The times., 1901-05-19

1
| Roll of Greenbacks - often Sew
| eraI Claimants for One Letter.
| The general delivery department Of the
postofice is open from O'Clock in the
morning until midnight There is a sign.
| General Delivery" there is & walnut
| partition, and. cut in the walnut. there
| is row of three or four windows. be-
( hind each Of which stands clerk. visible
from the waist up. Approaching hither,
coming on this line of windows that en-
frame the busts, motionless and grave. Of
clerks, one has the sensation of gazing
at an array of portraits in a picture gall
| lery.
1 The general delivery department is pop
! ular. One sort of person gets his letters
| there because he is too poor to have an
address of any approach to permanency;
another sort because he is conducting
correspondence under an assumed name;
another sort because it would not do for
| his family to know with whom he is in
communication. and. no doubt, there are
many other reasons for the fattering pa
| tronage which the department has,
though the three above mentioned are the
| main ones.
Shabbier men and women are never
seen than some of those in the general
delivery line. The hobo, on striking town,
is sure to go there the first thing. And
the letter he gets. for usually he gets a
letter. is the last thread that joins him
to respectability. He may be fallen quite
as low as, from his appearance, one would
judge he was. but the letter unites him.
it may be, to some clean, white New Eng
land farmhouse, whence a mother or a
sister writes to him now and then. Some
times fhera ic rnouav in a hOhOfc letter
When that is the case it is impossible to
conceive of gait swifter or more buoy
ant than that with which the man passes
down and out of the postoffice corridor.
But they still remember in the general
delivery department the strange action of
a hobo who got money in letter on a
spring day seven years ago.
He was commonplace a person in
appearance as ever rode blind baggage.
A match could have been struck on his
three days growth of beard. In his
mouth was an unlighted cigar butt very
big at the end, where it beilied out, some
what In the shape of a lily. 'Jaspar
King" he said. in hoarse voice, to the
clerk
The clerk went through the ks, found
letter, and gave it to Jaspar. 1t was
letter on fashionable, heavy blue paper,
with white monogram and a crest Jas
par opened it, and then the clerks. mo-
tioniess behind their glass windows, had
the rare privilege of behOlding tramp
tearing up and jumping on roll Of bank
notes-a bunch of real money JaspaE,
with frenzied oaths. tore UP the bills.
hurled the green fragments on the floor,
and jumped upon them. The clerks could
not refrain from asking him how much
money there had been, and why he had
destroyed it Jaspar answered: None of
your id business" and departed hur-
riedly. Thus there is no solution 10 this
mystery.
Sometimes a detective viii loiter for
week at a time about the general deIiv-
cry line. Word will have reached the de-
tective department that some crook, some
bank robber, or confidence man has come
to town, and in order to find him the
sleuth of the law will go to the postoffice,
knowing that, even though one be a
crook. one may have a wife, and a young
one or two from whom letter is pleas
ure well worth seeking. And hence the
grave clerks in their frames have some
times looked out on a melodrama in the
corridor. detective, very wary. moving
without sound on his ruober-soled shoes;
a slouching ad-shOuldered person who
says: Got a letter for William Sykes2r
a nanO Iald on tnlS person s SnoulOer anu
the words, Il arrest you" and then
fierce fight Detectives. on the lookout
for criminals newly arrived, invariably
frequent the general delivery department
Many theatrical arrests have been made
there.
1t often happens that there are five or
six claimants for one general delivery
letter a letter, say, to a man with
common name, like John Smith. In this
case the clerk sets an hour when all the
John Smiths appear before his window
together He opens the disputed letter in
their presence, and by ingenious cross
questioning determines to which OF them
the letter belongs. This scene bears
resemblance to a class in schOO-the
clerk at the window. with the letter, like
the teacher. and the half dozen John
Smiths, gravely. anSiously answering MS
questions like the pupils.
There is a type Of young girl VINO ire
ouents the department, girl not very
pretty, not very intelligent looking Every
day she comes, and every day, Tor the
first month or so. she gets letter ana
departs with it, her eyes shining with JOY.
In the second month the letters come less
frequently. in the third month still less
FREQUENTLY. and the young girls visits to
the postoffice also grow less frequent, ana
Joy shines in her eyes no longer. F1nallY
her letters stop coming, and she, little
later. stops coming. too. Her little ro-
nance is over. The clerk, it may be, feels
sorry for her But, you see, she was not
very pretty nor very clever, and. there
fore this ending was to have been eX-
pected There are many more interesting
stories of the general delivery ry-PhiiadeI-
phia Record.