Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1876 — A DEAD-LETTER ROMANCE. [ARTICLE]

A DEAD-LETTER ROMANCE.

It was very long ago—as far back as 1835, if the old clerks in the New York Postoffiee remember correctly—that she first began to come to the general delivery window—a modest, plainly-clad lady, with a sweet, sober face and a gentle manner. She was as regular as the moon, and like the moon came monthly, generally pn the first Saturday of the month, and always found a letter awaiting her, folded in the same sort of an envelope; always addressed in the same cramped, angular hand to ! MARIA H. RUSSELL, : : Naw Yobk PosTOFFicn. : L‘ • • •: It was always a “ drop-letter,” one of the many thousands th,at found their way through the little crevice in the wall daily, and no one ever knew who brought it f although, when the regularity of her visits began to attract attention, the unknown correspondent was carefully watched for about the first Friday of every month. But it was never known who brought that strange yellow envelope, nor did anyone ever get a glimpse of its contents, although Its outside was examined with curiosity a great many times. And the mysterious letter passed along like the thousands of daily messages of love and hate, of mortification and pleasure, of good cheer and evil bidding—the duns and rcmittances and promises to pay. Years passed. The delivery clerks were changed one after another; some of them died; others were promoted; some went to other employment; but as each left he told the story of the strange woman to his successor as a part of the instructions of the office, and the new clerks soon became familiar with her visits as the months went by. She was often questioned; inquisitive glanoes were often cast into her face, and several times she was followed by curious fellows; but no one ever discovered whence she came or whither she went. One day a new clerk who had conceived a scheme to discover her identity told her he was not sure the letter belonged to her, as he knew other ladies in the city of the same name, and asked her if there was not some one in the neighborhood whom she could call to identify her. “ I am a stranger in this part of the city, sir,” was her quiet, dignified reply, “ but I have been here a good many times and never before was naked to prove my identity. If it will be of any satisfaction to ypu I Will describe the appearance of the letter I expect—but wait; lam quite sure it will correspond with this one”— and she took from a little reticule she always carried the one she had received a month before. A whole generation had passed away. Men ands women had been bom and buried, but still the queer letters came, and were called for by the queer woman. The clerks in the Postoffiee had heard of her from those who had preceded them, and her mysterious appearances had gained a romance with age, and strange stories that had been invented by the clerks long before were told of her as true. Her face was smooth and round and placid when she first came, but it was getting wrinkled, and her hair was getting gra/. One time, only once for twenty years, as nearly as couldj>e_ remembered, she failed to corned and "one, two, three letters were waiting for her in the pigeonhole. The clerk did not advertise them nor send thqrn to the Dead-Letter Office with the rest, for he knew if Maria Russell was living she would come for them Id time, and i? she was dead nothing could be gained by hurrying them off to the great mail morgue where all unclaimed letters go. But after four months her familiar face appeared at the window again, and the olerk was as glad to see her as if she had been an old friend. But it was not the face he used to see. Its calm smoothness was shrunken; its fullness was wasted; there were deep drawn lines around the mouth and eyes, and the fresh flush had turned to a wan paleness A friendly greeting was on the tongue of the clerk as lie turned to meet her, but when hs saw how pale she was, how wasted, and how the calm expression of her face had been erased and covered with the autograph of pain, he suppressed the cordial words that were pushing his lips oped, and simply remarked: ;“ You have been sick t” , “ Yes, I have been sick,” she said, and gathering her letters in her hatid she left the window, and, like a snowflake in the sea, melted away into the surging wave of humanity that was roaring in the street outside. Af’er this she came regularly again, but the paleness never left her face, and the wrinkles lengthened and deepened instead

of growing ess. The clerks began to talk ©f her changed appearance, ana concluded that she was suffering from some cause, they could not decide just what, although there were plenty of reasons suggested, and it was concluded at an informal meeting behind the wall of boxes fa the postomce one day, that the next time she came it was their duty to find oat If she was needing anything that they with their ill-filled purses could supply. So when she came the elerk who happened to be at the window held her letter in his hand a moment to delay her, and said with a great deal of trepidation— for the mystery qf her life and the distant self-possesion of her manner discouraged anjKJnquisilive attaehu: “ I pray you to excuse me, madam:

but I thought that if you were in any sort of need—” “ I am very well cared for, thank you,” she interrupted. “ You have a letter for me, I see.” And she was gone again. The clerk went back to his fellows, and being a person of pride related the incident, with some details that were not supplied in the occurrence. He said he had tendered the lady in their name, as delicately as possible, any aid that she might need, explaining to her that they had learned from long association to feel an interest in her, and hoped if she was in want of any of the necessaries of life, or if she needed any assistance of any kind, that they would assist her to the extent of their abilities. The clerks applauded the deftness with which their fellow had performed the duty, and inquired anxiously for her reply. “ She told me,” he said, “ that she was in good circumstances, and was not Just now in want of any assistance, but, with our permission, she would remember our kina offer, and if ever in need would not hesitate to call upon us.” And if she had been a heroine formerly she became a goddess from that hour out —a goddess in an old-fashioned, shabby legbord bonnet, a rusty broche shawl, and a reticule like the ones their grandmothers carried. But she was as divine to those habit-hardened Postoffice clerks as ever was Bt. Cecelia to the tone poets of the mediaeval, or St. Agatha to the suffering women of the church. The gray hair of the goddess had grown much thinner in the last few years, her eyes were sinking back under her temples and growing dim, and the hands that clasped the letter as each month came round were getting very gaunt and shriveled. The war came on, the mails were laden down with messages of sorrow and bereavement ; the clerks were hurried off as soldiers, and the widows and sisters of those whose places they went to fill came along into the postoffice to do the public service; but the wan old woman came Just the same as ever, and the yellowwrapped letter was always waiting her there.

