Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-01
THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE.
About Eleven Million Pieces Of Mail
Matter Handled Annually

Il will give you an epitome regarding the
dead letter Office which will be found of In
terest." said a postal official to a Star re-
porter.
''The dead letter Office was established
in 1925. and from an insignificant beginning
has grown into establishment which
gives employment to an average force of
about 80 persons, and handles about H.
900 eco pieces of mail matter annually The
work to which the office devotes itself is
the disposal Of the various kinds of unde-
liverable mail matter sent to it from about
$4,000 post offices. This mail matter is d.
vided into two general cfasses-unclaimed
and unavailable.
THE former includes such matter as has
reached the destination to which It Is d.
rected and has been uncaIled for. or re-
fused, or of which the addresses cannot
be found The latter embraces a variety
of matter which cannot be dispatched for
various reasons, such as non-prepayment of
postage, mfdirection, entire want of adj
dress. etc. The unclaimed matter is CLASH
fed as domestic and foreign, the latter
designation, of course, applying to such as
originates in foreign countries.
THE work of the Office, generally speak
ing. is to deliver as much of this matter as
possible, either to sender or addressed the
former almost exclusively. This DISPOSE
ton is made from day to day as far as may
be done. There is a popular fallacy that
matter Is held for stipulated period, and
arranged for delivery upon application in
much the same manner as local post offices
are conducted. This would be wholly i'm
practicable and receipt and disposal must
be made as nearly concurrent as possible
Zone of the features of the old dead let
ter office in the old Post ONCE Department
building on F street was its museum of
curiosities found in the mails There Is
now no longer a distinctively dead letter
office museum. The articles which were
formerly exhibited in 1t. which were of the
most diversified and interesting type. have
been included In the general postal mu-
the city post office floor of the main de-
partment building, on Pennsylvania ave-
nue. Articles of curious interest for which
owners cannot be found, and which are
without considerable value, are OCCASION
ally contributed to the exhibit.
From the very large quantity of dead
mail matter sent to the dead letter office.
including periodicals. pictorials fancy
cards, etc. of which the bulk is consigned
to the waste and sold to contractors there
are many thousands annually selected
which are at intervals distributed among
some of the benevolent institutions of the
District. such matter being carefully Sc
lected, having in view the purpose for
which it is intended.
1.-The dead letter Office however which is
now situated on the third floor of the main
department building, on the south side, is
still one of the features of life in the gov
eminent offices in Washington, even with
it's museum thing of the past, and all day
long at intervals the visitors ana guides file
through the Office and watch the clerks at
work. Such visitors welcome but all
they can see and all there is to see are a
lot of very busy clerks behind the wire
gratings working like beavers over other
peoples errors In mail matters"