Washington's Business Hours

1895

"In one respect," said a visitor to me impatiently, "the national capital is behind every modern city, and that is in the handling of the mails. No mails are taken up after 9 o'clock, not even at the hotels. If you post a letter anywhere along between 8 or 9 o'clock, it is likely to remain there until morning, although mail trains are departing all night. The only way you can get a letter off with certainty in the evening is to send it or take it to the railway station and post it on the mail car. And this is at the fountain head of the United States mail service! They expect a man here to finish business during working hours and to go to bed early. You have scarcely time to get an after theater lunch before you are summarily ejected from the restaurant and must go home, and as the cars all stop running shortly afterward you really must go home or else walk or hire a cab. It seems funny to a metropolitan to have to break for the last car before fairly finishing an after supper cigar." — Pittsburg Dispatch.

Didn't Want the Postoffice Kind

1895

"I want to buy some steel pens, if I can find any to suit me," said the cautious customer. "By the way, have you got any of the kind that are furnished at the postoffice for the use of the public?"

"We have not," replied the stationer.

"Then give me half a dozen boxes assorted kinds," rejoined the customer carelessly, throwing a $5 greenback on the showcase. — Chicago Tribune.

Note: Back then, post office was spelled as one word.


It Was Very Sudden

She — Do you think the time will ever come when women will propose?
He — I don't see why it shouldn't. Suppose you proposed to me tonight, and I said yes, what?
She — Oh, Henry, this is so sudden! But never mind. It is just as well, and mother, I know, will be delighted. — Milwaukee Catholic Citizen.

First Letter Carriers

1895

It is not clear that the letter carriers were regularly employed before 1753, when tradition tells us that Benjamin Franklin, the new postmaster general, employed them in Philadelphia and possibly in New York. The earliest evidence I have is of 1762, when the Philadelphia postmaster advertised that his "boy" had run away, and that patrons must call for their letters at the postoffice. The Postal Journal of Hugh Finlay, a storehouse of sound information, tells us that Boston had no letter carrier in 1773. Of New York he says that "soon after the arrival of a mail the letters are quickly delivered by a runner," which means messenger or letter carrier. — Postal Record.

Boycotting the Postmaster

New York, 1895

Postmaster Remsen of Jericho has asked the postal authorities at Washington to punish the people who are boycotting the local post office. Remsen, when appointed, moved the office from a thickly settled part of the town to his house, some distance away. A majority of the people now mail their letters at Hicksville. As a result the office receipts have fallen off.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 1, 1895, p. 1.

New Hampshire Neighbors — Hiram

New Hampshire/Maine, 1916

On Tuesday Mr. Albert F. Berry was sworn as Assistant Postmaster at Hiram Postoffice. This is a very good selection. Mr. George C. Bray, who has given excellent service as postmaster, has resigned and will soon leave the State to engage in other business.

Lieut. John W. Hubbard of Fryeburg visited his daughter, Mrs. Arthur W. Sadler, and his sister, Mrs. Mary E. Young, Tuesday.

We have not seen but about half a dozen fruit trees this year that have been stripped of foliage by brown-tailed moths.

Mr. Eli C. Wadsworth, whose buildings were burned July 29, has bought of Mr. Calvin F. Clemons, the farm formerly owned by Hon. John H. Spring, of 160 acres with ample buildings and he removed to it September 4th. Mr. Wadsworth was born upon the Spring farm, which adjoins his homestead. Llewellyn A. Wadsworth, who was severely burned at the fire on his back, right arm and shoulders, went to East Brownfield Tuesday to be treated by Dr. Marston. He is improving.

Mr. Cyrus H. Goodwin went to Brownfield Tuesday.

We note with pleasure that our old friend, Col. Abram W. Smith, of Topeka, Kansas, a native of South Hiram, has recently been selected at the primaries as a Republican candidate for Presidential elector. As he received 1889 votes more than any other Republican and 44293 votes more than any Democrat, it looks as if he would get there. He is a typical son of Maine. He went to Pennsylvania at the age of 17 and enlisted in the Union army, serving four years. He was in a rebel prison 18 months. He went to Kansas after the war. He was chairman of the Board of Managers of the Kansas Department in the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1892. He has also served as state senator, speaker of the House of Representatives, candidate for Governor and U. S. Pension Agent. His lecture on the "Romance of the War," has won for him a reputation as one of the finest orators in the West, and his many friends have watched with pleasure and pride his long, useful and successful career.

