Registered letter

“ Books, periodicals, newspapers, circulars, and other printed matter, cannot be registered unless pre-paid the full letter rates, in addition to the ordinary registration fee.
Receipt required on Delivery.
Registered letters and packets can only be delivered to the parties to whom they are addressed or to their order, and a receipt must be given on the delivery of each registered letter in a book kept by every Postmaster for that purpose.
Post office not responsible for loss. ”

“ Art. VIII. The existing arrangements for the exchange of registered letters between the two countries shall continue in full force; but the registration fee on registered letters sent from the United States to Canada shall be the same as the registration fee charged in the United States for domestic registered letters.
Art. IX. This arrangement, except so far as it relates to letter postage, shall take effect from the first of January, 1875. The reduced letter rate will come into operation on the first of February, 1875.... ”

“ The registration-fee of fourpence, prepaid in stamps, will secure careful treatment to any letter, newspaper, or book-packet addressed to any part of the United Kingdom. Record is kept of all such letters throughout their entire course. The registration of a packet makes its transmission more secure, by rendering it practicable to trace it from its receipt to its delivery. For a fee of sixpence letters may be registered to any British colony, except Ascension, Vancouver's Island, British Columbia, and Labuan, for which places they can only be registered part of the way. ”

“ Name and address of sender in full must be indorsed on or written across the end of the letter or article before it can be registered.
3. The senders of registered articles may obtain assurance of their receipt by persons addressed by indorsing them with the words, “Return receipt requested.” ”

“ Where the mail is large, it is usually brought from the post office by wagon, the smaller deliveries being brought by regular post office carriers. All registered letters and parcels are carefully checked as to number, by actual count, and compared with number entered on post office registration sheets, before signing for them. Envelopes are first cut open by one or more persons. Registered letters are kept separate from all others, are distributed separately and accounted for before any ordinary mail is handled. ”

“ Through bags should be exchanged by all offices between which pass a large number of letters and papers, including Travelling Post Offices on different routes.
5. When, as a general rule, an office has a large number of registered letters for another office with which it does not exchange a direct mail, the registered letters may be enclosed in a sealed registered packet, addressed to the office for which the letters are intended. ”

“ A rate of charge for Registration so low as, in no probable degree, to operate as a motive, with persons posting letters of value, to deny themselves the advantage of securing from the Post Office an acknowledgement of the receipt of the specific letter, has always been considered to be a cardinal point in the Canadian Registration System. ”

“ It is well, however, to remember [69] that letters placed in the post take the chances of fortune, and, with the plainest of addresses, may, by the absence of the person or for some other cause, bring up in the Dead-Letter Office. Their resurrection there will depend upon their containing the full name of the sender as well as his address. If a letter is valuable enough to send, it is valuable enough to sign, even if the signature be double,—first the familiar or given name, and then, in the lower left-hand corner, the full name.
It is well to use always the name which is your legal signature. ”

“ Legal provision has been made by Congress, by which letters may be sent out of the mail in cases of emergency. By the use of the Government envelope, with the stamp printed thereon, and constituting a part thereof, letters may be so sent, provided the envelope is duly sealed, directed, and addressed, and the date or receipt or transmission of such letter written or stamped thereon. The use of such envelope more than once, subjects the offender to a fine of fifty dollars. ”

“ The address is usually printed, so that no mistake can be made. In all cases, even when an addressed envelope is not required, when a favor is asked from an acquaintance or a friend, and an answer is desired, a postage stamp should always be inclosed. It is certainly an unpardonable presumption to ask even a friend to [78] write a letter for a particular purpose, and expect him to pay for its proper delivery. ”

“ Those paid for by the receiver.
The first class, or that containing letters of correspondence of which each pays for one, comprises probably five-sixths of the whole number of letters conveyed, and would be practically unaffected by the plan of invariable payment in advance; for it is obvious that so long as each party pays for one letter, it can be of no consequence whether he pays on the dispatch of his own, or on the receipt of his correspondent's. ”

“ Letters, or other articles, which from any cause remain undelivered in any Post Office, or which having been posted, cannot be forwarded by post, shall under such regulations as the Postmaster General may make, be transmitted by Postmasters to the Post Office Department as Dead Letters, there to be opened and returned to the writers on payment of any postage due thereon, with five cents additional on each Dead Letter to defray the costs of returning the same, or such Dead Letters may in any case or class of cases be otherwise disposed of as the Postmaster General may direct. ”

“ It is only fair to the "Blind Writers" to say, that the address heading of the Dean's letter was withdrawn before the signature was submitted to them. With that clue they would readily have been able to find out the writer's correct name from their books of reference, so that the Dean is not likely to suffer delay of his letters in the Returned Letter Office through peculiarity of signature.
During a recent Christmas Season a parcel, containing a lb. roll of butter was received, without address, in the returned Letter Office, Bristol, from a Devonshire town. ”

“ When parties are dealing by mail and there is a bargain that a check shall be sent, the check becomes the property of the person to whom it is sent as soon as it is mailed, and, therefore, when the letter with the check is put in the mail it operates as a payment on the option, and the loss of the draft is not the sender's loss, but the other man's. ”

