A large proportion of the money is restored to the senders, and the balance is deposited in the Treasury to the credit of the Postoffice Department. But despite every precaution, parcels of all descriptions accumulate so rapidly that it has been found necessary to dispose of them at public auction as often as once in two years.
The Museum contains a curious collection of articles which have not been offered for sale. They are arranged upon shelves covered with dark crimson cloth, and protected by glass cases. It is certainly a heterogeneous assortment. A miniature mountain of minerals, many-colored and gleaming, open bolls of cotton, a box filled with small gold nuggets, and specimens of valuable woods are silent but eloquent witnesses of our immense natural resources and still undeveloped wealth. A bottle of imported cologne, carefully wrapped in herbs, probably just as it was captured from a would-be smuggler, lies here, forever free from both Custom House officer or dishonest speculator. A necklace wrought of fish scales, so delicate that it seems as if it must have been designed for a fairy princess, shows daintily against its dark background just beneath the oddest, quaintest baby monkey that ever was seen, carved from a peach stone! There are Indian pipes and tomahawks, a birch-bark canoe and moccasins, and lava from the Modoc beds, darkly suggestive of savage malice and treachery. A box heaped with the cocoons of the silk worm keeps company with a bottle full of agates from the northern shores of Lake Superior, reading cards for the blind, masses of wood fiber as fine, white and strong as linen floss, birds’ eggs, Easter offerings, and the rosaries of pious Sisters. The little folk who throng the Museum pause in wondering delight before the array of dolls, pet “Jumbos” of home manufacture, and even a greater wonder still, a bedstead, pillows, covering, babies and all, made of sugar and chocolate!
Not even does this enumeration draw the line of limitation for the abuse of our generous Uncle Sam. It is fortunate for his people that he is patient under blows and as long-suffering as a camel, else an imperial ukase would have probably long ere this interdicted even social and business correspondence. In this he would have been quite justified, since he can neither eat the cakes, raisins and fruits, use the tooth brushes, nor take the medicine, with which his mails are burdened.
A pistol, half-cocked, and each chamber filled with a cartridge, was not called for by the young lady to whom it was addressed, in a western city, and it now reposes harmlessly beside a lock of hair and the autograph of Charles Guiteau.
From some of our distant Territories there are specimens of pottery which archæologists seem inclined to accept as evidences of a pre-historic civilization.
Quite apart, ensconced in an aristocratic quarter, are various articles of jewelry, rings, watches, etc., and a costly crucifix of silver and carnelian, in a glass-covered case, which was found in the postoffice at Savannah, Ga., at the close of the war. But perhaps the saddest memento to be seen here is a funeral wreath, woven after the homely fashion of the German and French peasantry, of black and white beads and the sunny hair of childhood commingled, whilst an inscription in the center commemorates the death of “Ernest and Dorcas,” who have died within a few days of each other.
However, it is only a step from the pathos of this mute appeal to one’s sympathies to the grotesque and ridiculous.
Of course the Museum would not be complete if it did not contain sundry sets of false teeth. Well, one day a gentleman and his wife stood before these in rapt contemplation. She winked, and stepped upon his toes, and nudged him sharply—and all in a quiet and conjugal manner—but to no purpose; his confidential communications, made in a stage whisper, could not be cut short. “That is my set of teeth that I lost; I would know them anywhere, same as I would know you, or my hat. I don’t want ’em now, because I’ve got some more, and I don’t know how they got here, but I would swear to my teeth.”
Chief among these curiosities may be mentioned the snakes. Now, these snakes constitute a regular “big bonanza.” Letters, garments, live bees, embroideries and etchings lose their interest in the presence of the bottled serpents. A Brewers’ Convention was once held in this city, and during its progress a Teutonic delegation gazed in open-mouthed astonishment at their snakeships upon learning that they had arrived at the Dead-Letter Office alive; and small wonder, for they are thirteen in number, and range from the inoffensive looking junior members of the family to ancient and loathsome monsters.
“Vat you say, dey come here ’live? how den you kill dem?”