Costly and delicate articles of jewelry or other valuables, should not be placed in a letter, as they are liable to serious injury in the process of stamping.
It is a violation of law to enclose a letter or other thing (except bills and receipts for subscription,) or to make any memorandum in writing, or to print any word or communication, after its publication, upon any newspaper, pamphlet, magazine, or other printed matter. The person addressed must pay letter postage, or the sender be fined five dollars.
If a letter is deposited in a post-office, and the enclosure accidentally omitted, or it becomes necessary to alter or add to the contents, it is much better to write another letter, than to trouble those in the office to look for the original one. In large places, especially, a successful search for it, even immediately after its deposit, would consume much valuable time, and such a request is altogether unreasonable, when the remedy suggested is so simple and cheap.
On calling or sending for a letter known to have been advertised, the fact should always be stated, otherwise only the current letters are examined.
Although it is strictly the duty of post masters and other agents of the Department, to correct or report such errors in the mail service as may come to their knowledge, it is, nevertheless, desirable that any private citizen should inform the Department of continued neglect or carelessness in the execution of mail contracts or mismanagement in a post-office.
Legal provision has been made by Congress, by which letters may be sent out of the mail in cases of emergency. By the use of the Government envelope, with the stamp printed thereon, and constituting a part thereof, letters may be so sent, provided the envelope is duly sealed, directed, and addressed, and the date or receipt or transmission of such letter written or stamped thereon. The use of such envelope more than once, subjects the offender to a fine of fifty dollars.
A letter or ordinary envelope with a postage stamp put on by the writer, cannot go out of the mail (except by private hand,) for the reason that the law confines the matter entirely to the envelopes furnished by the Department. Were the privilege extended to the other kind of stamps, there being no way to cancel them, by their re-use, extensive frauds upon the revenue would be the result.
A singular notion seems long to have prevailed that it is no violation of law to send an unsealed letter outside of the mail. This makes no difference whatever. Even if the paper written upon is not folded, it is a letter.
Where bundles of newspapers are sent in the mail to "clubs," without the names of the subscribers upon the papers, the post master is under no official obligation to address them. Still the Department enjoins a spirit of courtesy and accommodation towards publishers and the public, in all such matters.
A person receiving a letter from the post-office by mistake, or finding one in the street or elsewhere, can under no pretence designedly break the seal without subjecting himself to a severe penalty.