Foot-prints of a letter carrier; or, a history of the world's correspondece

THE FRANKING PRIVILEGE.

“I have said so much, that if I had not a frank I must burn my letter and begin again.”—Cowper.

It is the abuse of certain privileges, which all governments accord to a portion of its officers, which leads to fraud, crime, and corruption. Among these, that of the franking system may be ranked as a most prominent one. Had it been checked at an earlier period of our postal history, how many evils would have been prevented, and how far more plethoric would have been its treasury!

As early as 1782, even in its incipient state, far-seeing men objected to its exercise. In December (6th), 1782, an ordinance extending the privilege of franking letters to the heads of all the departments was reported and taken up. Various ideas were thrown out on the subject at large,—some contending for the extension proposed, some for a total abolition of the privilege as well in members of Congress as in others, some for a limitation of the privilege to a definite number or weight of letters. Those who contended for a total abolition represented the privilege as productive of abuses, reducing the profits so low as to prevent the extension of the establishment throughout the United States, and throwing the whole burden of the establishment on the mercantile intercourse. On the other side, it was contended that in case of an abolition the delegates or their constituents would be taxed just in proportion to their distance from the seat of Congress,—which was neither just nor politic, considering the many other disadvantages which were inseparable from that distance; that, as the correspondence of the delegates was the principal channel through which a general knowledge of public affairs was diffused, any abridgment of it would in so far confine this advantage to the States within the neighborhood of Congress, and that as the correspondence at present, however voluminous, did not exclude from the mail any private letters which would be subject to postage, and if postage was extended to letters now franked the number and size of them would be essentially reduced, the revenue was not affected in the manner represented. The ordinance was disagreed to, and the subject recommitted with instructions to the committee, giving them ample latitude for such report as they should think fit. Whether the report was ever made we are not advised; but its latitude has increased with the introduction of every new State and Territory. Since the above date, almost every postmaster-general has alluded to the franking privilege. Mr. Blair, in his report of 1863, says,—

“I renew the recommendation made last year, that the franking privilege of postmasters be abolished, except for correspondence between them and other officers of the department upon official business.

“It should be abolished also as to the correspondence of all persons addressed to the several departments and executive officers of government, except upon official correspondence addressed by an officer of the government.

“Both these privileges, as they now exist, have been much abused, and have no proper place in a correct postal system.”

Mr. Blair, however, falls into the same error that many official rulers commit,—that of calculating chances of success, instead of commanding them. In the report alluded to, we find this passage:—that “the postal revenue has nearly equalled the entire expenditures,—the latter amounting to $11,314,206.84, and the former to $11,163,789.59, leaving a deficiency of but $150,417.25. Good reason, therefore, exists for the expectation that within a brief period this important department of the General Government will become self-sustaining.”

We do not think so. The postal department is not, nor can it ever be made, a speculative one. It is based on the increase of trade and commerce throughout an extent of country unparalleled in history, as uniting in one system of rule upwards of thirty millions of people. To keep up the routes over such a vast space, connecting State to State, Territory to Territory, passing over lakes, rivers, mountains, even over the land-route to California, through almost impassable sections, contending with difficulties scarcely to be realized in descriptions, the expense is necessarily great. Previous to 1850 many of the routes bordering the Atlantic were for the most part isolated lines, near to which trade and traffic had not approached. The settlement of California, and the opening of a trade which has ultimately proved a second Peru, as regards gold, may be dated as the commencement of a new era in the physical progress of our country. In connecting a line of posts, establishing post-offices, and furnishing modes of conveyance, the question of dollars and cents is but a secondary consideration. The word profit was repudiated, and the sole purpose of the government was to establish the post, no matter at what cost. The time may come when it shall prove self-sustaining, but never if at the expense of the public interest, nor while the franking system exists.

We contend that every letter, document, or newspaper, no matter by whom mailed, or how high the functionary, should be prepaid; for men in authority are the servants of the people, and have no more claim upon the public treasury than has the lowest worker in any of the departments. The postal department, however, in its official correspondence, should be the only exception to the rule.

Nor is it the mere privilege we complain of, but its abuse. Reduce it to an honest and equitable use, and we venture to say the public will endure the act.

Mr. George Plitt, in his report while a special agent of the post-office department, made February 3, 1841, speaking of the franking privilege, says, “The actual number of franked packages sent from the post-office of Washington City during the week ending on the 7th of July last was 201,534; and the whole number sent during the last session of Congress amounted to the enormous quantity of 4,314,948. All these packages are not only carried by the department into every section of the country free of charge, but it is actually obliged to pay to every postmaster whose commissions do not amount to $2000 per annum, two cents for the delivery of each one! Supposing all the above to have been delivered, the department would lose from its revenue for this one item upwards of $80,000, besides paying for the mail-transportation.”

