New Britain herald., 1916-06-24

Humanitarian work. It is like the lomatic work which the United S1 assumed for the different cound but the magnitude of the work is pI ably greater owing to the vastned these daily mails between all fighting countries. And yet SwiI
 land does this work simply and yi
 out noise and few know of the ez|
 of the undertaking.
 Some thirty to fifty wagon load
 this mail are handled daily, writl
 representative of the Associated Pl
 All about the big rooms, long lind
 postal employees were at work so1 the soldier mail-letters, pacd and money orders-going to val countries. Many poor people md
 loaf of bread daily to the son or fI CT away at the front or in prison. of the wrappings of a loaf of bI had broken open and disclosed the sender had ingeniously insertl copy of the Paris Matin inside bread. It was doubtless done witt malice, the official said, by some md CT who wanted her son to gel glimpse of the home paper. package contained a small remE of a Christmas tree, with some ofj trinkets adhering. Others were pl ages neatly divided into small seed of chocolate, tobacco. soap and ol needs and small luxuries for the away from home.
 But the most poignant brancl1 this busy bureau was the table he'd with letters and packages WI could never be delivered each beaH the stamp "decede." One employe binding these letters in packageA a hundred and there were manA these hundreds with the incon2 vans adding to them constantly. vi the letters are first received every1 fort is made to deliver them, K when the official record or othera thOritative information shows the dier is dead the fatal black -bord stamp "decede" goes on the letter it is returned to the sender. And this stamp carries into countless h d. daily the news which is a tragedyI each of these households.
 "There was a strange incident q X one of those letters" said the of7I '"The letter was sent by mothe el Germany to her son in France. Fn ing he was dead, the letter was turned to the mother, with the st < 'decede'. But the mother, not unH standing the French word decd thought it meant the name of
 town to which her son had
 transferred. And so she she W him again and this time all the dren joined in the letter and 1t addressed with his name at 'Decs France Of course there is no sA place and so again the letter "A back with an explanation why it c4 not be delivered"
 It other nearby rooms scores of ployes were at work on postal ord It needed nice calculation in each making the exchange between Fre francs. German marks, English sS ings, Russian rubles, Italian lira. A trian kroners, etc.
 Each day the Swiss postof1ce ceives and forwards an averare1 219,084 letters and postals. 1el small unregistered packages. 5I registered packages and S,32s nod is the daily avera ee. the special service of soldier mall,
 And yet Switzerland is doing
 work without charge and doing 1t g ly; it's state railways carry all
 mail free of charge; all postage star and duties are waived; hundreds extra postal employes are engaged the administration and expenditureI millions of dollars are waived-tha the way a small country is obeyin| large impulse to do it's share in
 ha++ar mart of the wars work.