The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1902-10-16
FATE OF CHARRED LETTERS.
II LeEible They Are Returned to
Their Addresses-Redress for
Lost Treasures

The burning of the car does not
necessarily mean the loss of every
thing in it. Every railway mail car
is supplied with fie extinguishing APP
paratus, axes, etc, in the use of which
the clerks are instructed, so that the
best practicable Roadway is made
against FIRE, and time is often gained
at least for throwing out that mail
which is in such shape as to be handled
in bulk. Of what is injured by the fire,
part is of course ruined past all hope of
identification, if it does not actually
go up in smoke, says the New York
Evening Post. Letters which are so
charred as to be ready to drop apart,
| but are still legible, are put, envelopes
and all, into fresh wrappers, sealed and
! forwarded to their addresses, so
marked as to indicate what has hap
pened to them. The fragments of those
which are too nearly destroyed to be
capable of treating that way are
gathered up and sent either to the dead
letter office in Washington or to the
nearest inspector of the depredations
division. The inspectors are scattered
all over the country, having certain
districts of territory under their juris-
diction, and it is their business to know
their districts very thoroughly. Some
remarkable rescues of letters so bad
ly burned as to battle all ordinary in
genuity have been made by these men.
Burned remnants are preferably sent
to them, other things being equal, be-
cause sending to the dead letter office
involves the loss of all the time of
journey to Washington and back, to
say nothing of the delay in the Office
there, where the work is always more
or less congested. But where
wrecked car contains mail for a very
wide section of the country, and the
contents are so confused that there
are no proba bilities to proceed on as
basis, nothing is left but to send the
burned pieces there and let them take
their chances.
When it is finally settled in the mind
of the writer of letter that it has
been Destroyed, it depends on good
many circumstances whether he can
get any redress. If the destruction of
the car was due to culpable negligence
on the part of the railway company,
the latter is liable. OF old, the con-
tracts between the government and
company for mail carriage used to
stipulate that the company should be
responsible for losses under certain
conditions. Later this was made part
of the general law, so as to do away
with the necessity of a clause in the
contracts. The difficulty in most cases
lies in producing legal proof of the
loss itself, the question of culpa bility
being decided by the regular inquiry
into the cause of the disaster Even
in these days of universal postal con-
veniences not few men of large af
fairs are still willing to take risks
with the mails which they would not
think for moment of taking with
anything else. They will enclose a
considerab BILE sum of money, in the
form of government notes or bank
notes, loose into letter, without so
much as telling friend of it, drop the
letter in a post-box and trust the rest
to luck. Of course nothing but luck
can ever restore that money to them
if it is lost in transit. Registered mail
| is reasonably safe, if not of too high
value, for the government undertakes
to insure the patrons of its registry
service against at least part OF their
losses, and the registry Office receipt
is prima facie evidence that something
of value was in the package which has
not reached its destinatio the rest
of the case consists in bringing salts
factory evidence of what that thing of
value was. Safest of all the means of
protection provided is the money or
der; for its documentary evidence is
spread over four surfaces-the order
itself, the letter of advice to the paying
! post Office, the receipt and entry on