In 1834 the “Washington Globe,” speaking upon this subject, used the following language:—

“Particular cases of gross abuse upon the post-office are within our knowledge, and the postmaster-general will be informed of hundreds of others. The opinion of those acquainted with the subject, which we have no doubt is correct, is that the department has lost within the last year, by the extension of the franking privileges of the members of Congress, and by abuses of law, more than one hundred thousand dollars. This revenue would in a short time pay off the debts of the department, and leave the people all the mails they now have. Who loses this sum? Not the department only, but the people,—the honest correspondents by the post, who prefer paying postage on their letters to obtaining franks. In fact, the abuses are growing so rapidly as to justify a fear of their endangering the establishment. The restrictions of the law seem to have been by some men wholly borne down and prostrated, and the franking privilege is rapidly extending itself over, and covering a great part of, the ordinary private correspondence of the country.”

The post-office is an establishment of the greatest utility. The law throws it upon its receipts for postage as its sole support. When these fail, the mails must stop; and every dollar that is taken from them is so much drawn from the service of the public. The duty, therefore, of protecting the department from the loss of its revenue is imposed upon the postmaster-general not only by the general principle of the law, but by the necessity of saving the establishment from annihilation, total or partial. The sentiment of the people, ever against abuse and the improper use of privilege, will sustain the postmaster-general in his course.

The “Globe,” after alluding to the further abuse of the franking privilege, says,—

“If the government had been placed upon the footing of citizens, and had paid during Mr. Barry’s administration one-third even of what these would have paid for the same services, would the department have been in debt? Strike an account with the executive government only, even for the last year, and we find that the balance due to the department, including the losses by abuses, would more than pay its whole debts. To those, then, who charge that the department is ‘insolvent,’ we say that its unrequited labors have justly earned for it a revenue more than sufficient to meet all the demands against it.”

In connection with this subject,—and it is one that, when fully exposed, will astonish the country,—we annex the following from the “American Merchant,” New York, for July, 1859. “There is not the slightest doubt that very extensive frauds may be successfully carried on in the department; but we incline to the opinion, however, that the most aggravated ‘frauds’ perpetrated on the department, and which are the more hard to be borne that there is no remedy for them under the existing law, are those which grow out of the franking privilege. It would astonish the world, could the figures be correctly ascertained, to see to what extent this evil is carried. From a statement made by the postmaster of Washington City to the Post-Office Committee of the House of Representatives, in January, 1854, we gather the following items of ‘franked’ matter sent during one month from Washington alone:—

“Let it be remembered that this amount of $2,500,000, which is a fair average for one year, is actually taken out of the revenues of the department in one city. Is it strange that our postal system should be non-supporting?

“If it be right that the General Government should defray the expenses of sending ‘pub. docs.’ and the public and private correspondence of members of Congress to every part of the country, then a sufficient appropriation should be made for that purpose, and there should be some means of fixing a limit to this system of dead-heading. And if letters, papers, and public documents were the only commodities transported under this talismanic ‘frank,’ it would be less a matter of concernment; but when, as has been the case, members of Congress send home their dirty linen to be washed, at the expense of the post-office department, the subject assumes a more serious aspect, and the sovereign people—very impudently, perhaps—persist in knowing why such things are. From the statements of the department for the ten years ending with 1856, the total expenses were $68,136,197, and the revenue from postages $54,014,652, leaving a deficiency of $14,121,545. The appropriation by government during the same space was $5,626,682,—which reduces the actual deficiency to a little more than $9,000,000.”

Many of the packages thus franked, even when received by the parties, to whom they are sent, are rarely opened, for the simple reason that the newspapers (which also go free) containing the same documents or speeches have already been received, read, and commented upon. For instance: it is well known to every member of Congress, and to every one connected with the post-office, that long after the President’s message has been published in every newspaper throughout the country, thousands upon thousands are sent daily under frank from Washington. This was our written objection to the privilege in 1841. Now the same thing extends to “Annual Reports” of the respective heads of departments, other reports, and speeches of members of Congress, which are never read in pamphlet form by the masses to whom they are sent. Many of these speeches, which attracted no attention in the House and created little or no sensation out of it, are handsomely gotten up, neatly printed, artistically stitched, and mailed by the members at the expense of the government to their constituents, to whose literary merit and classical beauties the words of Virgil would most aptly apply:—

“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademtum.”

