Postscript

“ In social correspondence it is, often, considered good form to write on the first and third pages of a sheet of note paper, leaving the second and fourth pages blank, or to write on the fourth and 177first pages, leaving the other two unwritten upon. This is done for the convenience of having the letters written without using a blotting pad. A postscript was formerly supposed to convey the pith or gist of a lady's letter—a poor compliment, it must be confessed, to her intelligence ”

“ But I'm going to put it into the typewriter and add a postscript."
She sat down before the machine and inexpertly rolled the sheet into place; then, with Ardmore helping her to find the keys, she wrote:
I demand an imediate reply.
"Demand and immediate are both business words. Are you sure there's only one m in immediate? All right, if you know. I reckon a postscript like that doesn't need to be signed. I'll just put 'W. D.' there with papa's stub pen, so it will look really fierce. Now, you're the secretary; you copy it in the copying press and I'll address the envelope." ”

“ Sometimes, also, there was a dirty-looking envelope, with the address in an unmistakable schoolboy's hand. Sometimes there was an untidy one, in a schoolgirl's round characters, with various little postscripts outside, only remembered when the flap had been sealed. And sometimes there was a very little pink envelope, with a green bird flying merrily over the initial "B" at the back. The writing on this one looked as if some very little hand had been guided, and the stamp had the appearance of having been licked very freely and hammered on to preclude the possibility of it becoming ungummed. ”

“ The best subject, to begin with, is your friend's last letter. Write with the letter open before you. Answer his questions, and make any remarks his letter suggests. Then go on to what you want to say yourself. This arrangement is more courteous, and pleasanter for the reader, than to fill the letter with your own invaluable remarks, and then hastily answer your friend's questions in a postscript. Your friend is much more likely to enjoy your wit, after his own anxiety for information has been satisfied. ”

“ The process described in our account of the travelling post-office is here gone through; a rapid exchange of bags is made, and each interest goes its separate and hurried way. During the interval, and just before the mail-cart deposits its contents at the door of the post-office, the clerks and letter-carriers will have been roused from their beds, and somewhat sulkily, perhaps, have found their places in time. They look sleepy and dull, but this is excusable; the hour is a drowsy one, and half the world is dozing. ”

“ You may be changed three or four times over, but I have been for thirty years in the same place, my good sir.' To this the other officials usually answered: 'It's all very well for you, Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Ivan Andreitch: the post office is your job—receiving and despatching the mails; the worst you can do is to close the post office an hour too early if you are in a bad temper, or to accept a late letter from some merchant at the wrong hour, or to send off some parcel which ought not to be sent off—any one would be a saint, of course, in your place. ”

“ JERRY. Well, I’ve done pretty well by you this morning. Maybe you got a letter for me.
DORIS. No, there’s none to-day.
JERRY. Funny thing: I came near leaving that pink letter with a little girl down the street who looked as if she needed one pretty bad. I thought that maybe it was really meant for her, and just had the wrong name and address on by mistake. It would of tickled her. I get tempted to leave mail where it really ought to go instead of where it’s addressed to. Mail ought to go to people who appreciate it. It’s hard on a postman, especially when he’s the best one they ever had. ”

“ At a rate of postage so low as one penny, a great number of explanatory letters on business, and letters on matters of detail, would be written. Occasions are of constant occurrence in which we do not write, and are not written to, because the matter, though important enough to write upon, is not important enough to pay, or to cause others to pay, the postage. I refer here to questions as to the mode of conveyance of goods, as to the colour or pattern of articles ordered, or to an ambiguous or an illegible phrase in a letter received, and a thousand other matters. ”

“ From the tone of the letter, it is plainly to be seen that he lives where the letter was mailed—but where was it mailed? The post-mark on the envelope [Pg 315] is so indistinct that any lady not employed in the Dead Letter Office would throw it aside as "unreadable;" but ladies here learn to decipher what to ordinary mortals would be hieroglyphic, or simply a blank. After consulting the pages of the Post-office Directory beside her, Miss A passes the envelope to Miss B. "Can you suggest any post-office in Indiana beginning with M, ending with L, with about four letters between?" ”

“ Postmasters are instructed not to receive any letter, &c. which there is good reason to believe contains any thing likely to injure the contents of the mail-bag or the person of any officer of the post-office. If such a packet be posted without the postmaster’s knowledge, or if at any time before its despatch he should discover any such packet, he is directed not to forward it, but to report the case, with the address of the packet, to the secretary. ”

“ After writing it, place it in a square or oblong envelope—round ones are no longer fashionable—seal it on the back and write a legible address on the front; then take a two-cent stamp, give it a good licking and retire it to the corner—the upper, right-hand corner, on the outside—never inside, as the postmaster is not a clairvoyant. Drop it in a letter-box and trust to luck. If it's a love letter, it will probably reach her all right, for Cupid is a faithful postman and carries a stout pair of wings. ”

“ Where it is possible, but one person should be sent to the post-office.
The name of the writer or firm, written or printed on the letter, is an advantage in case of miscarriage.
When a valuable letter is missing from any cause, the fact should be at once reported to the post master, in writing, with full particulars, and a search made by the complainants, of the pockets of any spare over-coats about the premises.
Where letters are delivered by a public letter carrier, or penny post, a locked box or some other safe place of deposit for the letters thus left, should be provided. ”

