The L'Anse sentinel., 1895-01-05
MAIL BAG ouR,oslrles.
which Amuse and Pester tho City Post Of
fice Cferks.

which Amuse and Pestsr tho City Post OF
| nce Clerks.
There are many curiosities of tn,
mail bags Not long ago we receive,
a dozen horned toads from Arizona
addressed to count In Germany
They were Immediately sent to tn,
dead letter office, being unmailable
Small alligators are very common, ant
| we have had n human skull and al
Easter bonnet from Paris without any
wrapper. We forward no live animals
or insects through the mail, except
bees in wire-screcn boxes. Even the
bees are not desirable mail matter; we
have had the boxes come in broken
greatly to the discomfort of the clerk.
who opened the bags.
"About $50 day is our average oi
letters mailed without stamps. They
are held for two weeks, and the ad
dressed is notified to send stamps
This costs the government more, oi
course, than II the letters were for
warded at once, but such is the law.
We receive large numbers of photo
graphs without wrappers. Delicate
articles reach their destination safely
while apparently unbreakable articles
are broken to pieces. That is our ex-
perience. For instance, lamp chin
ney arrived from the west not long ago
without wrapper, but with the adj
dress pasted on. 1t reached here un-
mail some articles that would stand
running over by a cable car were
broken to pieces.
A few weeks ago we received pack
age of eight-inch knife blades from
Paris, with no wrapper, but an address
tied to the handles. You can see how
dangerous such parcel must be to the
clerk who thrusts his hand into the
bag to empty it. Explosives come in
occasionally, and, as they are contra
band, they are taken out carefully
when discovered and dropped gently
into the North river.
Foreign publications give us large
share of our work in this department.
The newspapers and books we receive
from France and Germany are almost
invariably Enclosed in wrappers that
are hardly stronger than tissue paper,
end the motion of the vessel tears
many of them loose. In every for
eign mail we find at least a
bushel of loose books and news
papers. They are held as long
as we can find room for them, and
then they are sent to the dead letter
office. If the sender would write the
address on the margin of newspapers
or the fly-leaf of books, the loss of the
wrappers would make little difference.
Some of these articles are of considera-
BILE value in this country on account of
the translations that are made from
them.
Many articles reach us that are ut
terly unavailable. We receive umbrel-
las and long maps that would not go
into any mail bag. A few days long
fishing rod came in. The amount OF
mail we receive and sent out daily is
an old story, but think 1 can put 1t
before You in a new light. Mail mat
ter is comparatively light, and n ton OF
il would easily fill coal car. AS we
receive over ESQ tons day, train of
ESQ coal ears would not quite
bring in all the letters and newspapers
we receive every day. The mere
handling of the money taken in is an
important matter-about S7.500,0O0 a
year. Some government officers han
die much more, but theirs come in
larger sums; the bulk of ours comes in
1c and &c at a time.
SIN inquiries for lost articles, we
average between 100 and 200 day. OF
the 35,3 inquiries made last year, 16,-
102 were successful and the lost letters
or parcels were delivered. Nine hun
dred and thirty-one packages were
withdrawn from the mails last year on
account of their destructible or dam
gerous character. We sent to the dead
letter Office S329.6s in loose money
found in mail bags or letter boxes, and
sl71.63 worth of loose postage stamps.
Thirteen thousand five hundred and
forty-two packages posted for foreign
countries were unmailable and were
withdrawn, some of them containing
iewelry or coin.
Torn wrappers? This will give you
an idea how many newspapers are lost
in the mails through using poor paper
for wrapping. Last year we sent to
the dead letter Office 53,561 wrappers
without any Enclosures and $1,000
newspapers without wrappers or ad-
dresses; LIS books without wrappers
also went to the dead letter office: The
floating population of New York keeps
us constantly supplied with undeliver-
able letters; last year we sent tc the
dead letter Office 40.1s7 letters which
had been addressed to visitors in ho-
tels-visitors who had left the city or
changed their addresses before the let
ters arrived."--N. Y. Times.
He Got Him.
Obseryant CitiZen-There seems to