Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1895 — DEAD LETTER OFFICE. [ARTICLE]

DEAD LETTER OFFICE.

A Falling off in the Amount of Misdirected Mail. Very few persons have any clear or definite knowledge of the extent of the operations of the Dead Letter Office of the Post Office Department. It is known in a general way that misdirected letters are transmitted to the Post Office Department in Washington and there are opened and if possible redirected either to the sender or the addressee. The number of letters and papers sent to the Dead Letter Office in a year is 6,500,000. Of these 5,5000,000 are what are called ordinary unclaimed letters, 165,000 foreign letters misdirected by people in the United States to persons abroad, and about 80,000 letters written to fictitious addresses, while 500,000 letters in a year are mailed by people in other countries to incorrect addresses in the United States. According to the Post Office report more than 80,000 letters sent to the Dead Letter Office contained money to the gross amount of $50,000 ; 30,000 other letters contained drafts, notes, deeds, and checks to an amount of more than $1,500,000. A majority of the money and the evidences of indebtedness were returned to the owners, but last year $300,000 in checks and notes and SIO,OOO in cash remained unclaimed and undistributed. The number of parcels sent to the Dead Letter Office is not large. More than 35,000 finding their way to the Dead Letter Office yearly contain photographs. A very large proportion of the matter which reaches the office does so not because of any defects in the postoffice system, but because of want of care on the part of the patrons of the mails. It would not be possible to state the proportion in figures, because the technical distinctions of “held for postage,” “misdirected,” etc., include letters which, while properly prepaid and dispatched according to the addresses, still fail of successful delivery by reason of hasty and careless directions, confusion arising from offices of the same or similar names in different States and other causes. It is a peculiar fact that while many persons are extremely careful of their penmanship in inditing letters to persons who are familiar with their writing, they are singularly negligent in addressing the envelope which is to be read by persons unfamiliar with the writing, yet upon whose ability to read it is dependent the safe delivery of the letter. The increase of the business of the Dead Letter Office, which continued each year until about three years ago, has recently ceased, and there is a diminition in the volume of misdirected mail matter. This improvement is accounted for in part by the improved management of the Postoffice department, but to a greater extent by the general diffusion of education among writers.