James Evans, Esq., a prominent citizen of East Hiram, died Sept. 5, of Bright's disease, aged 77 years. A more extended tribute to this excellent man will be given later.

Master Charles Rounds of Malden, Mass., a grandson of Hon. Charles E. Hubbard of Kezar Falls, is visiting his aunt, Mrs. Mary E. Young. On Sunday morning he attended the Universalist church, and sang "The Holy City" as a solo. His wonderful voice and singing were a rich treat to all who heard him.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 3.

Sees Commercial Use of Flying Craft Soon

1916

Aviator Says Aeroplanes Will Be Used for Express and Mail Service Within Few Years.

"I expect to see aeroplanes in daily commercial use within two or three years. They will be used for high-class express and mail service and there will be no trouble of these machines crossing the ocean."

This was the statement made by Art Smith, 22 years old, champion "loop-the-loop" aviator, who is in a Chicago hospital for treatment of a leg which he injured in an accident in Japan.

Smith said he would not fly again himself, but that he planned to become interested in a $5,000,000 plant for the manufacture of aeroplanes in Japan.

"I think some of the aeroplanes in military use in Europe now can fly across the Atlantic," said Smith. One of the latest Curtiss machines in the British army has three motors and measures ninety feet from tip to tip of its wings. It is equipped with boats and can travel on water."

Smith has had a romantic and brilliant career as an aviator. He built his own aeroplane in Fort Wayne, Ind., when 16 years old. It was in this machine that he flew with his sweetheart to Hillsdale and was married. It was the first aeroplane elopement.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 9.

Postage Stamps In Winter Garb Oct. 1.

1916

HEAVY COATS FOR WASHINGTON AND FRANKLIN.

George and Ben to Doff Summer Attire and Appear Well Clad for Cold Season.

Some people prefer to change to their winter things later, but on October 1 George Washington and Ben Franklin will put on their heavy gum coats. It's their wish and the Government respects it.

Whether the first frosts of winter come in September or November, these two old sticklers for convention put on their heavy gums Oct. 1, and keep them on until the 1st of next May. If they didn't they would never be able to stand the climate, the Government stamp doctors say.

The next time the man who somehow "never seems able to keep any stamps of his own" asks for the loan of a 2-cent pale-pink lithograph of George Washington you will be absolutely within your rights as an American citizen If you reply:

"Sure thing. How will you have George — summer or winter style?"

The same also applies to that other popular favorite, Ben Franklin, whose profile now appears almost as many times as George's on the all-steel art work turned out by the Government presses.

If your query does not stump the perennial stamp-borrower he will be one of the very few American citizens who know that George and Ben are being turned out in two styles — to catch the winter and summer trade — but with no tempting reductions in prices. A 2-cent stamp still costs 2 cents.

Educated people are supposed to know that in spring a young man's fancy lightly turns somewhere or other; that the hardest-shelled crabs turn soft-shelled, and that one's heavy winter flannels are put away in camphor and one's light summer affairs are made ready for one to put on. But ever so many well educated and patriotic persons are totally ignorant of the fact that George and Ben are built on the crab pattern and need a change of wearing apparel in the hot sultry days.

Notables In Summer Attire.

Just at present George and Ben are wearing their summer weight clothing. They made the change along about May 1, when the warm days set in and the crabs began to shed their armor plate and shop windows were decked out in the latest things in hot weather toggery. George and Ben suffer terribly from the heat. Keep them in their winter things beyond the May 1 limit and Whole sheets of Georges and Bens will curl up and crack and stick to the furniture and otherwise make eloquent protest against the cruel disregard of their feelings and the dictates of fashion.

Kind-hearted souls in the Postoffice Department down in Washington were the first to discover this little human failing on the part of George and Ben. Gum experts were called into consultation and the problem was soon solved. What George and Ben needed was a change of glue. And so, you buy — or borrow — your Georges and Bens done summer style these days, and you will continue to do so until Oct. 1.

No Change in Flavor.

The difference between the summer and winter coats worn by George and Ben is one entirely of weight. Suggestions that the flavor of the gum be varied also, so as to appeal more to the taste of those who go in for crushed fruit and chocolate concoctions in the warm days, have never been seriously considered by the attending physicians of the Postoffice Department. Their concern is solely with the general well-being of George and Ben.

