The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-01-03
PENSION OFFICE HUM0R.
Amusing and Original Applications
for Pay.
CNew York Tribune.O

New York Tribune.)
If he dared to do so the commission
er of pensions at Washington could
compile delightful volume, putting
therein the strange applications for
pensions that come to his Office. Some
of these letters belong to the too good
to keep" class and they find their way
out into the world. where they add a
good deal TO the hiIarity of nations.
Some applicants for pensions manifest
the most childlike ignorance regarding
the method of procedure necessary
when applying for a pension. They
seem to think that ali they have to do
is to send an application to the PEN
sion Office and Uncle Sam viii forward
check by return mail. Some go so
far as to send personal letters to Presi-
dent Roosevelt, and the writer has
knowledge Of at least one ex-soldier
who feels confident that he had his
pension .'.riz'' from $40 to S12 a month
by a letter sent to the president telling
him that if the pension was not ri"
by certain time the applicant would
Zine the Dimmycrats.
Soon after the close Of the civil war
there came to the pension office in
Washington the following unique and
pcetical application for a pension that
least thirty years ago, for a copy Of
1t is in a scrapbook that old:
to Commissioner of Pensions in
! Washington.
these many years I've tried in vain
an honest Pension to obtain
For wound received in Sixty one
at first battle of Bull Run
one Of ollioes sons so brave
who went to the front the union to
save
And whilst Engaged in above said
fight
a rebel Shell took half my sight
Not content in taking an Eye
this treacherous Shell in Passing by
took my Eye Brow Clear TO the bone
and Left me as unconscious as a stone
burning blister of Crystal Clear
from the jaw bone to the Ear
but thanks to god my life was spared
Chek and Eye Brow but sLitely
Scared
and one Eye was left to me
for to wright and read Poetre
hope with that Eye to see the day
when unkel Sam his Cripples will Pay.
Much more recent is the letter sent
to the commissioner of pensions by an
applicant who had contracted blood
poisoning in the following remarkable
manner:
81 got blood poison by beinge hit
with a hens eg wen cam back frum
the frunt. The eg was not good wen
you send my pension 1 want the Deed
made sos my wife can't get none of it.
She throde the eg. She war a rebel "
Equally appealing and remarkable
was another letter sent to the pension
office IN which the applicant set forth
| his claims to pension in this wise:
1.-THE way got my war ingery was a
ketchin' Of hog. The Hog war want
ed by our captain for forege. We was
chasin' the hog and she crawled
threw a hole, an I thot 1 were about
the size Of the hog, and tried to crawl
threw, but I stuck an in tryin to
wiggle out I thode the rales off an
one 1t hit me on my he'd and nocked
me senseless. I do not think the hog
had nothin' to do with my line OF
| duty, for I did not ketch the hog
Wish she never was caut, so pleze send
along my pension
| One aged pensioner had evidently
made a serious blunder by taking unto
! himself wife in his old age, for love
| Of gain seems to have been the motive
| of the woman who married him if the
following letter stated the facts in the
| case;
Dear Mister Governments Pleze .to
] fix up my penshun papers so as my
wife can't draw my twelve dollars a
munt when I am ded she say she mar
ryed me for Low an be ole mans Oar
| ling but now no it was for to git my
| penshun on herself by being my Wild
over SO pleZe dOant let on to her that
| you got this from me or 1 would have
a hot time of it and times is hotter
now than I can stand. So when I send
| word that I am no moar then send her
| this if you want to but not until the
| penshun is shut off which it her Just
| desserts for marryin' for money an in
| a Mersheenary spirit"