The war was over; the clerks who went out to fight came back limping and armless, to inquire after their mysterious friend. She was still coming, out soon after, in March, 1865, she was seen for the last time. The letter came as usual, one of the first days of April, but no one called for it. The clerk, who was a lady, then put it aside as if it was too good for its company, and kept it near the window, so that it would be ready when Maria Russell came. Another month went by, and another letter came, which was put away with its mate. Two more months and two more letters, and four of them were lying there in a pile, waiting for the queer old woman—“ the mysterious woman of the delivery window” they called her now—to come for them. often those letters were examined. How closely the address and the seal were scanned, how they were held up to the light so that maybe a word of their contents might be discovered. What a temptation they were. The chief of the delivery office ordered them advertised. “No,” said the clerks. “She will come for them. She knows they are here. She must be sick or something. She has come for them for thirty years, and they never have been advertised yet. Let them wait another month.” So they waited another month, two more, and still tire queer old woman didn’t come. And they had to be advertised. On a long list in the newspapers, near the bottom, under the head of “Ladies’ Letters,” were these words: Russell, Maria H., 6. People glanced at them—almost everybody looks over the list of advertised letters to see if by some chance one belonging to them had strayed among the vagabonds, and people remarked: “I wonder who Maria H. Russell is; she lias six letters advertised.” To the clerks in the Postoffiee it seemed a shame that old Mrs. or Miss (perhaps she was an old maid) Russell’s letters should be advertised, and stuck off into a dirty corner with a lot of soiled envelopes, and there was quite an indignation meeting held over the matter. But still the queer old woman did not come. “Perhaps she is dead," they said, ‘ • poor thing. Perhaps she is dead. ’ ’ But if there were whispers of displeasure when the letters were advertised, there was a storm of wrath when the clerk announced that they must be sent to the Dead-Letter Office. The Postmaster was appealed to. He was a man of business, ana didn’t care much for romance, so he said the letters must go, and the rules of the department carried out, and that the seventh letter, which had come in since the six were advertised, must go with fiiem. But through? all the sorrow there was gleaming the sunshine of relief. At the Dead-Letter Office it would be found out what tliese mysterious envelopes contained. And the lady who made up the packages for the Dead-Letter Office pinned this note to Maria Russell’s seven letters: These are very peculiar letters. They belong to a woman who has been coming to the Post fflee r gularlv every month for thirty years; but she has ceased to come, and we think she is dead. Whoever opens these letters will canter a great favor by informing the clerks of the New York Postoffice of their contents, as we have u great curiosity to know who Maria Russell is, or w >s, ana something about the pen *i who has been sending her these letters regularly for so long.

This note was submitted to a convention of clerks, and declared unanimously to be the proper thing. 1 reply was awaited anxiously. Before it came two more letters had followed their fellows in, and were waiting for Maria Russell; but she never came to get them, and they were sent off like the rest to have their secrets revealed in the great mail morgue at Washington. Finally there came, an envelope addressed to “ The clerks of the New York Postofflce," and it was opened by the first person included in that category into whose hands it came. That person read the Inclosure hurriedly through, and called a convention to which he read the following: Although it is directly against the rules of the office, I take the responsibility of gratifying your curiosity. Nine letters addressed to Maria H. Russell ha* e come to my hands. E .ch one contained a brief note, calling attention to an inclosure, without date or signature. Each inclosure was « flve-dollar bill. We have a great deal of curiosity ourselves here to learn something about this strange matter. Won’t some of you write us what you knows And if any further disclosures are made we will inform you. Here was a romance indeed. Nine unsigned note©, each with a similar inclosure of money. Was it possible, they thought, that for thirty years these same sort of letters, with the same inclosures, had oeen coming to Maria Russell. And why didn't they stop, if she was dead, as she certainly must be. The whole Postoffice was excited and perplexed in Ils es-

