Evening star., 1925-06-07

ton Plaza, whose moments
are never dull. They are Uncle Sans
handwriting experts and mail sleuths.
whose jobs range from finding clues
leading to the owners of dead letters
and packages to detecting contraband
goods passing through the mails.
Some of these employees have been
in the service upward of 30 years.
They can tell by the look" or the
feel of a package that IL is not all
that it seems Narcotics, obscene nj
erature and other prohibited articles
are discovered in the most innocent
looking packages. The easiest i'm
proper packages to spot are those
mailed from foreign countries by per-
sons known to be traffickins in OBJ
scene pictures and literature.
There came TO the office. recently
an oblong pincushion mailed from
Switzerland TO all appearances II
was a pincushion. but the sender tiau M
taken such pains to make that Idct
obvious by sticking needles into II,
which protruded through the wrapper
that the postal inspectors became sus-
picious Dissection Of the cushion re-
Vealed a flask of whisky in It's center.
Some $4,000 dead letters and pack
ages containing such things as heas.
flutes. money, stamps, petticoats and
other general merchandise represent
an average DAYS receipts at this Of
flee. The quantity of obscene lltera-
ture done and other Contraband SeiZeu
in the mails provides continuous fuei
for the big furnace in the basement
of the building.
The flea episode was in connection
with a bundle of unclaimed clothing
received from Cuba. When the bundle
was opened a swarm of heas new
through the office. seeking new homes
in file cases. and the pockets ana
clothing of the employees. The EN-
ployes were so badly tiea-bitten that
a general fumigation of the entlfe out
fit became necessary.
The current campaign TO suppress
indecent newsstand literature is part
of a general drive against narcotlcs,
whisky pornographic pictures and the
like which are transported through
the mails. Tons of such materials are
found annually, but the quantity is
small as compared with that which is
successfully carried. The entire postal
force has been instructed to be on the
alert for bootleg packages and to Tor
ward them Immediately TO the ofhclais
in charge of the work.
TANS of opium, cocaine and other
~ "happv dust are found in inno-
Gently appearing packages OF candS OF
cakes. The covers of a hymn BOOK
may very likely contain pages OF vie
material. A common deception is TO
cut holes in the center of directories
or other thick volumes to conceal oo.
scene pictures. Similarly. the core OF
a roll of newspapers may contain
sizable supply of narcotics.
B. G.. Cowles. who is handling the
contra band work at the washington
office, has been in the service some 90
years. A package labeled canoy
was delivered TO him during the
course of the interview for this article.
The package proved to contain candy,
but the contents of the sweets were
filed with imported liquors. Another
CANDY box contained half pound OF
opium. Bottles labeled medicine In
fact contained concentrates with
which to make gallons of whisky.
A package containing fruit cake
was recently turned over to Mr..
Cowles by Washington Barracks for
want of better address. In seeking
p clue to the owner, the package was
oDened and there was reVealed
through crack across the top OF the
cake a pint bottle of whisky which
had been cooked in the center OF the
delicacy.
The handwriting experts at the Of
fee have acquired. through long ex-
perience a remarkable faculty for
deciphering the most illegible script.
Of the $4,000 dead letters received
daily it is estimated that approx
matelv 25 per cent are ultimately sent
TO their owners. Considerable guam
titles of dead-letter mail and packages
are received written in foreign IAN
g,1ases which require the services OF
foreign-1anguage experts at the once.
The Division of Dead Letters, which
is also handling the contraband work,
was established in 1925 in response 10
an urgent demand to develop some
method of identifying the owners OF
the vast volume of undelivered mall
Old records of the division show that
in 1880 some $50 900 letters went to
the dead letter office. BY 1859 the
annual volume of such correspondence
reached $500, 900 pieces of mail.
x y <
THE number of employees in the
division at Washington. which in
those days handled the dead-letter
mail for the entire country, was in
creased from in 1860 to 79 in 1873.
BY 1900 some 7,5OO,O 900 letters were
annually reaching the dead letter Of
fee and by 1910 the total had reached
over 12,000. 900 pieces a year. The
volume of dead mail became so large
that in 1917 the work had TO be spilt
up and handled by regional districts,
Chicago, New York and San Fran
cisco.
ashington handles the dead letters
for Is Eastern States and dead pack
ages for Maryland. Virginia, West
Virginia, North Carolina and the DIS.
trict of Columbia. Receipts OF dead
mail are heaviest from January to
March. handling unclaimed Christmas
mail and from July to October, when
the tourist traffic is on. The receipts
during these months have run as nigh
as ~, 900 pieces of mail day.
The dead mail delivered to the ONCE
each day is opened by machinery ana
tied up into bundles of 100. These
bundles are then distributed among
the handwriting experts who care
fully examine each letter. Correspond
enoe which cannot be delivered and
which contains valuables such as cash,
bonds. stamps and the like is carefully
recorded, and after a time the valu-
ables are turned in to the United
States Treasury. Other unbelievable
correspondence is destroyed. Pack
ages of mercha ndise are accumulated
and sold a. auction.
The largest sum of money ever
found in an unclaimed letter at Wash
ington headquarters was S2,750 en-
closed in a note reading. Take this
and keep your mouth shut" Postal
inspectors found the addressee to be
a woman who had died two weeks
previously. The sender was never
located and the money went to the
Treasury.
Another dead letter disclosed a
check for 900 which had been
misdirected by the United States Steel
Corporation in payment to a Southern