Omaha daily bee., 1910-11-27
TANGLED ADDRESS CLEARED UP
Remarkable Talent OF Woman Em-
plOyed in the Dead Letter
office.

Ranking high among government em-
ployes in Washington Is Mrs Patti Lyle
Collins OF the dead letter section Of the
Postoffice department For many years she
has deciphered almost illegible addresses
on mail matter. which had defied the
postmasters and custom house vigilantes.
She has gained the sobriquet Of 'the blind
reader" because writing and languages to
which other people in the postal service
we're blind" could be mentally seen by her
/ Thousands Of parcels and letters fraught
with every human hope and desire and very
often containing valuables and money have
| come to Mrs Collins as a last resort And
IL Is estimated that nearly always fifty
and often seventy FER cent Of such matter
was correctly placed" by her knowledge
Of foreign tongues and dialects and rare
divination Of what was in the writer's mind
which he or she forgot to complete the
address
Mrs. Collins was splendidly equipped for
her work by father who taught her Latin
| and French at a very early age. She came
| Of southern family, having a strong
strain Of Creole blood. and the accent Of
| the Partisan was easily gained At fifteen
she knew her own English tongue as the
rhetorician and cultured know it. and had
the perfect grounding in Latin that simpu-
! flies all more modern languages. When il
became necessary for her to enter the gov
eminent service she began charging her
| cosmopolitan vocabulary. Her summers
were spent abroad where she was enabled
70 gain practice in the pronunciation Of
German, Spanish, Italian. Portuguese and
a number OF the Slavonic ldialects-thess
being essential because CT the large emil
grant correspondence carried on in them,
10 inn 90, nh,
the streets OF Rome, Of st. Petersburg, OF
san Francisco, Topeka or Lisbon are all
thoroughly and equally familiar was bit
by bit mprntlng on her brain the gsog-
raphy Of the worlds towns and thorough
fares and rural districts, until she knew
al a glance whether street address was
correct and the town wrong, or vice versa
and how to translate when half an address
was English and the remainder in that
Of the country for which the mail matter
was bound.
Once, for instance, a letter came to her
hands meant for some point in "Soumi -
1t had puzzled every official who handled
it, but Mrs. Collins knew that was the
Finnish word for Finland Frequently she
has sent on their way letters addressed
partly in English. partly In Polish partly
in Hungarian. she knows the location and
INNAiNNA oPelhNA OF alIaDeL every university
college and boarding school in the world
likewise with charitable institutions, the
names and initials OF the worlds repre-
sentative men and where they are most
likely 10 be located. She has been called
the greatest chirographlcal expert" and
in her collection are letters of thanks from
the great the uear-great and the merely
humble, who owe to her talent their receipt
OF letters which very often affected entire
careers.
At one time Mrs. Collins superintendeC
the arrangement Of a directory Of the
streets Of all cities, which has been in.
valuable. Very recently. however, the Post
office department has done away with thi.
method OF determining the proper dsstina
ton OF incorrectly addressed articles. ant
resorts 70 the beautifully simple expedient
when the writing is not plain 20 clerk,
unskilled in more than one language, o.
slitting open the envelope. II the interior
throws sufficient light on it's destination
Il Is sealed and forwarded; II not Il q
destroyed But it win probably be a yer,
long time before daily throngs Of visitor
70 the Dead Letter museum cease aszinl
for the blind reader whom they imagin,
TO be sightless. Washington star,