There are two meanings to this terrible passage from the Latin poet. The learned reader will apply the less terrible to the subject in question.

It would present a painful picture were we to sum up by number, bulk, and character the public documents which weigh down the mails passing from Washington City to every other in the country,—not cities alone, but towns, villages, hamlets, grog-shops, and places not reputable, either to the sender or the recipient, to name. Documents, such as valuable books, find their way as per direction to ignorant blacks and foreigners, many of whom can neither read nor write. Wholesale and ponderous as are these costly matters, they are few in comparison to the speeches which members of Congress send to their constituents. We refrain from alluding further to these matters, as we feel humiliated as a citizen of the United States when we consider that it is done under the law.

J. Holt, postmaster-general, in his report (1859), speaking of the franking privilege, says,—

“It may be added, if it is proper that the government shall be charged with the expense of conveying the matter now passing free through the mails, justice alike to the public and to the department requires that the amount thus due shall be precisely ascertained,—which can best be done by prepayment at the mailing-offices. There can be no enlightened administration of the postal system without a complete knowledge of its financial resources and liabilities, which can never be attained while the incubus of the franking privilege is hanging over it. Under the stifling pressure, too, of this incubus, the department is forced to continual efforts to ameliorate its condition, which must often result in curtailments to be deplored, because they deprive the public of mail-accommodations for which they have fully paid, and which they are, therefore, entitled to enjoy.

“Another potent reason for the abolition of the franking privilege, as now exercised, is found in the abuses which seem to be inseparable from its existence. These abuses, though constantly exposed and animadverted upon for a series of years, have as constantly increased. It has been often stated by my predecessors, and is a matter of public notoriety, that immense masses of packages are transported under the government frank which neither the letter nor spirit of the statute creating the franking privilege would justify; that a large number of letters, documents, and packages are thus conveyed, covered by the frank of officials, written, in violation of law, not by themselves, but by some real or pretended agent; while whole sacks of similar matter, which have never been handled nor seen even by government functionaries, are transported under franks which have been forged. The extreme difficulty of detecting such forgeries has greatly multiplied this class of offences, whilst their prevalence has so deadened the public sentiment in reference to them that a conviction, however ample the proof, is scarcely possible to be obtained. The statute of 1825, denouncing the counterfeiting of an official frank under a heavy penalty, is practically inoperative.”

The French deputies and peers have no franking privilege; in England it was abolished for members of Parliament since the establishment of the penny post. For an amusing account of an abuse of the franking privilege in England, see page 66.

Having expressed our opinion and given that of others on the abuse of the franking privilege and on the propriety, in a national point of view, of doing away with it entirely, it is by no means implied that a different construction of the right would not do away with our objections, and also those of the many who consider its abuse a growing, if not a dangerous, evil. Whatever may be done to lessen the evil, as well as the heavy expense which it inflicts upon our government, and which will bring about a state of things that will redound to the credit of those who inaugurate a reform in this department of our government, will be cordially endorsed by the people.

Our members of Congress, it is true, stand politically very differently as regards positions from the representatives of other nations; but, still, that is no reason why governmental privilege should be abused to the extent it is.

By an act of Congress passed at the Third Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, December 1, 1862, to March 4, 1863, “The postmaster-general may arrange for the delivery by route-agents of newspaper bundles not taken from, or intended for, any post-office. The postmaster-general may regulate the manner of wrapping mail-matter not paying letter postage, so that it may be easily examined; and postmasters are allowed to tear off the wrappers to see if letter postage is evaded. Publishers dealing with the post-office must swear to their statements: there is a fine of $50 for each offence in sending papers to other than subscribers at quarterly rates. The franking privilege is limited as follows: first, the President, by himself or his private secretary; second, the Vice-President; third, the chiefs of the several executive departments; fourth, such principal officers, being heads of bureaus or chief clerks, of each executive department, to be used only for official communications, as the postmaster-general shall prescribe; fifth, Senators and Representatives, including delegates from Territories, the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House, to cover correspondence to and from them, and all printed matter issued by authority of Congress, and all speeches, proceedings, and debates in Congress, and all printed matter sent to them,—their franking privilege to commence with the term for which they are elected, and to expire on the first Monday of December following such term of office; sixth, all official communications addressed to either of the executive departments by an officer responsible to that department: in all such cases the envelope should be marked ‘official,’ with the signature thereto of the officer; seventh, postmasters have the franking privilege for official communications to other postmasters: in such cases the envelope shall be marked ‘official,’ with the signature of the writer, and for any such endorsement of ‘official’ falsely made, the person making the same shall forfeit $300; eighth, petitions to either branch of Congress shall pass free in the mails; ninth, all communications addressed to any of the franking officers above described, and not excepted in the foregoing clauses, must be prepaid by postage-stamps. The franking privilege shall be limited to packages weighing not exceeding four ounces, except petitions to Congress and congressional or executive documents, and publications published, procured, or purchased by order of either house, which shall be considered as public documents and entitled to be franked as such; and except, also, seeds, cuttings, roots, and scions, the weight of the packages of which may be fixed by regulations of the postmaster-general. Publishers of periodicals, magazines, and newspapers which shall not exceed sixteen ounces in weight shall be allowed to interchange their publications reciprocally free of postage, such interchange to be confined to a single copy of each publication.”

