This ledger is now on file in the office of the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department. Scorched and worn, it tells the story of time and fate. It embraces all the accounts of all the post-offices of the United States for the years 1776-77-78. These are all recorded in the handwriting of Doctor Franklin, and do not cover one hundred and twenty pages. The growth in the postal service may be partly measured by the fact that its money record, kept by Benjamin Franklin, running through eleven years, is equalled, at the present time, by the accounts of two days. When the philosopher was at the head of the Post-Office Department, there were eighty post-offices in the Confederation; there are now thirty-two thousand post-offices in the United States, with the number constantly increasing.
The Dead-Letter Office embodies more personal interest than any other in the Post-Office Department. It is a spacious room, unique in outline, many-windowed and well ventilated. It is surrounded by a wide gallery, supported by spiral columns. An open iron staircase connects it with the lower office. It is set apart for the woman’s work of this division. They are far out-numbered by the men below, and yet in this narrow gallery they are sadly crowded.
Spacious as the Post-Office is, in going thereto, the same conclusion is forced upon one, which is apparent in every public building, that it is already too small for the vast and rapidly increasing demands of the public service. The gentlemen which you see at work below have nothing to complain of in lack of light or air, but the ladies above say that their little gallery is the escape valve to all the poisoned air below; that their heads are so near the roof there is no chance for ventilation, and that sudden death, among their number, has been caused by the air-poison which pervades this gallery. The ladies need more room for a new office; indeed, already they have overflowed the gallery and are packed closely in the halls.
Meanwhile, in an imposing-looking apartment beneath them, sit their brethren, on either side of the long table, opening the “dead-letters” which they are to re-direct. I believe there are fourteen clergymen, sitting at a single table, opening these letters. Preference is given to gentlemen of this profession, broken in health or fortune, as it is taken for granted that if they have lived to that age and fate, without ever having committed a dishonest act, it is most unlikely that they ever will—and that the treasure-letters are perfectly safe in their keeping. Moreover, their profession is also in their favor. They must have been unworldly-minded, says the reasoner, or they would never have chosen to be clergymen. Nearly all are elderly men, and among the number are a few old ones,—one, who has been in this office over fifty years, a brother of its one time Postmaster-General, Amos Kendall—hair white as snow—back bent over the table—hands trembling as he uses his knife—it is his life to go on opening his quota of daily letters, for the pittance of $1,200 per year. “If he were refused the privilege,” said an officer, “he would die at once.”
DEAD LETTER OFFICE, U. S. GENERAL POST OFFICE.—WASHINGTON
In this office, from the thirty thousand post-offices in the United States are received, annually, about three million five hundred thousand dead-letters; unmailable letters, three hundred and sixty thousand; blank letters, three thousand.
It seems impossible that three thousand persons, in a single year, should post letters without a single letter traced on their envelopes; nevertheless, this is true.
In one corner of this office stand two men, by an open door, whose business it is to receive the dead-letters as they ascend to the office. They come up on an elevator—tied up in immense bags. As they are tossed out on the floor, one would suppose that they contained coffee for merchandise, rather than heart-messages and treasures gone astray. The bags are immediately opened and the letters transferred to the assorting table, where they are classified by clerks. The foreign letters are separated from the domestic, and any irregularity in their transmission is noted. They are then counted, numbered and tied up into packages of one hundred each, and thrown into bins, whence they are withdrawn in the order of the date of their reception, and transferred to the opening table to be hari-karied by our clergymen.
Letters containing nothing, if possible, are returned to their writers. If they cannot be, they are thrown into the waste-basket. This waste-paper is not burned but sold—and averages to the Government a revenue of about $4,000 per year. With all his extravagances, this is but one of numerous ways by which Uncle Sam manages to turn an economical penny out of the carelessness and misfortunes of nephews and nieces.