As one of the visiting nurses in the cashier's department of the old postoffice explains it, George and Ben have become inordinately fussy in their old age and won't stick to their jobs — or to letters — unless their whims are attended to.

"You see," he said, "the winter gum is so heavy it soaks up all the moisture in summer and stamps curl up and crack and spoil on our hands. The summer gum, being lighter, keeps better during the hot season and sticks just as well. The stamps don't curl up and there is less waste. But this light gum won't do in cold weather. It dries up and the stamps won't stick, no matter how hard you lick them. So we go back to the winterweight gums."

Winter Weights Being Made.

All of which works out very well here in Chicago, where Ben and George are in such great demand that the postoffice officials have to send to Washington every week or ten days for a fresh supply. The Government bureau of engraving and printing is already beginning to manufacture winterweight Bens and Georges, and along toward the end of September, when the local office calls for more, it will get its Bens and Georges with their new heavyweight gum coats.

But out in the rural districts the law of demand and supply works less smoothly and there is intense suffering for Ben and George when the cold snap comes. In these places supplies of Bens and Georges are ordered at longer intervals — enough to last three or four months sometimes — and it frequently happens that Oct. 1 finds the supply still going strong. Thus Ben and George are obliged to enter upon their winter labors wearing their last summer's garments, which is tough on Ben and George, to say nothing of the home folks who have to do the licking.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 9.

Note: It seems odd, but 'post office' was spelled as one word back in those days.

"Lost" Gems Are Recovered

1916

Package of Valuables Turns Up in St. Paul Postoffice.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A few days ago a St. Paul woman gave a Chicago hotel clerk an envelope containing jewels valued at $1,500, $200 in currency and a $50 draft to be placed in the hotel safe over night. The contents of the envelope have now been returned to the woman by Otto Raths, St. Paul postmaster.

When the valuables were called for at the Chicago hotel they could not be found. The clerk to whom they had been given had started on a two-weeks vacation. The woman stormed at the hotel management but didn't get any trace of her valuables. When she asked for her bill she found on it an item for "postage 4 cents."

The clerk had affixed the stamps and the valuables had been sent to St. Paul. The envelope was badly torn on its arrival here and postal clerks puzzled over the strange manner of shipping valuables until the woman appeared, claimed the shipment and explained its cause. Why they were sent here has not been explained.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 11.

Girl's Letter Is Joke on Bachelors, but It Overwhelms Her With Mail

1920

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Miss Ethel Day, a pretty New York girl, has caused work for a few extra mail clerks and carriers in this city as the result of a little joke that she and two other girl friends played upon several thousand young bachelors scattered over the habitable globe a few months ago. Miss Day is now thoroly convinced of the potency of publicity, and so, incidentally, are the letter shooters and mail sorters in the Great Falls postoffice.

Last summer, while enjoying a vacation in the mountains with her two girl friends from New York, who helped her put over the joke, the trio decided to write the following epistle to a motion picture magazine:

"Editor: I am a girl 19 years old. With three other girls I herd cattle for a wealthy stockman. We get awfully lonely and would like to correspond with some Eastern men."

In one day's mail she received answering letters from Germany, France, Hawaii, the Philippines, Zanzibar, Africa; London, Texas. Maine, New Hampshire, Boston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland, Norfolk. Va.; Brunswick, Ont., Can.; New York, Montreal, Key West. Fla.; Jersey City, the U. S. steamship Savannah, India, and numerous other points about the world.

A young lad from New York who evidently has the impression that Montana is still in "the wild and woolly West" asked Miss Day to put a good word for him with her boss so that he could come West and learn to punch cattle. Others spoke of wolves howling around the door.

A little Virginia lass has asked the following questions: "Do you dance? What style of dancing do they have in the West? (Imagine answering that one!) How are the folks out there, hospitable, friendly, sociable? How are the girls, the fellows? What are the chief entertainments? How do you spend your time?"

Now Miss Day for a little while thought it just lovely to receive hundreds of nice letters, but it is rapidly ceasing to be a joke. Each day her list of unanswered letters increases and all she needs is a permit to start a postoffice all her own. The problem could be easily solved by either ignoring the letters or sending them back unclaimed were it not for the fact that all her correspondents were so anxious for a reply that they carefully enclosed stamped, addressed envelopes.

