Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-07-24
PECULIAR LIBRARY.
How Misdirected Letters Finally
Reach their Destination.
HOW IT HELPS THE BLIND READERS.
Foreign Addresses are Especially un-
,aadable-The Helpful Directory-Bad
Writing to Deal With.

illegible or deficient fashion that III Is
not Immediately deliverable he cannot
reasonably expect that it shall reach
its destination. But the United States
postal officials are more than just
thew are merciful. and have elaborate
machinery for supplying omissions and
other mistakes in addresses, says the
New York Tribune. In the New York
office an average of 1000 or 5000 let
tiers. newspapers and parcels is received
daily which cannot be delivered after
an ordinary reading Of the superscrip'
ton. Such mail matte is sent to the
directory reading department., where
it is distributed among force of men
who set about decipheriDg what is not
clear and filling in what is lacking. In
the parlance of the Office these men
are called "blind readers, 'and their
head is William w. Stone. who has
now been engaged on this work for
nearly forty years. The mistakes are
of all possible and various impossible
kinds, but most of them are grouped
into classes.
A common form of error is the fail
ure to put in the city and state after
the addresses name, street and num-
ber A good part of these can be sent
straight after study of an invaluable
work of reference published by the
dead letter office and entitled "Street
Directory of the Principal Cities of the
United States"
This was originally kept by Mr..
Stone in manuscript, but its value was
recognized by his superiors, SO they
had it printed. A new edition is
brought out about every three years,
and one was issued in March last. 1t
is of 1,129 pages and contains 1874
cities which were not in the previous
volume. All the streets in all the
free delivery cities of the country are
given in this. The streets are ar
ranged alphabetically. except the num-
bered ones. and under each is printed
the cities having thoroughfare OF
that name. Opposite each city are
printed the limits Of the numbering OF
the houses in the street-that is. i'll
the highest and lowest number which
a house in the street may have.
In some cases the solution of de-
ticient address is extreme ly simple
with the aid of this directory. Thus
letter for Samuel Stratron, 405 Colyton
street, is at once forwarded to Los
Angeles, CAL, for that city alone has
Colyton street. A letter for Mrs.
Mary L. Wilson, West Houston street.
near Soledad, Texas. finds its way to
San Antonio, for while there are nat
urally several cities in the State which
have streets named after Gen. Houston
only San Antonio also has Soledad
street Some searching was necessary
to find the destination of letter for
Albert Harrive, Woodward avenue,
between Grand River avenue and
State, but it was discovered that De-
troit alone had streets bearing those
three names.
The numbers given with each street
are often significant Thus piece of
mail matter for Hammond g. Co., 2022
jefferson place, no city being given.
goes to Baltimore at once There are
eleven cities with thoroughfares of the
same name, but in none of the others
dues the numbering run up to 20s2.
In great many streets the numbers
do not begin with /. the lowest some
times being 1000 or even higher.
Thus letter directed to j. M. Lawler,
Mcfarland street, Greensboro. KY,
was quickly forwarded to Huntington
Ind, for while four cities have a
Farland street only that in Huntington,
Ind. has numbers running below s.
OF course, it is more common to have
letter sent to the wrong city than to
have it mailed with the ssname of the
city omitted, but the directory is equal
~ convenient in either class of mis-
takes.
The "blind readers" besides have
large collection of ordinary city di-
rectories. perhaps 100 altogether. If
the general street directory shows that
a given letter might be for any one of
half dozen cities, the directory of
each is searched in turn and like as not
the addresses is identified. The Ii
brary also contains number of other
directories. Two of them are of places
having no postoffice. and they tell
whittier mail for them should be sent.
Then there are various foreign direc
tories and Domestic ones containing
lists of banks and cashiers of banks,
clergymen Of various denominations,
etc. Mr.. Stone and his assistants
have half dozen manuscript direct
cries also. One of these is of institu
tions, asylums, colleges. big factories.
etc. A second is of mills. especially
those in which foreigners are employed,
and another of mines. Ignorant per-
sons in Europe will write to relatives
here, giving as their address merely
the mine or mill i'll which they are
employed. Names are added to these
books of reference from time to time,
until now they are remarkably COM
plete. A directory of seedsmen is also
found of frequent use. as many farm
ers misdirect letters to these merchants.
Mail from Italy gives q great deal