“ It is always so when one is on thorns for a letter. Now, when one thinks that the mail arrives at daybreak, what can they possibly mean by not distributing the letters till evening? Did I tell you what I said to Monsignore Ricci, who has some function at the Post Office?”
“No, but I trust it was not a rude speech; he is always so polite.”
“I said that as I was ever very impatient for my letters, I had requested all my correspondents to write in a great round legible hand, which would give the authorities no pretext for delay, while deciphering their contents.” ”

“ If, unluckily, an epidemical passion for letter writing should rage to such a degree as to overpower all ordinary and extraordinary means of control, even let the pent up spirit lift the safety valve and expand itself in freedom. Or, in more staid language, no longer confine the public to the use of the Post Office, but allow letter writers to choose a mode of transmission for themselves. ”

“ I paid the postage, and when the man was out of sight, she told me that the letter was from her son, who took that means of letting her know that he was well. The letter was not to be paid for. It was then opened and found to be blank."
Now, while so many copies of "NOTES AND QUERIES" pass through the Post-office, it is to be hoped one at least may remain there, and be the means of inducing Mr. Hill to inform us whether Miss Martineau had any authority for fathering this story upon him; and whether the Post-office Reform is really indebted to any such trivial incident for its original idea. ”

“ Scarcely a day passes in any of our provincial post-offices without some incident occurring calculated to surprise, amuse, or sadden. Very probably within a few minutes one person will have come to make a complaint that a certain letter or letters ought to have arrived, and must have been kept back; another will make an equally unreasonable request, or propound some strange inquiry which the poor post-office clerk is supposed to be omniscient enough to answer. ”

“ If any person shall enclose or conceal a letter, or other thing, or any memorandum in writing, in a newspaper, pamphlet, or magazine, or in any package of newspapers, pamphlets, or magazines, or make any writing or memorandum thereon, which he shall [Pg 426] have delivered into any post-office, or to any person for that purpose, in order that the same may be carried by post, free of letter postage, he shall forfeit the sum of five dollars for every such offence. ”

“ The Postman. Who is the man who is most eagerly looked for as he comes down the street? The Postman. Who receives, at every door where he stops, a most cordial welcome? The Postman. I wonder if the thrill of getting a letter will ever pass away. When you come home from school the first thing you do is to look on the hall table to see if the Postman has brought you a letter. It is the same when we grow up. No matter how many letters we may receive we never get over the keen delight at having the Postman bring us letters.
Last Sunday afternoon you wrote your grandmother. ”

“ In the letter-room the officers are no less busily engaged: a number of them are constantly at work, during the hours of the despatch, in the operation of placing each letter with the address and postage-label uppermost, so as to facilitate the process of stamping. In the general post-office the stamping is partly effected by machinery and partly by hand, and consists simply in imprinting upon each letter the date, hour, and place of posting, while at the same time the queen’s head with which the letter is ornamented and franked gets disfigured. ”

“ They are also bought by the poor to write brief letters on.
It is a common practice, in writing to another person on your own business, to enclose a postage stamp to prepay the letter in reply. Some persons, who have much correspondence, procure their own address printed in script on the back of stamped envelopes, and then send these enclosed to bring back the expected return. Persons doing a great deal of business with each other, through the post-office, keep each other's envelopes on hand. ”

“ I am happy to find matters are managed so impartially in the post-office here. Nothing like a public cant for making matters find their true level. Tell the postmaster, then, I’ll keep the letter, and the rather, as it happens, by good luck, to be intended for me. ”

“ A post master will suffer no person whatever, except his duly sworn assistants, or clerks and letter carriers, who may also have been sworn, to have access to the letters, newspapers, and packets in his office, or whatever constitutes a part of the mail, or to the mail locks or keys. ”

“ But the post-office clerk seldom has the power of making such a discrimination. The letter which is carelessly left over to [Pg 359] day, may go to-morrow, but too late to save the credit of a tottering house, or to render the instructions it may contain, of any avail. In the rapid course of commercial transactions, what is wisdom one day, may be folly the next, and thus it not unfrequently happens that the best contrived plans may be ruined by the delay or non-arrival of a letter. ”

“ A postman, a sorting-clerk, or a letter-sorter, if he be dismissed from his employment cannot pick up his bag of tools and offer himself to the next workshop, for the simple reason that he has no tools, and his trade is one of such a peculiar nature that it is wanted nowhere outside the Post-Office. ”

“ In looking over letters of the period antecedent to the Post Office reform, I find constant reference to expedients for saving postage; thus, in writing to a friend at a particular town, we would trouble him to call upon such and such others to communicate intelligence, or to make inquiries, the result to be reported in his next letter; sometimes, even, we would ask him to call upon tradesmen to give orders, [239] or to urge despatch in commissions previously given. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And for every letter or packet so received, there shall be paid at the time of its reception, a postage of one cent, which shall be for the use of the postmasters, respectively receiving the same. And the Postmaster-General may make arrangements with the postmasters in any foreign country, for the reciprocal receipt and delivery of letters and packets through the post-offices.
Sec. 33. And be it further enacted, That the postmasters and the persons employed in the transportation of the mail shall be exempt from militia duties, and serving on juries, or any fine or penalty for neglect thereof. ”

“ While the ladies were examining this book of literary curiosities, Mr Bright took occasion to comment with pardonable pride on the working of the Post-Office.
“You see, ma’am,” he said, “we do our best for the public—though many of ’em have no idea of it. We don’t send letters to the Returned Letter Branch till we’ve tried, as you see, to get the correct addresses, and until two separate letter-carriers have attempted to deliver them. ”