Evening star., 1916-12-24

succeed in returning her precious two
dollars
"One of the most curious. and one of the
very saddest. cases which ever passed
through my hands came from Colorado
Springs. The letter contained neither full
name nor street address, and the woman
in England to whom it was directed could
not be found. The letter ran: Dear Sis
ter:-When you get this l hope to be in
better world and 1t was signed merely
Maggie The inclosure consisted Of a
two-hundred-dollar bill. I had just writ
ten to the coroner at Colorado Springs to
ask if any woman of the name of Mar
garet had recently died there, and If SO
to give further particulars. when another
envelope bearing the Identical penman-
ship. but another name, arrived from the
same source This contained two hun
dreddollar bills, with a note saying
merely One for Jennie and one for Mag
gle. Aunt Maggie
I'm due time the coroner from Colorado
Springs wrote back to say that an Eng
maidservant in wealthy family. had
recently died there Of consumption, and
she had two nieces living in England.
one a servant girl and one working in a
certain convent. To the latter l wrote,
asking as proof of her heirship a speci-
men of her aunt's handwriting.
Her letter also was pathetic Her aunt
She did not know she possessed any
money. An evidence of her affection was
offered in her having kept an old letter
from this aunt. the last page OF which
she inclosed as proof of her connection
and begged for the return Of the letter.
We found the handwriting to be identi-
cal with that we had The sisters ap-
were able to restore to them was touch
ing.
81 recall another case. similar in some
sum OF two hundred and seventy dollars
came to US in a letter from certain town
in Kentucky 1t represented the estate
of poor man who had recently died.
giving as his nearest of kin the names Of
two nieces living in Washington. The
letter was incorTec city addressed and the
sisters could not be found through the
ordinary routine of the service 1t was
near Christmas, and l felt that this sum
might be welcome addition TO the 1or-
tune of two poor girls
Il happened to have a friend living in
the Kentucky home town Of the late uncle
and through this persons interest OBJ
tained further clues as to the where
abouts Of the young women. Finally I
got in touch with them and wrote, asking
them to come to this Office. One sisters
commen: upon the transaction was. Only
two hundred and seventy dollars" The
other girl said. Indeed, l am thankful for
this and she further expressed her
gratitude for our trouble in finding them
as the true owners of the money.
There was ore inclosure of money I
made no personal effort to find an own
er for. The sum was S4O0. and it was
placed in a tobacco box. on it's way to a
gang of counterfeiters to buy fake
money They were to send so many
bills in hundreds. SO many in twenties
and so many In tens. The counter
feiters had either moved on or been
arrested. and needless to say. no claim
was ever entered for the lost money
which rightfully went into the national
Treasury.
But the saddest cases Of all. to me.
are those in which men are trying to
send large sums to poor girls to lure
them to their ruin. How often have
wished that I had it in my power to
expose the one and protect the other.
AS it is. one can go only so far as the
law directs and treat such cases as
improper use OF the mails"
1t is cases such as these, repeated
again and again. which have driven
Miss Nelson into definite mission work,
conducted outside of office hours. in the
interest of homeless and friendless
women at the National Capital. She is
vice president Of the executive board
Of the Sunshine Homo tor Women. Q