This act took effect July 1, 1863: all acts inconsistent with it were thereby repealed.

Here is an extensive pull upon the postal department, yet one that if strictly adhered to would not create such an opposition to the system as its abuse has caused. Barrels of flour, dirty clothes, and other family matters certainly are not included in the above. If so, then will the postal department have to connect with its legitimate business that of an express. A “National Franking Privilege Express” would not be a bad title.

Although the idea of the government becoming a common carrier of dirty linen, barrels of flour, immense masses of book-matter and documentary papers, was never entertained, yet the franking privilege is gradually preparing the way for its accomplishment. It is, therefore, evident to us that the system is gradually destroying the whole theory on which the post-office is founded, and if carried out still further will cripple its operations materially. It has been suggested that in lieu of the franking privilege now allowed by law to members of Congress and others, they should be furnished with postage-stamps, to be paid for out of the contingent fund of the House. If the privilege is to be extended in any shape, let it be under that of the franking system; for the moment stamps are substituted, that very moment a rush for “cash representatives” will be most eagerly sought for, and the contingent fund, to use a modern phrase, will “be soon swallowed up.” There would, of course, be less franking of public documents by the use of stamps, but a far more extensive use of them for other purposes. This has been clearly illustrated in some of our States where the stamps have been substituted for franking. If, however, the postage-stamp system should be adopted, let the transmission of books, &c. be forwarded, under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House, by the ordinary mode of conveyance. This would be a check on those extravagant members who consider it a duty due their constituents to supply them with books enough to make a library. In one single instance, a member from Utah, in 1858, cost the government over seven thousand dollars by the transmission of books, &c.

As a clear and explicit definition of the limits of the franking privilege of members of Congress, the following letter to certain members of Congress who claimed certain (extended) privileges will be found interesting. The members had asked leave to frank certain documents intended to aid a praiseworthy object not strictly entitled to that privilege, as well as other favors not sanctioned by either the letter or the spirit of postal laws, rules, and regulations:—

“Post-Office Department, 1865.
“Appointment-Office, Washington.

“Gentlemen:—I am instructed by the postmaster-general to acknowledge the receipt of your joint letter of the 15th instant, and to say that while he fully appreciates the importance of furnishing the public with correct information on the subject of the treatment and sufferings of our brave men who, unfortunately, are prisoners in the hands of the rebels, and would willingly lend all proper aid in his power to accomplish this object, he cannot, with his sense of official duty, direct the postmaster of Boston to respect at his office the franks of members of the Senate or House of Representatives while they are sojourning at the seat of government. Nor can he authorize the use of fac-simile stamps for the purpose of franking matter passing through the mails.

“The franking privilege to Senators and members of Congress is a personal one, and travels with the party entitled to it, and cannot be exercised in two or more places at the same time. By the terms of the law, it is ‘to cover correspondence to and from them, and all printed matter issued by authority of Congress, and all speeches, proceedings, debates in Congress, and all printed matter sent to them,’ thus limiting the privilege to the matter herein named. Consequently, if it come to the knowledge of a postmaster that a package bearing a proper frank is composed of matter not named in the law, it becomes his duty to disregard such frank and charge postage thereon.

“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, ... it is the duty of the postmaster to treat them as unpaid.’ ‘Postmasters are requested to report to the department all violations of the franking privilege.’

“The use of a fac-simile stamp for franking letters or packets by Senators or members of Congress has never been authorized or approved by this department in any way; but, on the contrary, the postmaster-general has invariably decided against the use of such stamps whenever the question has been brought to his notice, for the reason, among others, that it affords opportunity to perpetrate frauds upon the department and its revenues to an almost unlimited extent.

“From the foregoing you will see that the postmaster-general cannot with consistency or propriety comply with the request contained in your letter.

“I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant.

“A. W. Randall,       
“First Assistant Postmaster-General.

MAILS ON THE SABBATH.

