The San Francisco call., 1909-10-02
GENERAL DELIVERY
INNfEDOF REFORM
Postoffice Privilege Abused by
Many Women, Who Garry On
Clandestine Correspondence

Clandestine correspondence between
women and young girls and their soul
mates is being carried on to a consid-
erable extent in San Francisco through
the abuse of the general delivery de-
partment of the postoffice. according
to admissions made. by the local postal
authorities yesterday. The practice
has grown to such an extent that many
letters have been received from par
ents imploring the postal officials to
stop giving mail to their wayward
young daughters. Except where the
inquirer gives his or her correct name,
however, the officials are powerless to
act, as there is no general delivery
rule requiring complete identification.
Because of the lack of such a rule
il is possible for "a young woman to
call at the general delivery window,
give fictitious name and get any
amount of mail from persons unknown
to her parents.
PRIVILEGE MUCH ABUSED
while we do not mean to reflect
upon the character of the majority of
those making use of this service, there
lis no question but that it is being
greatly abused" said an attache of
the local postmaster's office yesterday
in the absence of Postmaster Arthur
G. Fisk. I'VE know that in many cases
the persons calling for mail are giving
fictitious name, or else they are hav-
ing their mail sent to the general de-
livery because they do not want peo-
pie where they are living to know
they are getting it. OF course we
can not run down individual cases but
IL is evident that with some exceptions
person who continues having his or
her mail sent to the general delivery
when they have a permanent address
fs doing so for particular reasons. We
would many times rather they had the
mail directed to their address and de-
liver 1t by carrier, as il would take a
heavy burden off this department.
LETTERS FROM PARENTS
1--WE have had lots of cases where
parents have written US forbidding
mail to their minor children. but there
is nothing to prevent the latter from
using a fictitious name and getting all
the clandestine letters they desire
while their parental guardians are
none the wiser.
This growing habit of young girls
to carry on improper relations through
the abuse of the general delivery serv-
Ice is not peculiar to San Francisco
The Chicago postoffiee has been put to
such straits that rule has been put
into effect with the sanction of the
department, requiring written identifi-
cation of every one calling for mail at
the general delivery windows. While
such ruling here might check the
abuse, yet we feel that it would work
such a hardship upon many transient
residents that the policy of the depart
ment to interpret all its rules for the
greatest convenience of the public
would be violated.
IN NEED OF REFORM
There is no doubt that the general
delivery service needs reforming, but
the Chicago rule has been put into
force merely as an experiment. 1t is
possible that the British rule limiting
the use of the general delivery in free
mail communities to 30 days may ulti-
mately be put into effect here. This
would tend to put a damper upon all
such abuses of the service without in
terfering with the convenience of gen.
eral deiivery to the casual visitor