The morning news., 1897-01-16
A Pleasant Talk About What May Be
Seen and Heard There.
From the Philadelphia Times.

Seen and Heard There.
From the Philadelphia Times.
During the first eleven years of the ex-
istence of the dead letter office one small
book was sufficient to record a. memoran-
DUN of all the important letters that
reached it. At the present time about
10000 letters are received each day, though
large majority of them are of little i'm
portance. There are letters from all sorts
of people and from all parts of the world.
All lost letters are sent to the office in
hope that patience, perseverance and skill
may ultimately find their destined owners.
In the greater number of cases the quest
is successful.
Every day many of the 10000 postofices
in the United States send to the dead let
ter Office in Washington letters with an
illegible address, an insufficient address,
or, as is often the case, with an entire
lack of address, and others that have been
advertised and not claimed. When this
bulky mail reaches the department it is
rapidly separated and the various kinds
of letters assigned the clerks whose duty
it is to sort them.
Visitors to the office are usually shown
only the museum and are then conducted
to a balcony where they are allowed to
look at the busy clerks, who sit at their
desks in the room below, sorting, counting,
opening, arranging and disposing of let
ters with marvellous rapidity. Through
the courtesy of Mr.. Frank Jones, first as-
sistant postmaster general, l was permit
ted to enter this room, to talk with the
clerks and to watch their work.
Twenty people, with small keen blades,
were swiftly cutting envelopes, glancine
at the contents, and, usually, throwing
them aside as valueless. These are the
letters that have been properly addressed,
stamped and received at the specified post
Office but the owners of which the post
master has been unable to find. He adver
tises them for ten or fifteen days, and If
they be unclaimed at the expiration of
| that time he sends them TO Washington.
Each clerk opens about two thousand of
these letters daily The object is to see If
| they contain money, money-orders, checks
| or any other article of value. If they do,
| every effort is made to return them to the
sender. When clerk finds money in
| letter, he Immediately writes the amount,
the date and his name on the back of the
envelope, and it is then sent to another
| clerk who studies the letter to find some
| clue by which the money may be return
ed. Sometimes success crowns his efforts
| and sometimes the puzzle cannot be solV-
| ed The address on the envelope, the name
OF the examining clerk, the amount of
money and the date are recorded, and the
/ money is Dut aside for two years. At the
| end of that time, if no inquiry has been
made for it, it is sent to the United States
treasury, where the owner by furnishing
conclusive proof that it is his property,
may redeem it any time within four years
of the day the treasurer received it.
Many of these letters are written by rel
atives or by friends who sign names CIV
| en- them by their sponsors or some eupho-
nious title of their babyhood days. Thus
| letter commencing my dear Bee" and
| ending with Your loving George" con-
| veys no idea of which of the many loving
| in, tla Init Sfaf fn. to
| epistle. The clerk who is endeavoring to
| find some means of individualizing the
| owner reads the letter studiously and some
| times finds a sentence like this: Did
| you know Frank Bentley is working at
| W-'s store in P-?" Then the Office
writes to Frank Bentley, asking whether
| he can identify the flowing George" who
| writes to dear Bee" In nine cases out
Of ten, George in this way recovers his
| money.
Other clerks open letters that have been
| dropped into the street mail-boXes with
out either stamp or address. A number OF
| these blank envelopes are received every
day and the greater part of them are sent
| by business men and often contain legal
documents. AS we stood by watching, the
clerk opened number of these envelopes,
| in one of which he found the sum of eight
| dollars, and in another dollar bill. They
| were put aside to be examined in the same
| way tnaL the auNeTllSeu lelleIS are. All
other blank envelope held a gold ring,
with a letter touchingly signed, Your
! sweetheart Sam" Two unaddressed enyel-
| opes each contained the photograph of a
pretty young girl. The pictures were taken
| in Cleveland and had the name of the pho
| tographer in the corner. Through him the
office will endeavor to restore them to the
| original.
In another part Of the room a letter was
shown to me that was stamped and plainly
| addressed to a man in Burlington, VI,
| This letter had been held by postmaster
| in one of the western states and advertised
| for thirty days. The dead letter Office will
send II to the man in Vermont, asking
him to return the envelope 10 the Wash
| ington office. They will then send 1t 10
the western postmaster, demanding an eX-
PLANTATION of his conduct in holding let
ter legibly addressed TO another town and
| state.
In one corner Of the department sits a
woman, of whom the ordinary mortal is
inclined to think as the possessor of some
| system of accult reasoning It Is her duty
TO decipher illegible addresses and to COM
plete those that are unfinished. This lat
ter Is not so difficult, as she Is supplied
with directories OF all the cities and large
towns in the United States, and when a
letter is received directed to John jay,
Wall street. Philadelphia, Pa, she erases
the city and state and substitutes New
York" Errors Of this kind are Of fire.
quent occurrence, the writer putting on
the envelope the name of the city from
which he Is writing.
Many letters also reach this desk with
an incomplete address, as James Smith.
Providence. Rhode Island Is soon added
and the letter Is forwarded. A letter
was once received at this desk bearing the
words, DIR. Washburn, Roberts College.
with very little delay, Constantinople,
Turkey, was added and the doctor re-
celved the letter almost as quickly as
though Il had gone directly from the
sender.
uVhnr The work Of daclnhnrinr Illeglhla