The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1912-01-20

thing less) of the socalled blind readers of the
United States postofice department. These
women are made the wardens Of the waits of the
'mails-the letters that postmaster or letter
carrier can deliver because, try they may,
they cannot make out the address Of the
persons for whom they intended Sometimes
the difficulty is simple, being merely caused by
mlsspelling, but more often the puzzling letter
originates with some person whose education is
deficient or has been sent by resident of for
elgn country who could not get through his head.
our American system of towns and counties and
states and who mixes things up so that ordi-
nary Individual could make head or tail out of
the hodgepodge. The "bnd readers" take these
puzzles and by magic which comes from expe-
rience and which they cannot themselves ex-
plain they decipher the writing and set the letter
on its way to the proper destination.
Uncle Sam has d number of very clever women
artists on his roster and though you may never
have heard the names Of any of them you have,
most of you seen and admired the work they do.
For one thing they paint those splendidly realis-
tic pictures of fruit and birds and insects, etc.,
which are reproduced in color in the publications
of the department of agriculture. Some of these
women experts in the coloring of magic Ian
tern slides and you know Uncle Sam has come
to use lantern slides and moving pictures very
extensively in order to educate the people re-
garding the work he is doing their behalf.
Finally these women have shown their skill in
coloring the huge transparencies of American
scenery which Uncle Sam has exhibited at every
one of the big expositions held in this country in
some years past.
Entitled to recognition along with these artists
is Uncle Sans woman sculptor. Mrs Otto Hede-
mann is portrait sculptor of no mean ability. as
is amply attested by her recently-completed bust
of Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross
society. However, her work for Uncle Sam is
confined to the odd occupation of making models
of bugs. These reproductions of insects are many
times as large as the insects themselves-a CON-
mon house fly being represented much larger
than mans head and there is consequently op-
portunity for the utmost accuracy of detail and
coloring. The counterfeit bugs of giant size are
made from wire, thread, wax, ceuloid papier-
mache, rubber and special kind of gauze and
despite the frail appearance Of the figures it has
been found that they are really very stanch and
will well withstand the shocks incident to ship
ment from place to place.
Among other odd jobs in the government serv-
ice held by women are those of two waste bas-
ket examiners" at the treasury department.
These women are paid $3.50 a year each just to
pull over the scraps of paper red tape and other
discarded articles that find their way into the
waste baskets in the biggest of financial institu-
tions. AS Uncle Sam receives 81, 600 year for
the waste paper that they sort over he can well
afford to pay them for their odd sorting of refuse
but there is another and better reason and one
that makes it an economy instead Of an extrava-.
saacs. The real object OF this supervision Of the