“Why, they were carried to the Medical Museum and chloroformed, then dropped into alcohol, which killed them, just as readily as it does men.”
The brewers turned from the snakes to the raconteur, and the least taciturn thus commented:
“Mine friend, dis is von temperance speech. You didn’t look stout; come down to our place and ve vill give you more beer den you can drink.”
Before leaving the Museum I must not neglect to mention the rare coins. They represent the currency of almost every nationality, and many of them are as valuable as they are curious. They have come from Sumatra, Persia, China, and all over the civilized world. But the most remarkable, and therefore the most precious of the entire collection is a Roman coin bearing an inscription which declares it to have been in existence nearly four hundred years before the Christian Era.
From the Foreign Branch of this office during the last year, 400,898 dead letters were returned unopened to their respective countries of origin. This special work is presided over by a lady who is a remarkable linguist, and the possessor of many other scholarly accomplishments which peculiarly fit her for the position. Her skill in translating foreign addresses, deciphering illegible superscriptions and supplying their deficiencies is truly phenomenal.
Scarcely less interesting is the work of handling misdirected domestic letters, also for the purpose of sending them forward unopened to their proper destination. Of the 100,000 thus sent out last year, more than ninety per cent. were delivered. These letters, it must be understood, are live letters, sent here directly from the mailing office, on account of this deficiency or illegibility. An accurate and comprehensive knowledge of geography and other general information are requisite for the duties of this desk, as well as a sufficient knowledge of modern languages to interpret the combinations of bad Italian, French and German with worse English. For instance, an undomesticated Gaul will address a letter to “Ste Traile,” or “St. Treasure,” Ill., instead of Centralia; a Scandinavian writes Phœnix, “Sjfonix,” and a German with perfect independence of American dictionaries spells Eagle Lake “Igel Lacht.” Then again, Senatobia figures as “St. Toby;” Kankakee, as “Quinkequet City,” and Bridgetown, N. J., as “Bruchstein, Geargei.” This epistolary “Comedy of Errors” certainly leads one through perplexing labyrinths; as when a letter intended for Mr. George D. Townsend, of Kilby St., Boston, is addressed to Rilby St., Washington, D. C., or one intended for Hans Jenssen, in far away Norway, stops short in direction at Novgerod or Stavenger. If, as is frequently the case, the address consists merely of a hotel, college, asylum, reform school, factory, or newspaper office, street and number, without city or state, the clue is generally followed successfully. Whatever may be involved in this work, whether cold reasoning, analytical study, or felicitous intuition, it is accomplished with satisfactory results, therefore it matters little to what it is attributed.
There are a few things (but not many) over which these “experts” become slightly discouraged, as for instance an address like this:
“Please forward to the physician who was looking for a housekeeper in St. Louis, last week; is a widower with two children; don’t know his name.”
Other specimens of wit and indefiniteness are not wanting, as in the following:
“Bummer’s letter, shove it ahead;