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.”

Ever since the postal system was established, an opposition has been made to its operations on the Sabbath. It is not for us to question the moral principle upon which these objections were based. The law for the observance of the Sabbath comes to us in language that cannot be mistaken and from a source not to be denied. But we question whether it applies to the wheels of a government, which, in the same order as that of the spheres, must move on for its maintenance.

The Rev. Thomas Scott (whose authority we annex, not feeling capable of giving a religious view ourselves) says, speaking upon the subject of the Sabbath,—

“‘Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work,’ was merely an allowance, and not an injunction; for the Lord forbade, by other precepts, all labor on some of these days, but they were assigned for the diligent performance of the business which relates to this present life, while the seventh was consecrated to the immediate service of God. The concerns of our souls must indeed be attended to, and God worshipped, every day, that our business may be regulated in subserviency to his will; but on the other days of the week ‘we shall do all our work,’ reserving none for the Sabbath, except WORKS OF CHARITY, PIETY, AND NECESSITY; for these alone consist with the holiness of that sacred day of rest, and are allowable, ‘because the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.’ All works, therefore, which arise from avarice, distrust, luxury, vanity, and self-indulgence, are entirely prohibited.

“Buying and selling, paying wages, settling accounts, writing letters of business, reading books on ordinary subjects, trifling visits, journeys, excursions, dissipation, or conversation which serves only for amusement, cannot consist with ‘keeping a day holy to the Lord;’ and sloth is a carnal, not a spiritual, rest.

“Servants, and some others, may, however, be under a real necessity of doing things which are not necessary in themselves: though good management might often greatly lessen the evil,” &c.

Speaking of cattle, the learned author says, “The cattle must also be allowed to rest from the hard labor of husbandry, journeys, and all employments connected with trade or pleasure; though doubtless we may employ them too in works of necessity, piety, and charity; and thus they may properly be used for the gentle service of conveying those to places of public worship who could not otherwise attend or perform the duties to which they are called.”

It will be observed that, indirectly, the author sustains the argument we advanced above, that the wheels of a government, like the works of creation, must necessarily move on “without impediment,” and that any labor performed on the Sabbath connected with such operations comes under the head of “necessity.”

Governments are formed and their laws based upon those of nature: we imitate and follow them as being essential to sustaining and perpetuating their stability and usefulness.

Nor do we think our preachers are disposed to interfere with the mails running on the Sabbath; for they invariably are the most anxious on a Monday morning to receive their letters and newspapers, which, as we all know, are invariably assorted and distributed throughout the office on the Sabbath for an early delivery on Monday. We allude to this important clerical fact because in several instances they have threatened to report clerks for neglecting their duties on the Sabbath, simply because that labor was not devoted, as it would appear, for their especial benefit! This want of consistency on the part of a portion of the clergy seems more tinctured with hypocrisy than it is with Christianity.

Return J. Meigs, the postmaster-general under James Madison in 1815, in reply to certain petitions remonstrating against the mails running on the Sabbath, makes use of the following language (we give extracts only):—

“ ... The usage of transporting the mails on the Sabbath is coeval with the Constitution of the United States; and a prohibition of that usage will be first considered.” He then gives the various mail-routes on the principal roads, and says,—

“If the mail was not to move on Sunday on the routes enumerated, it would be delayed from three to four days in passing from one extreme of the route to the other. From Washington to St. Louis the mail would be delayed two days; from Washington to New Orleans the mail would be delayed three days; from New Orleans to Boston it would be delayed from four to five days; and, generally, the mails would, on an average, be retarded equal to one-seventh part of the time now employed, if the mails do not move on the Sabbath.

“On the smaller cross-roads or routes the transportation of the mail has been avoided on the Sabbath, except when necessary to prevent great delays and to preserve connections with different routes.”

In relation to opening the mails on the Sabbath, it may be noticed that the ninth section of the “act regulating the post-office establishment” makes it the duty of the postmaster to attend to the duties of his office “every day” on which a mail shall arrive at his office, and at “all reasonable hours” on every day of the week. When a mail is conveyed on the Sabbath, it must be opened and exchanged at the offices which it may reach in the course of the day. This operation at the smaller offices occupies no more than ten or twelve minutes; in some of the larger offices it occupies one hour, and, it is believed, does not greatly interfere with religious exercises as to the postmasters themselves.