forts to find a solution of this mystery. But there was no clue to Mrs. or Miss Russell; nor clue to her mysterious oorrespondent I cannot repeat the many theories that were advanced, or the many speculations that were put out to explain the matter; but each was a different one, and each had as good ground for believing his the true one as any other, because none of them had any ground at all. To add to the mystery, seme one brought in a daily paper which contained the tollowing advertisement : Pbksonxl.—Any person having any knowledge of the whereabouts of Maria EL Russen, who has been a resident of this city for thirty years, will relieve a terrible anxiety by communicating with C. B. R-, Postoffiee. What a sensation that personal made in the Postoffiee Department. Here at last was a clue to the unknown correspondent who was wondering why he had received no acknowledgement to his letters tor nine months; and to add to the excitement another letter, in the same pale-yellow style of envelope, addressed in the same familiar chirography, was tossed with hundreds of others to the distributor’s table, where it came to light. Fifty letters were addressed to “C. B. R.,” each of which stated that they had important information concerning Maria H. Russell; but before many of them were mailed it leaked out that the personal was put in the papers by one of the clerks, who hoped to reach in advance of his felloes a clue to the mystery. But nothing satisfactory resulted even from the personal. Several Maria Russell’s turned up to answer it, and were very much disgusted to find they weren’t the person wanted; but it brought no clue to the curious old lady and her curious correspondent. Four, five, six years went by. and each month brought as regularly as the month came around a letter for Maria H. Russell. The reverence with which these letters were treated was a new feature in the Postoffice Department. It was a satisfaction even to handle them and feel of the thin, limpsy inclosure, and with what agony of interest they were advertised, and finally sent ; away to the Dead-Letter Office each thirty days to be deposited with the others Just like them that had gone before. One day nearly two years ago a clerk in the postoffice told a friend who was con-' nected with a newspaper of the circumstances, and a brief statement of facts was published. The paragraph was widely quoted—republished in almost every paper in the United States. And with this publication the letters stopped coming. The last one was postmarked March 4, 1875. it is thought that the mysterious correspondent saw the paragraph, and knew in that way that Maria Russell was dead—for she must be dead, or she would have called for her letters in the years that had gone since she got the last. But it may be asked why the unknown correspondent doesn’t send to the DeadLetter Office and claim his money—the money he sent so faithfully each month to Maria Russell, even for ten years after she was dead and gone. A large number of claims have been made for the money since the publication last year, and a variety of singular stories have been told to account for the manner in which the correspondence was conducted. One man wrote to inform the Postoffice Department that he was the person who had been sending the money to Maria Russell these forty years agone, but as his manuscript was in - every way dissimilar from that in the original letters he was at once pronounced an impostor. A man in Sturgis, Mich., has told the strangest story and put in the strongest claim. He says that he is one of a family of five children, four brothers and one daughter. In 1835 his father and mother separated, the father taking the boys and the mother the girl, and the father agreeing to pay five dollars a month for his daughter’s support as long as he lived, but to have no communication with her in any way whatever. He says, this man in Michigan, that his father used to send the money in the manner described as long as he lived with him, but having some differences about 1846 they, the father and son, separated, the latter going West, where he has resided ever since, without having heard once from the rest of his family. He said he was in no need of the money, but would like very much to know if the strange correspondents were his father and sister. He would identify the writing, he thought, if they would send him one of the letters. Mr. Russell’s letter was strongly,indorsed by several prominent residents of Sturgis, who bore testimony to his good character and general worthiness. Mr. Dallas, the Superintendent of the Dead-Letter Office, replied that while he greatly desired to oblige Mr. Russell, it was not permitted to send any of the leL ters out of the office; but if Mr. Russell was ever in Washington he would be glad to give him any information in his power ana show him any papers in the department relating to the case. The law required that these letters and their contents be reclaimed within three years, at the end of which time the money inclosures revert to the United States Treasury, from which they cannot be recovered without a special act of Congress. On a recent visit to the Dead-Letter Office 1 saw the silent, inanimate relics of this strange mystery. A pile of plain, vellow envelopes, marked with some hieroglyphics peculiar to the dead-letter men, indicating their reference to the books of the bureau. If they could talk what a strange story they might tell. What a theme far a romance axe these dead letters—dead in every respect. Forlorn, too, the speechless Wanderers, with neither their writer nor their intended recipient to reclaim them. I opened one of them—there was no date, no signature; and written in the center of a page of blue note paper, with pale ink, in an old-fash-ioned hand that appeared to have been uncertain with age, were these few unsuggestive words: “I inclose you the money as usual. I will send more the first of next month. You need not write.”— Wm. E. Curtis, in Chicago Inter-Ocean.

—The indecent conduct of the New York journals in sending reporters to haunt the dying bed of Commodore Vanderbilt has not been in any degree affected by the expressions of indignation which it has called forth. The reporters swarm about the house, pry into ft when they have the chance, interview the members of the household, and manifest almost a feeling of regret at the pertinacious refusal of the Commodore to put himself and the world out of misery. It is. really very unkind of the Commodore not to die, as per arrangement with the newspapers? His obstinacy is proof of a hardened heart, of which, indeed, there has been frequent rumor heretofore, and the first indication of which was given in his refusal to grant the usual passes over the New York Central Railroad. But, with all his faults, the man baa rights, and, if he should apply the new doctrine of brawls in the case of his tormentors, the community would justify him.— Chicago Tribune. • ?■