Gulf Coast breeze. [volume] (Crawfordville, Fla.) 1897-19??, 1897-12-10
LETTERS STOPPED IN TIME.
People who Are saved by tho Postmaster
From the Result OF Hasty Action.

"The tears were streaming from her
ewes like spray from the Gorkcs foun-
tain" said clerk in the Inquiry diyi.
sion Of the postoiHce, laughing at the
memory of the stout, forid woman who
rushed in one hot afternoon with tho
plaintive wall, stop my letter; give mo
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 =, 900, 900 other letters, yet she
wanted us TO get il for her qUick -
seemed TO think that | would bounce
out of my chair like a rubber ball out
OF tennis racquet, snatch up that
particular epistle, and come running
back breathless aud hand it to her.
Now, the facts are that the govern.
ment does not permit the stopping of
a letter that has left the writer's hands
unless il is important thatit should he
done. II makes an enormous amount
of extra work. There is blank that
must be filed out, stating the box in
which the letter was dropped, the
time, the address and the reason why
the request for the recovery ia made.
That reason sometimes discloses some
very interesting and romantic facts,
but, of course, most of the letters are
stopped for the business houses about
town. When we asked the red-faced
Niobe what her reason was, she boo
hooed, "Me an my man had some
troubles, N wrote to my fader for
moneys to go home, but my man and
me have made up and / would not have
that letter go for tousand dollar.
We got that letter for her.
"rhere 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
letter she had addressed to Peoria,
Ill.-there were some 50 opera tickets
in it Tia It she wanted to use that night.
She had had o letter written to her
family, and, thinking there might be
a postscript to add, had not sealed it,
She bought her seats to "rannhauser'
and left the window with her purse,
her letter and her tickets in her hand.
The open envelope was 80 inviting a
place for the tickets that she thought
she would carry them there, but just
"a soon as she saw letter-box il was
like a red rag to bull. She sealed
the envelope and posted II, tickets
and all, and it was hours before she
remembered what she had done, and
then came down to us for help. We
got her tickets, too.
young women who have recon
sidered' proposal or who regret n
hasty note. like the men, blushingly
confde their troubles to us, and we
have prevented 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. Peters
burg TO head off billet-doux or some
request from On impatient and petu-
liant son for o check. A scion Of
noble German house came in here to
implore us to prevent the delivery Of a
demand for money, written, i fancy,
in tone that. in the light OF recent
remittances, would endanger his in
heritance. There is some mighty in
teresting reading among the blanks
requesting letters stopped, all OF which
are sent on to Washington. Chicago
Inter Ocean.