The practice of “delivering letters and newspapers on the Sabbath” is of recent origin, and, under the above-quoted section, commenced in 1810. Prior to that period, no postmaster (except the postmaster at Washington City), was required to deliver letters and newspapers on the Sabbath. The “reasonable hours” were to be determined by the postmaster-general, who established the following regulations, now existing:—“At post-offices where the mail arrives on Sunday, the office is to be kept open for the delivery of letters, &c. for one hour after the arrival and assorting of the mail; but in case that would interfere with the hours of public worship, then the office is to be kept open for one hour after the usual time of dissolving the meetings for that purpose.”

Also, if the mail arrives at an office too late for the delivery of letters on Saturday night, the postmaster is instructed to deliver them on Sunday morning, at such early hour as not to encroach upon the hours devoted to public religious exercises. If these regulations are not strictly attended to, it must be imputable to the urgency of applicants and the complaisance of postmasters.

After the preceding statement, it is to be observed that public policy, pure morality, and undefiled religion combine in favor of a due observance of the Sabbath.

Nevertheless, a nation owes to itself an exercise of the means adapted to its own preservation and for the continuance of those very blessings which flow from such observance; and the nation must sometimes operate by a few of its agents, even on the Sabbath; and such operation may, as in time of war, become indispensable, so that the many may enjoy an uninterrupted exercise of religion in quietude and safety. In the present state of the nation it may be supposed necessary daily to convey governmental orders, instructions, and regulations, and to communicate and receive information. If the daily carriage of the mail be as relates to the safety of the nation a matter of necessity, it also becomes a work of mercy.

When peace is fully established, the necessity will greatly diminish, and it will be at all times a pleasure to this department to prevent any profanation of the Sabbath, as far as relates to its official duty or its official authority.

In England the postal regulations for the Sabbath are as follows. They differ very little from our own:—

“During the time the office is open on Sunday (viz. from 9 to 10 in the morning, and one other hour), the public are allowed to prepay foreign and colonial letters, to purchase stamps, and to have letters registered; and all other duties are performed as usual, except money-order and savings-bank business,50 which on that day is wholly suspended.”

At no provincial town in England or Ireland is there more than one delivery on Sunday or the sacramental fast-days; and any person is at liberty to prevent even this delivery, so far as relates to himself, as shown by the following regulations:—

“1st. Any person can have his letters, &c. retained in the post-office on Sunday, by addressing to the postmaster a written request, duly signed, to that effect; and such request will be held to include newspapers and all other postal matters, even such as may be marked ‘immediate,’ as no distinction is allowed.

“2d. No letters, &c. the non-delivery of which by the letter-carrier on Sunday has been directed can be obtained from the post-office window on that day.

“3d. Private box-holders have the option of applying for letters at the office while it is open for delivery on Sunday, or of abstaining from so doing, as they may think proper; but no person can be permitted to engage a private box for Sunday only.”

DEAD-LETTERS.

“And thus there were many dead.”—Gower.

It would fill a volume were we to attempt any thing like a history of this department of the general post-office. One thing, however, would impress itself forcibly upon the minds of our readers, were we to furnish such a history, and that would be to establish the fact beyond the possibility of a doubt that “the fools are not all dead yet.”

As far as the employees of the post-office are concerned, if not irreverent, this would be a “consummation devoutly to be wished.”

Many of these letters, containing important information and large amounts of money, are so villanously directed that a modern mesmeriser would find himself at fault, or a spiritual medium confounded, if put in connection with the writers, in their endeavor to arrive at the mystery of such superscriptions as it has been our misfortune to encounter during our connection with the post-office. In another portion of this work we furnish the reader with numerous specimens of such directions. Would we could give specimens of their chirography also! In connection, however, with “dead-letters,” we annex the following superscriptions to letters which contained money and drafts, and of course found their way to the “dead-letter office:”—

Miss Jeannie Wuterez,

Bile. 677 Auen

N.J. 34 S.A.

Is it likely that such a direction would carry a letter to Miss Jeannie? or the following to its direction?—

Miss S. Sorerie,

beckie if Hossee if H.
grltne et persep Yell
oone hundder 45

Neither town nor State, it will be perceived, is here given. We furnish another:—

To Genitz Dengkenson
Ap. Risen. Coolkill Kounty, near Genezene.