However, Miss Day cheerfully says she will see the thing thru and answer every letter if she has to hire a couple of stenographers and a dictaphone and take a vacation for three months.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 5.

Have Got Beyond Feeling

1902

The people of Martinique, or those who still cling to that unfortunate island, will probably not be alarmed by the scientific report that it is likely to sink out of sight, says the Chicago Inter Ocean. They are probably beyond the reach of alarm by this time.


Lucky Old Maids

Woman insure against being old maids in Denmark, says the New York Mail and Express. If they marry before they are 40 what they have paid goes to the less fortunate, and these last are pensioned for the remainder of their lives on a scale proportioned on what they paid in.


Starving in Galicia

In Galicia the wage of the farm laborer has been so reduced that he is starving to death on a pittance of from three to 16 cents a day.


Index of Cleanliness

The average French person uses six pounds of soap in a year; the average English person uses ten pounds.


Will Follow a Swiss Model

Swiss postal officials are to be employed to assist in the reorganization of the Japanese post office. The Swiss postal system is to be taken as a model.

To Test New Mail Device for Trains

1910

WASHINGTON. — After a series of tests continuing since February the Postoffice Department has arranged for a formal six months' tryout of an invention for delivering and picking up mails by fast trains. As a demonstration of the practicability of the system a live pig, weighing 85 pounds, was recently delivered without injury at Carrollton, Ky., the home of the inventor, without the slightest injury from a train running 25 miles an hour.

For years the Postoffice Department has sought an improved method of picking up and delivering mails over the old catcher-hook system, and the new device was the result of four years' advertising by the postal authorities, urging inventors to produce something that would meet the requirements.

It is 40 years since the catcher hook came into use, and in spite of the progress in railroading and the tremendous improvement in the mail service along other directions no forward step is recorded in the matter of exchanging mail sacks by moving trains. Under this system only one small sack could be picked up at any one station, and it is a matter of official history that not infrequently, instead of catching the suspended sack of mail, the hook, operated by a mail clerk standing in the open door of the car, would snatch up a chicken coop or something else not to be found in any classification of mail matter.

The delivery of mail from moving trains is still more primitive, consisting merely of having the clerk hurl or push the sacks out of the car as the train rushes past the platform. Great numbers of persons have been injured and some killed by being struck by the whirling and rebounding sacks, thrown with the force of a catapult.

In a number of instances the bags of mail have rolled under the wheels of the train and have caused wrecks or have been ground to pieces and the mail destroyed. And these defects do not take into consideration the tremendous wear and tear on the mail bags and pouches, one of the largest items of expense to the railway mail service.

The new device has passed through a successful test of six months at Burnside station, and this decided the government to give the more extended trial.

---------
Note: In 1910, back in that general time, "post office" was one word.

Gas Masks Are Urged for Mail Train Men

1920

Skunk Pelts in Parcel Post Cause of Woeful Wail

LOCKHART, Texas, Feb. 26. — Bring out the gas masks, for they are sorely needed.

Mail clerks running on trains in the lower part of the State are said to have asked Superintendent Gaines of Ft. Worth to give them protection.

They declare they have been so badly "gassed" by the fumes of skunk hides that they are now incapacitated for further duties unless the proper protection is given them. They have suggested to the district superintendent that U. S. Army gas masks be secured for them to wear during the distribution of the mails.

Skunk hides, say the mail clerks, do not lose their flavor in packing for shipment. Hence, the closed mail cars, as they went their way to the markets of the North, fairly reek with the odor of polecats.

One of the clerks making this station declares the sickening odor of polecat hides, bunches of them, he had to handle on a recent trip, made him so weak that he was compelled to quit the run before he had half completed it.

The Body Perfectly Obeys Your Rapid Brain

1922

YOUR POWERS

Lulu M. Cargill, clerk in the New York post office, takes from Nina E. Holmes of Detroit the title of "champion letter sorter of the world."

Miss Holmes attracted attention by sorting 20,610 letters in eight hours, or nearly 43 a minute. Miss Cargill sorts 30,215 letters in eight hours, which is better than one a second. And she sorted the first 23,500 letters without pause. Then she stopped for a cup of tea. Sorting a letter means picking it up, reading the address, recalling the postal route to reach the address, then tossing the letter into the proper bag.

Miss Cargill is 26 years old. She has been a postal clerk only three years.

