The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-10-16
LETTERS STOPPED IN TIME.
People Saved by the Postmaster from
the Result of Hasty Action.

People Saved by the Postmaster from
the Result of Hasty Action.
The tears were streaming from heI
eyes like spray from the Yerkes foun.
tain" said a clerk in the inquiry divi.
sion of the post office, laughing at the
memory of the stout, horid woman who
rushed in one hot afternoon with the
piaintive wall: stop me letter; give
me my letter to the old country"
That letter" the man went on, "was
dropped somewhere within the city
limits and was mixed in with some q.
100000 other letters, yet she wanted us
TO get it for her quick-seemed to think
that 1 would bounce out of my chair
like a rubber ball out of a tennis
racquet. snatch up that particular
epistle and come running back breath
are that the government does not per-
nit the stopping of a letter thatha left
the writer's hands unless it is important
that it should be done. 1t makes an
enormous amount of extra work. Here
is a blank that must be filed out, stat.
ing the box in which the letter was
dropped, the time, the address and the
reason why the request for the recov-
cry is made. That reason sometimes dis
closes some very interesting and roman
tic facts, but of course, most of the let
tiers are stopped for the business houses
about town. When we asked the red
faced Niobe what her reason was, she
hnn-hAnn1. GAa on' n ~ hoA cO-nn
troubles n 1 wrote to my fader for
moneys to go home, but my man and
me have made up, and 1 would nothave
that letter go for a tousand dollar We
got that letter for her.
There was another young woman
who rushed in here during the opera
season, and when she had caught a
little breath she said she wanted a let
ter she had addressed to Peoria. ILL.,
there were some five-dollar opera tick
cts in it that she wanted to use that
night. She had had a letter written to
her family. and thinking there might
be a postscript to add had not sealed it.
She bought her seats to '"Tannhauser'
and left the window with her purse,
her letter and her tickets in her hand.
The open envelope was so inviting a
place for the tickets that she thought
she would carry them there. but just as
soon as she saw a letter box it was Ike
a red rag to n bull. She sealed the en-
velope and posted it, tickets and all, and
it was hours before she remembered
what she hadrdone, and then came to US
for help. We got her tickets, too.
Young women who have 'reconsid-
ered' a proposal or who regret a hasty
note, like the men, biushingly confide
their troubles to US and we have pre-
vented more than one broken heart.
Sometimes the letters have left our
hands and we have to telegraph to
catch them. which is done at the per-
sons expense. We have more than once
cabled to Berlin and ST. Petersburg to
head off a billet-doux or some request
from an impatient and petulant son for
4 check. 4 scion of a noble German
house came in here to implore us to
prevent the delivery of a demand for
money, written. I fancy, in a tone that,
in the light of recent remittances,
would endanger his inheritance. There
is some mighty interesting reading
among the blanks requesting letters
stopped. all of which are sent on to
Washington."-Chicago Times-Herald.