The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1912-01-27

thing less) of the so-caled blind readers of the
United States postofice department These
women are made the Wardens OF the waits or Inc
mails-the letters that postmaster or letter
carrier can deliver because try as 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 py
misspeling, but more often the puzzllng letter
originates with some person whose educaton IS
deficient or has been sent by resident OF for
eign country who could not get through his head
our American system of towns and counties ana
states and who mixes things up so that no ordl-
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 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 Of any OF them you nave,
most of you, seen and admired the work they do
For one thing they paint those splendfdly realls-
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 are 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 IN their behalf
Finally these women have shown their skill In
sgcooring the huge transparencies or 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 sculptor. Mrs. Otto Helde-
mann il a portrait sculptor of mean ability, as
is amply attested by her recently-competed 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 COM
mon house fly being represented as much larger
than 4 mans head and there is consequently OPP
portunity for the utmost accuracy OF detail and
coloring The counterfeit bugs of giant size are
made from wire thread, wax, cellulod, papier-
mache. rubber and special kind of gauze, and
despite the frail appearance of the figures it 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 pas
ket examiners" at the treasury department
These women are paid $3.50 year each just to
Dull over the scraps of paper, red tape and other
discarded articles that find their way into the
waste baskets in the biggest of financial instltu-
tons. AS Uncle Sam receives $1,000 year for
the waste paper that they sort over he can we'll
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 extraya-
gance The real object Of this supervision OF the