The Elbert County tribune., 1912-01-19

thing ess) of the so-called blind readers of the
United States postofice department. These
women are made the wardens of the waits Of the
mails-the letters that postmaster letter
carrier can deliver because. try they may,
they cannot make out the name or address of the
persons for whom they are intended. Sometimes
the difficulty is simple. being merely caused by
misspelling, but more often the puzzling letter
originates with some person whose education Is
deficient or has been sent by resident Of a for
eign country who could not get through his head
our American system of towns and counties and
states and who mixes things up that ordi-
nary individual could make head or tail out of
the hodge-podge The blind readers" take these
puzzles and by magic which comes from expe-
rience and which they cannot themselves
plain they decipher the writing and set the letter
on Its way to the proper destination.
Uncle Sam has IA number of very clever women
artists 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 reproduced in color in the publications
of the department of agriculture Some Of these
women experts In the colorng 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
coorng 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 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 many
times as large the insects themseves-a com
mon house fly being represented as much larger
than mans head and there is consequently op-
portunity for the utmost accuracy of detail and
cooring. The counterfeit bugs of giant size are
made from wire. thread, wax. celluoid, papier-
mache, rubber and special kind of gauze, and
despite the frail appearance of the figures 1t has
been found that they 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 those of two waste bas-
ket examiners" at the treasury department
These women are paid $3.50 year each just to
pull 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 $1,000 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 1t economy instead of an extrava
gance. The real object of this supervision of the