Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1910-12-11
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Office must step in.
If the trouble has been merely the
result of bad penmanship on the part
of the person who address ed the pos
tai derelict the solution may be sim
pie for the Dead Letter Office has
on its staff men and women experts
known as blind readers" who can
decipher addresses that no ordinary
mortal could make head nor tail OF.
and once the address has been trans
lated into plain English the detained
parcel can be set upon its way. Simi-
larry. if a parcel has been Improperly
addressed as TO city or state. these
experts with their battery of city di-
rectories covering all communities in
the country can usually straiehten out
the mixup and start the wanderer on
the road to its proper destination.
The sleuths of the Dead Letter Of-
fee make every effort to return to
the sender all packages or letters
which for any reason cannot De de-
Iyered. but sometimes there is not q
word either inside or outside the par
eel to give a clue to its place OF orr
gin and thus the "tracers are COM
pletely baffled.
These are packages that yield the
material for Uncle Sans interesting
and variegated auction sale Each
article found in the mails. with no
means of Identification. is held at the
peneral postofice building in Wash
ington for full year in the hope that
the lender or the person who should
have received il will write in ana
thereby disclose the rightful destina-
ton of the hostage. However. in
surprising number of cases tne los
, ers. even when the articles that have
disappeared are evaluable. never make
| inouirv in the proper channels.
| Sentimental people who note ring
| and all sorts of loye-lorn keepsakes
listed in the auctions like to imagine
| that they were never traced because
| some person. in each instance. was
too proud to make inquiry. and theT
| conjure ND visions Of tragedies and
| shattered rOmances as the se1ueis OF
r~any Of these losses in the mails
Tie arossic officials. however adj
vance the theory that usually inquiry
f, for LOST articles Is not made because
| the pcrsons concerned-s9y. for in
| stance. newly landed foreigners-do
/ nor know inst how 10 60 aboIt inst'
suting an inve@tiration to recover
their lost property. A. any rate.
there - a whole store full Of proner-
". embracing almost everything tnat
the mind can conceive Of. left on Tn
Gle Sans hands a< the end of every
12-month. s1h he does IL oy the gen
eral auction.
This auction the second or third
week Of each December has been
unique feature OF life At the caoital
for some years past. but lately II has
attracted more and more attention. as
II has grown IN magnitude. las; year
a man who was dissatisfied with what
he termed the lottery feature OF these
sales raised a strenuous howl and
threatened ~ ask CONGRESS to invcs-
tirafe the matter lie complained. Tor
one thing. thpf what he bough. as a
medal was IN realty a Canadian pen
ny covered With gold paint and should
have been 80 described. On the 9th
, CT hand. he protested that he would
have been glad 70 bid $500 for huge
box % souvenir post cards that sold
for les than 500 " he could have
known in advance that this boz. sim
rnly listed a. souvenir post cards.
IN reality contained more than fo.9oo
Of the coiorcd picture cards.
The officials were 30 ditgusted wi;b
shesc criticisms Of their way Of cafa'
ioxuing the sale items. when they a..
eer4ed that they we're doing their bet
10 be fair 10 everybody shat .ney Sc
r3ossfv considered a proiec; for hence
forth Offering ell the years accumuia'