“ No matter what the extent of the filing, the principle is the same; if but two persons are employed and one is expected to do the filing, the other should neither file nor remove papers from the file. When a letter is wanted, the file clerk should be asked for it. ”

“ Indeed, it is somewhat doubtful whether it could be material at all in view of section 5468, declaring that the fact that any letter, etc., has been deposited in any post office or branch post office, or in charge of any agent of the postal service, shall be evidence that the same was 'intended to be conveyed by mail,' within the meaning of section 5467. ”

“ However, if the internal legislation of the countries of origin and destination permits this, such articles may be sent in a closed envelope as registered items.
3 Letters may not contain documents having the character of current and personal correspondence exchanged between persons other than the sender and the addressee or persons living with them. If the administration of the country of origin or destination discovers the presence of such documents, it shall deal with them according to its legislation. ”

“ Any customs of any place or season that have not already appeared in the work, are earnestly solicited from those who have the means of furnishing the information. The only condition stipulated for, as absolutely indispensable to the insertion of a letter respecting facts of this nature, is, that the name and address of the writer be communicated to the editor, who will subjoin such signature as the writer may choose his letter should bear to the eye of the public. ”

“ The impersonal form of address used in government correspondence precludes the necessity for printing the names of officials on letter heads. Illegible signatures are a pretty poor excuse for attempting to issue an official directory in the form of a letter head. The working conception of the self-perpetuating corporation falls short if we must alter or reprint our stationery every time an official is changed. ”

“ In addition to the telegraphic notice to its Florida representatives, the New York office follows the practice of sending notice of the purchase by mail directly to the customer. No stamp is r quired for this notice, which is signed and transmitted in New York. Finally when the purchase has been completed by delivery, there are times when the New York office, instead of holding the certificates for the account of its Florida customer, forwards them to him by registered mail. When this is done, a form of receipt is inclosed, which the customer is asked to sign. ”

“ It shall be the duty of every postmaster, with such assistance as shall be provided by the Commissioner, to register and fingerprint any applicant for registration and fingerprinting under such section, and for such purposes to designate appropriate space in the local post office for such registration and fingerprinting. Disposition of registration, etc., records.Every postmaster shall forward promptly to the Department of Justice, at Washington, District of Columbia, the registration and fingerprint record of every alien registered and fingerprinted by him. ”

“ To register letters is the only way of securing their safe arrival, and it is necessary to send a trustworthy man to the Post Offices, who, after seeing the effacing stamp put upon the postage stamp, will further insist upon seeing the postmaster put the letters in the bag. ”

“ Where the party noticing and the party noticed reside in different places, the law allows the notice to be sent by post; but one reason of this is, that, in many cases, the notice will be sooner received by post than if otherwise conveyed. The adjudged sufficiency of a notice sent through a letter-carrier or penny-post, though the parties reside in the same city or town, has been sometimes treated as a relaxation of the rule, or an exception to it. It is so, however, only apparently; the letter-carrier or penny-post being treated merely as an agent or messenger for delivering the notice. ”

“ Persons who are required to be registered and who are in the United States on any day fixed herein for their registration, shall present themselves for registration before a duly designated employee in any classified United States Post Office. ”

“ The standing regulations of the department provide that ‘no privileged person can authorize his clerk or any other person to write (or stamp) his name for the purpose of franking any letter or packet.’ ‘The personal privilege of franking travels with the person possessing it, and can be exercised in but one place at the same time.’
“‘No privileged person can leave his frank behind him to cover his correspondence in his absence.’ ‘If letters or papers be put into a post-office bearing the frank of a privileged person who notoriously has not been in that vicinity for several days, ... ”

“ When senders fail to give their addresses, sometimes these are discovered by bills of exchange, cheques, or money-orders, which happen to be enclosed. When addresses of senders can be discovered by information on the outside of covers, the letters are returned without passing through the Returned Letter Branch, and are not opened. ”

“ The number of letters delivered to the respective parties and the disposition made by each of those received may cast some light upon the question, for while a party for whom a single letter is intended has a right to receive it, yet the number of letters, taken in connection with the amount of business apparently done by the recipient, may well suggest for whom any given letter was intended, and the action taken by the recipient, when, as here, each knows of the existence of the other, may show its good or bad faith in dealing with the postoffice. ”

“ It is true it may occasionally happen that he would detain a letter having no relation to the prohibited business; but where a person is engaged in an enterprise of this kind, receiving dozens and perhaps hundreds of letters every day, containing remittances or correspondence connected with the prohibited business, it is not too much to assume that, prima facie at least, all such letters are identified with such business. ”

“ Third. Petitioners contend that, standing by themselves, sections 4 (a) and 5 transgress constitutional restrictions. These sections have three parts. Section 5 (a) provides for the filing of a notification of registration. Section 5 (b) makes it the duty of every registered holding company to file a registration statement, with documents and certain detailed information, within a reasonable time after registration. ”

“ Another point, sometimes of considerable importance, concerns the time when a letter takes effect, and this is governed by the question of fact as to whom the Post Office Department is acting for. If, in making an offer, I ask for a reply by mail or simply for a reply, I constitute the mail as my agent, and the acceptor of that offer will be presumed to have communicated with me at the moment when he consigns his letter to the mails. ”