Miss Cargill, you reflect, must have wonderful co-ordination of body and mind. A brain that works with lightning swiftness has automatically perfect teamwork with a body that perfectly obeys her rapid brain.

The body is a collection of machines, each trying to work cooperatively for the good of all. It is a more perfect system of government than man has been able to devise.

Miss Cargill, judging from her work, has what scientists would call "an extraordinary well-balanced system of endocrine glands."

In the so-called "efficient" person, the body glands speed up when needed and slow down when the energy of the body is required by the other glands.

In a boy who is growing too rapidly, as a result of abnormal activity by the pituitary gland in the brain, the other glands slow down and surrender part of their share of the body's energy. With most of his energy devoted to growing, the lad is apt to be otherwise languid.

Or, for example, you suddenly are in danger, which requires a quick use of reserve energy. The word is telegraphed through the blood. The message is sent out by the adrenal glands, which stand guard as a mobilizer of reserve energy. Other glands slow down, as if saying, "If the adrenals fail in this emergency, we all perish."

The heart responds to the adrenals and rushes blood to the arms or other parts of the body that have to meet the danger. This rush of blood is why "the face goes white" in a time of peril.

The crisis met and conquered, the blood rushes back to normal distribution through the body. The other glands "come to life." The sudden change makes the person, calm in or, half-collapse "after it's all over."

—The Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Sept. 26, 1922, p. 3.

Mail Carrier Gets Annual One Cent Check from Government

1903

Gets Checks for One Cent

Maurice Proctor of Mineral Point is said to receive the smallest checks drawn by the national government. The slip of paper with the seal of Uncle Sam on it calls for one cent, and it is paid annually.

It is in remuneration in full for carrying the mails from Mineral Point to Dodgeville. A twelve month ago, when the bids were made for the contract there was a deal of rivalry between a dozen or more of those who wished to serve the government in this capacity, and Proctor, who is wealthy and does not need the money, offered in due form, faithfully and promptly to perform the task for a penny a year.

Government officials investigated, found he was financially responsible should it become necessary to sue for the penalty and awarded him the contract. Proctor received the first check a short time ago and sold it for $36, and he now has an offer of $25 for the next one when it comes to hand.

Employees of Proctor carry the mails twice a day between the two points rain or shine, and the government is getting fine service for what would appear to the ordinary workman to be very poor compensation. — Tribune-Telegraph.

Post Office Workers Listen to Music for Morale, No Jazz

1921

Music for P.O. Night Workers Improves Morals[*]

Minneapolis Postmaster Informs Postmaster General Hays that Psychological Test Proved a Success but No "Jazz" was Allowed

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17. — Music to improve the morale of workers whose duties take them well into the wee small hours has been tried out in the Minneapolis postoffice and proved a success, E. A. Purdy, postmaster, today informed Postmaster General Hays. The idea was tried, Mr. Purdy said, after he had made a psychological study of conditions under which his night force worked. He found men working away from the general noises of the day as a rule showed a low morale, inclined to be morose and generally worried at being away from their families, which resulted in an absence of enthusiasm in their work.

As an experiment a phonograph was installed and records, which it was thought would rest the nerves and enliven the spirits of the employes were tried nightly with gratifying results, Mr. Purdy said, although he was careful to explain that no "jazz" was played, until the fag end of the night as he "did not want the men juggling and tossing about letters and parcels." Everybody was more alert, he said, and at quitting time went home less tired, less worried and with more efficient night's work done. The postmaster general approved the idea and said he would watch further experiments with interest. Mr. Purdy who was characterized by Mr. Hays as a "bird of a postmaster with a batting average of 1,000, although a Democrat," is in Washington to give the department some of the ideas which has made the Minneapolis office one of the most successful in the country, Mr. Hays said.

—Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, CT, Aug. 18, 1921, p. 1

[*] "Improves Morals" is the original erroneous headline, kind of funny. And, hey, it's not that jazz was entirely disallowed, but allowed at the "fag end of the night." That's kind of funny, too.

Note: Back then "post office" was one word, which looks weird, and "employes" generally ended with one "e" like that, also odd.

Whole Country Now Infested By Chain Letters, Get Rich Quick

1935

POSTAL INSPECTORS AFTER "SEND-A-DIME" PEOPLE

Whole Country Is Now Infested by Letters — All Want to Get Rich Quick Without Work.

There isn't a scheme that comes up without its followers. The "Send-a-Dime" chain letter, which originated at Denver, Colo., is flooding the country at the present time and each day finds the number of letters received growing greater.