A letter was received in this city by John Smith (we will not give the real name), containing a draft for three thousand dollars. The letter simply stated, “Enclosed you will find a draft on T—— D——, Washington City, for three thousand dollars, being a part of the proceeds of property sold. The balance will be forwarded soon, &c.” Now, this John Smith was anxiously awaiting the proceeds of a sale of property in England, he being one of the heirs expectant, and had been previously notified of the sale in question. As a matter of course, he imagined this to be the first instalment, coming as it did from the very town from which he expected it. The letter was simply directed to “John Smith, Catharine Street, Southwark, Philadelphia.” The carrier on that route, aware of Smith’s anxiety to hear about his property, delivered the letter as directed, at least as near as it was possible without the number of the house. Smith opened the letter in presence of the carrier, and exclaimed, “It is all right, old fellow!” The draft was presented, the money paid, and Smith went on his way rejoicing. By the time he had spent one-third of the money, it was discovered that he was not the John Smith. He returned the two thousand dollars, and the right party was willing to await John Smith the Second’s remittance for his thousand dollars. The cause of this could alone be attributed to the carelessness of the remitting party in not giving the particulars or name of the person from whom the legacy came. The names of the expectants being exactly the same, and living on the same street, no other result could be expected.

The following report of Postmaster Dennison (1865) furnishes an epitomized view of the dead-letter department:—

“The number of dead-letters received, examined, and disposed of was 4,368,087,—an increase of 856,262 over the previous year.

“The number containing money and remailed to owners was 42,154, with enclosures amounting to $244,373.97. Of these, 35,268, containing $210,954.90, were delivered, leaving 6886 undelivered, with enclosures to the value of $33,419.07. The number containing sums less than one dollar was 16,709, amounting to $4647.23, of which 12,698, containing $3577.62, were delivered to the writers.

“The number of registered letters and packages was 3966.

“The number of letters containing checks, bills of exchange, deeds, and other papers of value was 15,304, with a nominal value of $3,329,888, of which 13,746, containing $3,246,149, were delivered, leaving unclaimed 1558, of the value of $83,739.

“The number containing photographs, jewelry, and miscellaneous articles was 69,902. Of these, 41,600 were delivered, and 28,302 remain for disposal, or, being worthless, have been destroyed. The number of valuable letters sent out was 107,979,—an increase of 38,792 over the previous year.

“There were returned to public offices, including franked letters, 28,677.

“The number containing stamps and articles of small value was 8289, and of unpaid and misdirected letters, 166,215.

“The number of ordinary dead-letters returned to the writers was 1,188,599, and the number not delivered was 297,304, being about 23 per cent. of the whole. Of those not delivered, less than 4 per cent. were refused by the writers.

“The number of foreign letters returned was 167,449, and the number received from foreign countries was 88,361.

“In the last report the attention of Congress was called to the expediency of restoring prepaid letters to the owners free of postage. The measure is again commended, with the additional suggestion that letters be forwarded at the request of the party addressed from one post-office to another without extra charge.

“The number of letters conveyed in the mails during 1865 is estimated at 467,591,600. Of these, 4,368,087 were returned to the dead-letter-office, including 566,097 army and navy letters, the non-delivery of which was not chargeable to the postal service, they having passed beyond its control into the custody of the military and naval authorities. Deducting 1,156,401 letters returned to writers or held as valuable, the total number lost or destroyed was 2,352,424, or one in every two hundred mailed for transmission and delivery. Fully three-fourths of the letters returned as dead fail to reach the parties addressed through faults of the writers, so that the actual losses from irregularities of service and casualties, ordinary and incidental to the war, did not exceed one in every eight hundred of the estimated number intrusted to the mails.

“The returns of dead-letters from cities are largely in excess of proportions based upon population. To them special efforts have been directed to secure the most efficient service, and it is believed improvements in operation, chiefly that of free delivery, will diminish the number of undelivered letters at offices in densely-populated districts.

“The number of applications for missing letters was 8664,—an increase of 3552 over the previous year. A misapprehension prevails in regarding the dead-letter-office as a depository for the safe keeping of undelivered letters, and not as the agent for their final disposal, to correct which the regulations are appended.

“The amount deposited in the treasury under act of 3d of March last were:—

“Less than twenty-five per cent. of advertised letters are delivered. In some of the larger offices the proportion does not exceed fifteen per cent. The payment of two cents for each letter advertised involves a yearly expenditure of about $60,000 for letters returned as dead to the department. Measures have been adopted to reduce the expense, and the advertising is now secured at one-half the rate allowed by law. An obstacle to this economy is found in the law requiring the list of letters to be published in newspapers of largest circulation, which should be repealed, and the mode of advertising left to the discretion of the postmaster-general.”

We have stated that imperfect direction is in nine cases out of ten the cause of the miscarriage of letters. We would here suggest to the department the propriety of having competent clerks to superintend this office, so that the letters returned to the writers should not give the same cause of complaint. Many of the clerks so employed make sad havoc of this portion of postal literature, and exercise little or no judgment in their direction of letters to the parties to whom they are returned, or at least for whom they are intended. Name of street and number of house are alike omitted, and thus a letter comes from the dead-letter-office as difficult to decipher or make out as it was when sent thither. Haste in that direction seems to be the chief cause of this display of hieroglyphical knowledge.

