the postmasters where the letters were first mailed,
for them to find the owners, and get a receipt. From $35,000 to $50,000
come into the office in this way during the year; but a large proportion
is restored to the senders, and the remainder is deposited in the United
States Treasury to the credit of the Post-office Department.

When letters contain nothing of value, if possible they are returned to
the writers. There are clerks so expert in reading all kinds of writing
that they can discern a plain address where ordinary eyes could not
trace a word. For instance, you could not make much of this:

[Illustration]

A dead-letter clerk at once translates it:

Mr. Hensson King,
Tobacco Stick,
Dorchester County,
Maryland.
In haste.

And such spelling! Would you ever imagine that Galveston could be
tortured into "Calresdon," Connecticut into "Kanedikait," and Territory
into "Teartoir"?

Recently the Postmaster-General has found it necessary to issue very
strict orders about plain addresses, and a great many people have tried
to be witty at his expense. I copied this address from a postal card:

Alden Simmons,
Savannah Township,
Ashland County, State of Ohio;
Age 29; Occupation, Lawyer;
Politics, Republican;
Longitude West from Troy 2 deg.;
Street Main
No. 249;
Box 1008.
Color, White;
Sex, Male;
Ancestry, Domestic.
_For President 1880, U. S. Grant!_

About once in two years there is a sale of the packages which are
detained in the office for the same reason that letters are. All the
small articles are placed in envelopes, on which are written brief
descriptions of their contents. Any one is allowed the privilege of
examining them before purchasing. There are thousands of these packages,
containing almost everything you can think of. I glanced over an old
catalogue, and selected at random half a dozen things that will give you
an idea of the endless variety: Florida beans, surgical instruments,
cat-skin, boy's jacket, map of the Holy Land, two packages of corn
starch, and a diamond ring--in truth, as the chief of the D. L. O. says
in his report, "everything from a small bottle of choice perfumery to a
large box of Limburger cheese."

But there were two things that nobody would ever buy, so this great
institution was obliged to keep them. One was a horrid, grinning,
skeleton head, that had been sent to Dr. Gross, the eminent Philadelphia
surgeon; but the box being naile