The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-02-03
UNCLE SAINTS WASTE BASKET
GETS A STRANGE COLLEC-
TION IN A YEAR.

About 100000 letters go astray
in the mails in the course of a twelve
month, and every one of them has to
be opened and examined, task that
furnishes occupation for a big room
full of clerks. Not a few of them owe
their fate to illegible addresses, and
these, if exceptionally hard to de
cipher, are handed over to a woman
.emplOye who is famous for her skill
as blind reader" Some Of hel
performances in this line are nothine
short of marvellous. Once in a while
it happens that somebody mails q
cryptogram for a joke, affording q
problem of much difficulty Care
lessness is responsible for a great
majority of the accidents In the
course of year about 10000 let
tiers containing money find their way
to the dead letter office and it is
astonishing how many packages and
letters are posted without any ad-
dress at all on envelope or cover,
writes Rene Bache.
1t happens occasionally that peo-
pie refuse to receive letters or par
GELS addressed to them, and such ar
ticles eventually reach Uncle Sans
capacious waste basket.
When it is considered that more
than 100000 packages of merchan-
disc find their way to the dead let
ter Cttice in the course of a year, it is
not surprising that many of the ar
ticles are strange and curious. Ap-
parently there is nothing small
enough to do up in a parcel that
people will not send through the
mails-nOt even high explosives, rep
tiles bottled in alcohol, or live ami
mails. All such things, as well as
fluids and pointed instruments" are
classed as unavailable, and when rec
ognized are promptly confiscated.
AS for live animals, only one kind
S allowed in the mail; namely, bees.
In these days a great many of the
little honey getters, mostly queens
though sometimes the female is ac-
companied by half a dozen work
ers-are shipped by post in small
wooden boxes of prescribed pattern,
a special indulgence in regard to
them being granted by law. They
are intended for breeding purposes;
and, quite naturally, consignments
OF them turn up now and then at
the dead letter office.
Centipedes, tarantulas and horned
, toads, both living and dead, are fire.
quently received at the dead letter
office People who visit Arizona US
ually consider it the proper thing to
send home a few horned toads, these
| being regarded as a typical local
product, and now and then they
! forward ella monster or two at
! second class rates. A living RATHER.
| with nine Tattles, which went astray
IN the post, now Teposes in a glass
jar Of alcohol, labeled From Flori-
! ia. But the most alarming parcel
TO date proved to contain II small
| snakes, all squirting and Eriggly.
Among the odds and ends in the
/ collection of curiosities are false
! Whiskers, brass knuckles, coffin
plates, wigs, poker chips, rat traps.
pocket cook stoves, dental instru-
ments, pipes and tobacco, opium
pipes and packages Of opium, corn
husklng gloves, kitchen utensils,
musical instruments, spirit photo
graphs, startish, petrifed frogs. idols
from Mexico, silkworm cocoons and
baby alligators from Florida.
A relic somewhat out of the or
binary is revolver which was sent
III a package, at full cock, to a wo-
man in Springfield. Ohio All Of i+e
SIX chambers were loaded, and that
1t did not go off is a wonder. An
other oddity was a lock of hair for.
< Warded by Charles Guiteau, the as.
sassin of Garfield, to a woman in
Clnclnnati-it was his own hair nv
the way-with request that she
: contribute a thousand dollars for hi,
. defense
Notwithstanding the regulation
torbiddng the transmission of ex
ploslVes by mail large quantities q.
hrecrackers and torpedoes, thus dis
ipatched, are cOnfiscatnd Moot 49,,