Some Sample Labels from Abroad.
Belgian label—string made fast through wooden block with wax seal and a second block of compressed lead.
Paraguay label—plain linen.
Austrian label—wooden block, string sealed with wax.
German white leather label.
Argentine label—strong, ordinary leather.
Norwegian label—cardboard—string sealed on back with wax.
A closed mail consists of ordinary letters, printed matter, and other articles, and of registered articles. Sometimes all these elements will be enclosed in the same sack, or they may be despatched in separate sacks, when in sufficient quantity. The registered mail is tied up and sealed in distinctive red-striped sacks, and then these sacks are enclosed in ordinary mail-sacks, tied up and labelled in exactly the same manner as the sacks containing ordinary letters, so that it is impossible to tell from the outside which sack contains registered matter. A mail may consist of one sack only, containing all classes of correspondence, or it may be composed of a large number of sacks. In either case it is accompanied by a letter bill, enclosed in one of the sacks. This letter bill is one of a series beginning on January 1st of each year, being numbered with consecutive numbers to each foreign exchange office. Thus when Naples receives a mail from New York containing the letter bill numbered 65, and the previous mail received at that office had Letter Bill No. 63, Naples knows that mail with Letter Bill No. 64 is missing, and immediately notifies New York of the fact in a form called "Bulletin of Verification." This form is in use for official correspondence between all offices in the Postal Union regarding irregularities of all sorts discovered in the mails of one office for another. A record of the number of each mail and the particulars of its despatch being kept by each office, the inquiry from Naples in the above instance would immediately be investigated, and that office notified that the missing mail had been sent on such a date, by such a steamer, etc.; or, if more was known concerning its fate, as in the case of the mails sent per La Bourgogne last July, mention would be made of the fact. The Russian travelling exchange office of Kibarty to St. Petersburg frequently receives the mails sent from this office every Wednesday in inverted order, that is, the mail sent by a fast White Star liner at noon on Wednesday, may be received a few hours ahead of the mail sent by a slower American line steamer which sailed at 10 A.M. on the same day. The occurrence is so often repeated that one would think it would go unnoticed, and the Russian office would wait a few hours anyway before notifying New York that a mail is missing, but such is not the case, and the bulletin "Your mail No. —— is missing," is immediately sent to New York, followed next day by another bulletin, "Your mail No. —— has arrived." At the New York office the first bulletin is always held until receipt of the second, which is sure to follow and renders investigation unnecessary; they are called "Katie didn't," and "Katie did." Many bulletins are received subsequent to the holidays with best wishes for Christmas or New Year from one office to another. They are mostly all in English, French, or Spanish, and are, at times, more or less humorous, if not pathetic, as was one received from Martinique about the time Cervera's ill-fated fleet was hovering near that island. A mail from New York had just been received at St. Pierre, and in one of the sacks the horrified French Director of Posts had found a cat in the last stages of decomposition. He had sent for the American Consul to view the remains, and his bulletin to the New York office regarding this irregularity was a model of official French. It stated how the smell of that dead cat had penetrated every corner of his office, and one could read between the lines that he suspected the whole affair to be a joke played upon him by the Yankee postal clerks. The event was duly investigated in the New York office, but beyond the fact that one member of the numerous pussy tribe in the mail building was missing, little else could be positively ascertained. That the cat could have been sent in that bag as a joke was not to be thought of for an instant, but it was presumed that in its wandering among the piles of mail-sacks in the basement, pussy had found the sack for Martinique awaiting to be sealed, and had concluded to take a nap therein. The sack was probably tied up and sealed soon afterward, and the unwilling stow-away had been sent to the steamer. Later on it was reported by the purser of the steamer that he suspected there was something alive in one of the mail-bags, but such is the respect for postal seals that he never thought to open the sack in the presence of witnesses and release the animal. Thrown in the mail-room with other sacks on top of it, there could be no doubt that poor pussy had been smothered before passing the Hook, and his condition when landed at Martinique must have been such as to fully justify and explain the ill-disguised indignation of the French officials.
In the Newspaper Division.
Throwing papers into boxes for all parts of the world.
The letter bill describes minutely the mail it accompanies, states how many sacks of letters, how many sacks of papers, and how many articles registered, describing each registered article separately, except in cases of heavy registered mails, when a separate descriptive list is sent in addition to the letter bill. Thus it is easy for the office of destination to verify the mail it receives and ascertain whether any is missing.
Small closed mails are at times enclosed inside of closed mails for other offices; for instance, the mails made up at Paris for Guatemala are in a sack duly sealed and labelled as aforesaid, but this sack is put inside of one of the bags for the New York office, and in such cases the fact is noted on the letter bill sent with the New York mail.
Samples of Ordinary Letters.