brown.
HISTORY OF THE SCHEME.
Bushels Of letters come from Den
mark, Russia, Holland, Germany,
Italy, Spain, India, China, Japan,
South and Central America. The his
tory Of the scheme one gets in
Kaneville is this:
Miss Edna r. Brown, country girl,
stepdaughter of J. F. Weston, one Of
the oldest and wealthiest farmers in
Kane township, conceived the idea of
making a stamp collection to aid a
friend, Matte E. Garman, aged nine
teen, the daughter of the village black
smith of Kaneville, John Garman. Miss
! Garman was made helpless by spinal
meningitis when six years old. Miss
Brown had formerly lived in jefferson
| county, New York, and she wrote to
a friend living there asking her to aid
in collecting 100000 stamps. These she
said she could sell for $100 and procure
medical aid for Matte Garman. This
| friend, so the story goes, wrote to Miss
Brown asking her permission to pro-
| Ject on an unsuspecting world a letter
"chain." Miss Brown had no way Of
knowing what the result Of 1t would
| be-no one else had-it seemed to be
an easy way of getting the stamps, so
! she said yes. The friend wrote a let
ter designating Miss Brown as the
| treasurer of the stamp fund, and
mailed three copies of 1t to as MANY
acquaintance.
The letter was as follows:
Dear Friend: A medical institute has
onered to treat young lady of Kane
since sf1le wno @be mas been bee lame, q cripple
she would collect 10000 stamps, so
we have aided in keeping this chain
going, which has been started in her
behalf, and your aid is kindly asked.
Make three copies of this letter, as we
have done, only changing the date.
and put the next higher number at the
top, numbering. them all the same, and
ter to Miss Edna r. Brown, Kaneville,
Kane county, Ill, with ten or more
Cancelled stamps; also the name and
address of the three, and they in turn
are asked to do the same. Any one
not wishing to do this is asked to re-
turn this letter to Miss Brown, that
we may know the chain is broken
| Although this may seem a small
thing to you, any one breaking the
chain will involve loss to the enter
| prise.
The person receiving No. so will
please return the letter without MAX
ing any copies, as that ends the chain.
| Yours respectfully.
That no medical institution ever
made this offer Edna admits. She had
a vague sort of notion that million
old stamps could be sold for Sl00 and
this sum would procure doctors SER
vices.
This idea came from Sycamore, ILL.,,
not far from Kaneville. Freddie Ulrich,
the son of apoor carpenter there, was the
recipient of a stamp collection. He
was returning from a. political rally in
1892 when two vicious dogs attacked
him. He was a little fellow and cculd
not offer much resistance, so he was
so badly mangled one of his legs had
to be amputated. Some charitable
q