According to Albert Lea postoffice heads the letters have caused no large amount of extra work. Letters of this nature are coming in, however, but it has required no extra help to get them distributed to the homes in the city and county. But in many larger cities the letters are so numerous that extra help is being put on. According to dispatches this morning dime chain letter investigations are expected to culminate today with number of arrests by postoffice inspectors in several Iowa cities. Assistant Postmaster John A. Ryan, Des Moines, said Tuesday night. There are nine or ten inspectors in Iowa who have been tracing a number of chain letter originators and have obtained sufficient evidence to bring charges of fraud, Mr. Ryan said.

He indicated, however, that most of the investigations had centered in points outside of Des Moines and that the chain letter activities involving alleged fraud were headquartered in several others of the larger cities. Mr. Ryan declined, however, to name the cities where the fraud evidence had been found or the individuals for whom warrants had been issued. He added that chain letter mailings in Des Moines apparently were on the decline. Leading the drive which was expected to result in Iowa arrests yesterday, federal investigators arrested three business men Tuesday in Denver, Colo., the fountain-head of all variegated chain letter manias. The three men pleaded not guilty to a charge of using the mails to defraud in a $1 chain letter. They said they would fight the charge vigorously. The men are R. M. Barnholt, H. L. Harris and Edward W. Hughes.

Although expressing disapproval of the chain letter craze, members of some Ministerial associations said Tuesday night that no action had been taken for members to denounce the fad from the pulpit. At Burlington, Ia., the Des Moines County Ministerial association Tuesday adopted a resolution opposing "the rapidly spreading gambling mania." Members will preach sermons on the subject, stressing chain letter evils, Sunday.

An innovation of the chain letter fad occurred late Tuesday in Mason City with the arrival of telegrams requesting the recipient to wire five dollars to the first person of a list of five and then send similar telegrams to five "kindred spirits." At Mason City the first class mail volume was noticeably heavier Monday and Tuesday. A variety of the fad which was reported to have helped augment Mason City mail was a new kind of the "send-a-dollar" letter.

This letter was also reported as having been received at the Des Moines municipal airport by Wallace Fagan, United Air Lines employe. Under this scheme the letter is supposed "to prevent chiseling." It lists the names of 10 persons and directs the person receiving it to hand copies to two other persons. A dollar is to be collected on the delivery of each letter and the money sent to the first name on the list.

Every variety of chain letter of which the human mind can conceive was believed to be in the mails by Tuesday night.

One Des Moines stenographer received a letter which concluded: "Please do not break the chain. If you answer this, I can guarantee you a husband in 1946."

A chain letter which Miss Carolyn Landfear, 3809 Center street, received — and she said she had received dozens of them — elevated itself into the realm of poetry, attempting to convince her by unmetered verse that although she may have been fooled on many makes and charities, that this letter was the real thing and she should "join the parade."

Several stationers are selling chain letter forms and one newsboy in Des Moines was doing a thriving business hawking the blanks on a street corner.

—The Evening Tribune, Albert Lea, MN, May 8, 1935, page 3.

Note: "Post office" was spelled as one word and "employee" ended with one "e" back in this time period. It seems kind of weird and I don't know when it changed. Post office as one word? It's against nature!

A Family With Faith in Asbestos

Short Stories
1922

The late Mrs. George Gould hated any desecration of the Sabbath. Motoring one summer Sunday in Lakewood, she encountered a family whose fortune had been made in asbestos. The rich asbestos makers were picnicking, fathers and sons over whisky and poker, mother and the girls with cigarets and bridge. Mrs. Gould drew up to speak to her acquaintances. "Well," she said pleasantly, "I didn't know you Smiths had such faith in your asbestos."

A storyette that dates to the eighteenth century is as follows: Dr. Johnson once met the village postman one summer afternoon. The postman observed that he had still a mile to walk just to deliver one newspaper. "My goodness!" exclaimed the sympathetic doctor, "I'd never go all that distance for such a trifle. Why don't you send it by post?"

