The morning news., 1898-08-07
THE LETTER CHAIN.
MISS sCHENCK STARTED MOVE
MENT TO AID OUR WOUNDED
SOLDIERS.

An Elephant on Her Hands The
Vast Results Already Attained are
MarVeIOus-The Population of the
World Is Too Small for Her Needs.
She Has Literally Letters TO Burn.
From the Philadelphia Times.
Into the boundless ocean of American
patriotism a thoughtless girl with faith in
human nature, hope for the cause of Cuba
Libre, and charity for the wounded United
States soldiers cast a dime. At first only
faint ripple appeared on the surface, but
quickly it increased to a tiny wave. Grad
ually the wave swelled until 1t became
mighty surge, only to grow quicker still
into raging torrent.
And the dmel AT first it became only
dollar. Then it grew TO hundreds. Soon it
expanded to thousands. And it is still ex-
panding.
For, in blissful ignorance of what IT
meant, she had run foul of "geometrical
progression" and geometrical progression
is thing which makes all other wonders
of the world look small
Miss Schenck of Babylon, L. l., and her
endless letter chain threatens to become
one of the famous incidents of the war
with Spain. Letter chains are not dis
tincuy a novelty. But never before did
! anyone find plea so strong as hers. For
she appealed to the patriotism of the
American people, asked them 10 care for
sick soldiers, and So sowing the wind
reaped a whirlwind of which she had not
| dreamed
She intended to carry the chain to 1O0
BY last Monday 1t had already reached
twenty, and letter of that number had
been received. If the chain had been no
where broken before reaching No 20 Miss
Schenck would have received somewhat
over thousand billion letters She did
not receive any such number, for to reach
| it each person in the United States would
| have had to write to her some L, GOO times.
| but she got enough.
The letter which Miss Schenck sent out
| read as follows
The Ice pant auxiliary In connection
| with the National Red Cross, being in need
! OF money to supply the ambulance ships, a
! chain has been formed to collect some. and
| II you, on receiving this, viii make four
| copies and send them to four of your
friends you will greatly help the wounded
| soldiers When you have made four COPIES,
please return this letter to Miss Natalie
| Scnenck, Babylon, Long Island, with 1C
! cents enclosed. The number starts at one
and ends at 100, so that the person receiv-
| lhS the latter number will send 10 cents 10
Miss Schenck, same address, without MAX
! lnS copies. Please number the head of
each copy and make them exactly like this
one, only number the next highest number
and sign your name and address to each
copy. Please make no delay in sending out
copies, and, above all. do not break the
chdln that means so much to our brave
| soldiers on land and sea"
In placing the limit upon her chain Mss
Schenck made her great mistake She is
not much past the time in life when girls
are supposed to be doing their examples
on their states, but even in that short time
her knowledge of geometrical progressi or
had grown decidedly rusty. Had she stop-
ped but moment to figure she would have
discovered that If her chain ran through
only twenty Series the number of letters
| due her WoulQ increasa as follows.