Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1907-08-30
EIGHT CLERKS TO
DEC|PHER MAIL
1t Requires That Number of Ex-
pertS to Handle lIIegible Adj
dresses in New York.
CRANK LETTER WRITER'S.
Nice Discrimination Necessary to
Evolve New Jersey" Ont of NE
giosi"-Othcr Freaks.

1t takes the service of eight men in
the New York city postoiflce to de
cipher mail which has been illegbly,
wrongly or queerly addressed.
Between 10000 and $4,000 letters
monthly are passed over to the blind
readers, as the clerks who handle this
class of mail are known, and of this
number some sixty odd thousand event
ually reach their destination.
The puzzles of the postofiice have
various causcs-poor writing, careless
ness, foreign Ignorance OF American
geography, false or defective knowledge
of particular addresses and the whims
and oddities of ingenious cranks who
like to make n public display OF Their
wit and humor.
1t is a sad fact, says The Strand,
that nearly % per cent of wrongly adj
dressed NAH comes from reputable
business houses, careless typewriter3
making the mistakes.
For instance, many letters are adj
dressed to Dearborn or South Market
street, New York City. or course the
ordinary sorter knows that Dearborn
street is In Chicago and that South
Market street is one of the principal
thoroughfares of Philadelphia, SO that
this mail does not go to the hard
desk.
1t is part of the regular asserting
clerks equipment to be familiar with
the principal streets of every city in
the United States, and he can tell at
glance where letters which would ut
terly confuse the outsider are intend
ed TO go.
THE CRANK LETTER WRITER.
Nowadays the product of the crank
letter writer gets short shrift, but there
was n time when rivalry between the
dead letter office at Washington and
the New York City postoftlce put the
blind readers on their mettle. and no
letters on which they might try their
skill was discarded. This kind of sill
illness and humor IL fatty discouraged
now, and a crank letter goes directly
to the dead letter office without any
attempt to unravel Its mystery.
A peculiar circumstance of the ille-
gible letters is that In almost every
case the words of New York, twisted
sometimes beyond all recognition, are
written somewhere on the letter. This
ignorant foreigner seems firmly pos
sessed of the belief that these cabalist-
ic words are alone enough to insure
| the letters delivery. Letters addressed
| TO California, Florida. Mexico and even
| Canada are labeled New York" but
| the blind reader has learned to pay lit
tie attention to that fact. and simply
| draws his pen through the words and
sends the letter to It's destination.
| The hardest problem comes when the
| letter Is addressed In two or more Ian
| euages. The sender generally writes
| Theoretically, and in many cases starts
| off in uncertain English and winds up
| in Russian, Hebrew or Italian. Then
| comes the puzzle. Often. however, n
| syllable and sometimes a single char
| acter Is enough to determine where the
| misslve is intended to go.
"NEGIosI"
| A nice discrimination in sounds is
| imperative. The word "Negiosl' looks
pretty hopeless. But on pronouncins
| il the blind reader feels certain 1t is
| ter postmarked "PrZeecXaw' came ad-
dressed to "Tu woody Tu is Chanler
| Teen stryt' the experts knowledge oil
| Polish talk was sufficient to enable
him to surmise that II he sent 1t Il
'Two- forty-two East Hundred Tenth
| street, he would not be far wrong, nor
was he, as the letter was followed UT
and Il was found that 1t was delivered
into the hands of the proper person.
"Insea" was on one occasion de-
ciphered to mean n. c., and "Anivl-
folsi'' Annawa Falls; "Retin." Read
| eszi." Fayetteville: "Knonbostocls
Massa" looked formidable enough with
its mingling of small and capital let
ters, but 1t was easily UNFINISHED tc
mean '102 North street, Boston, Mass;
while "To Ann Ofer STREET Sailing Mass.
went without much delay to '2 Hano-
yer street. Salem. Mass"
HOPELESS CASES.
Many letters, of course, defy the most
assiduous study and they Ultimately
land in the dead letter office, That Is
where the letter with single address
like John Smith, L. S. A., or Tom
Jones. America, goes.
A crank typewritten letter-the first
of the kind received-came to the New
York City postofiice recently and was
solved by Henry Garrison, the chief Of
the blind reading department, at al
most the first glance. The sender had
simply used the shift key on particu-
lar kind OF typewriter, on which all the
keys contained n character and let
-------------------