Former Postmaster General Hays, as every one knows, is an advocate of the air mail. "Of course, it gets criticized," he said, "and criticism is a good thing, but it can be run into the ground. I am reminded of the vaudeville producer who muttered as he read the press-notices of his program, 'These critics are thorough, all right. They don't leave a turn unstoned.' "

With reference to the millennium, Samuel Gompers recently said: "It is still a long way off, of course, but the workman is not the downtrodden slave he once was." He quoted the case of the tennis pro who was giving a new club member some pointers. "Hold your racket loosely, sir," he said. "Oh! more loosely! You hold it as stiff as if you were a hod-carrier." "But I am a hod-carrier," said the new member mildly.

The southern Californian may think himself an adept making seductive pictures of his end of the state, but he can still learn from the Honolulan, out in the north Pacific. Down there they say a drummer from San Francisco sojourned a month, and when they took him to the homeward-bound steamer and put leis around his neck and sang "Aloha Oi" to him a few times, he cried like a baby and said he had forgotten his wife's first name.

War Envelopes Used In Civil War Correspondence

1907

War Envelopes

The story of the civil war has been told and retold from platform and press, particularly on Memorial day, until the shelves of our libraries teem with the volumes of records of that epoch of our country's history.

In many a garret or family cabinet may be found some cap or portion of a garment worn during the strife by the soldier boy of the family; possibly the battered, bullet-pierced canteen may have its place.

To each or to all of these the grayhaired veteran may point his children at this memorial season, while telling them of the part he took in the struggle. But there is still another reminder of those years of national trial, simple though it may be, that serves to recall the spirit that prevailed before hostilities began, as well as to remind us of the progress of events during the development of those four years of bloody conflict. It is the stationery used in the correspondence between camp and fireside and between home and battlefield.

One envelope shows Gen. Scott to be the bulldog, with Jeff Davis as the smoking car, and the bone of contention as the city of Washington. The gamecock and shanghai envelope has no significance only as one turns to an issue of the Richmond Examiner of that period and reads, "The capture of Washington is perfectly within the power of Virginia and Maryland. The entire population pant for the onset. Our people can take it. They will take it, and Scott, the archtraitor, and Lincoln, the beast, combined, cannot prevent it. The just indignation of an outraged and deeply injured people will teach the Illinois ape to repeat his race and retrace his journey across the border of the free negro state still more rapidly than he came. And Scott, the traitor, will be given the opportunity at the same time to try the difference between Scott's tactics and the shanghai drill for quick movements."

The Ellsworth envelope was popular throughout the union, as was the "young man of 24 years" and his Chicago zouaves. His genuine energy and self-confidence had won the attention and admiration of the whole country.

This From The Post Office: Female Mail Carriers

1916

FEMALE "R. F. D." CARRIERS

It Is Estimated That We Now Have One Hundred and Fifty

The post office department itself is not aware of the actual number of woman carriers in the rural delivery service, but it estimates that there are about 150. This is a very trifling percentage of the total number of carriers, 43,652 in 1914; but it seems safe to say that a high percentage of the romance which the rural delivery service is supposed to contain will be found along these 150 routes.

Possibly, just possibly, these faithful messengers of the government are not much concerned about the romantic side of their calling, the Christian Herald remarks. To them it is doubtless a very business-like proceeding, and they are willing to leave the flowery notions about the work to us who think of the R. F. D. service as symbolized by a placid white horse, a comfortable looking, enclosed and easy-going conveyance and a daily jaunt through leafy lanes and over purling brooks, with occasional stops at cheery farmhouses.

We who are strong in imagination, however, do not trouble to visualize these leafy lanes when the trees are bare, the fences hidden by snow, the brook a winding streak of ice and the farmhouses maddening suggestions of warmth and cheer that rural mail carriers cannot stop to share.

Man and Wife Killed By Gas

1920

New York. — Gas which escaped when a rubber tube was disconnected from a feed plug in the floor by a cat caused the death of Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Weber in their Brooklyn apartment. The dead cat, its paws resting on the tube, lay under the gas stove.


Constantinople

Within its girdling walls Constantinople rises, like Rome on its seven low hills, crowned by the splendors of mosques, whose gleaming cupolas and minarets, silhouetted against the blue sky, look down on the waters of the Bosporus. A strange, incongruous huddle of palatial buildings and tumble-down hovels, of stately avenues, and filth-littered lanes, flanked by malodorous bazaars, through which the human tide streams and surges.


$31,632 Stolen From Post Office

Cleveland.—Thefts of $31,632 in currency and Liberty bonds, addressed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, from the mails by a former employee of the registry department of the local post office, were revealed.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1920, page 4.