In the subjoined extracts from a letter which appeared in the “Chicago Journal” (1864) are some practical hints to letter-writers:—

“I have just seen a letter of three pages, and not a word in it,—the work of a poor crazed soldier; not a character of any tongue in Babel, but only a little child’s meaningless imitation of writing; and in that letter were ninety dollars. It came here; the department discovered the writer, his regiment, and death. The money waits. Letters sometimes have most interesting histories. Thus, an officer here in Washington writing a letter to his wife, who is in New York, simply signed it with his given name, and carelessly subscribed it ‘Washington.’ The letter came hither; and now who and where was the writer? In the body of the letter was a chance allusion to some brigade: ‘upon this hint’ the department played Othello and ’spake.’ The brigade was inquired after and of, was found, and it answered: the writer was a major, and was dead. His wife had removed from her old desolate home, but she was discovered, and the money placed in her hand as if by the hand of the dead.

“Every letter, no matter what trifles are in it, should begin with the post-office, State, and poor terrestrial date, day, month, and year. It is all very fine to write from ‘Clover Lawn,’ or ‘Willow-Tree,’ or ‘Sweet Home,’ and date it ‘Sunday Eve,’ ‘Birthday,’ or ‘Moonshine;’ but suppose the post-mark is dim, and the letter gets into this marble cemetery, what then? And then as to the superscription. By the present fashion we have first the name, life-size, and, if the sex will possibly allow it, Esquired; then the post-office; last and least, and tucked in a corner like a naughty boy, the State.

“Now, is not this reversing the order of things,—cribbing the greater and magnifying the less? People, I presume, will not be persuaded to change their mode of address, letters dead or alive; but how would it do to direct a letter thus?—

‘Massachusetts, Boston,

‘Dr. O. W. Holmes.’

“The little traveller would be sure to get into the right State at the first dash, make straight for the post-office, and finding the funny doctor would be an easy business.”

The large number of letters written by persons in the military service of the United States, whose locality could not be ascertained, contributed very considerably to the increase of “dead-letters.” But the great proportion of ordinary dead-letters which were returned was decidedly those of the careless order. Many were not even signed, and others so imperfectly directed that it was totally impossible to decipher even the name or residence of the writer. Time after time have postmasters called public attention to this state of things, and, strange as the fact may appear, this very timely (as it was supposed) suggestion had the contrary effect: the number of ill-spelt and ill-directed letters increased!

PANDORA’S MAIL-BOX OPENED.

Among the “mail-matters” which had accumulated at the dead-letter-office in Washington since 1848, and which were sold to the highest bidder on the 6th of December, 1859, were the following articles:—coats, hats, socks, drawers, gloves, scarfs, suspenders, patent inhaling-tubes, gold pens, pencils, ladies’ slippers half worn, all kinds of jewelry, undersleeves, fans, handkerchiefs, box of dissecting-instruments, pocket-Bibles, religious books, others not quite so acceptable to the moral portion of the community, shirts, bed-quilts, boots, spurs, gaffs for game-fowls, shawls, gaiters, tobacco, razors, &c. &c.

ADVERTISED LETTERS.

Advertised letters, uncalled for and sent to the dead-letter-office, cost the government annually over $60,000! This is a dead loss, as, from the very nature of the superscription and imperfect direction, such letters have no more chance of reaching their places of destination than a sinner has of going to heaven.

DECOY-LETTERS.

Devices employed for the public good, if predicated on the principles that maintain all men dishonest and are themselves deceptive, both in theory and practice, cannot be considered either honorable or complimentary to our public men. The system, more particularly in its connection with the postal department, originated, we are inclined to think, from some suspicious postmaster or his chief clerk, and thus was established a plan to test the employees, alike unjust and questionable in equity. It is said that these decoy-letters can never injure honest men. Are we to understand from this that men of questionable character and thieving proclivities are employed by the government? Is it customary to appoint rogues to office, and, after appointing them, lay traps for their detection? If this is the fact, then may we well exclaim, with Cowley,—

“Man is to man all kinds of beasts,—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, a rapacious vulture.”

Once establish the decoy system as a general one, extending it to all branches of the government, trade, and commerce, introduce it into stores and factories, and we shall soon have the flag of suspicion waving over that of the Stars and Stripes: we will constitute ourselves a nation of rogues, and become in the eyes of the world a huge “DECOY DUCK,” instead of the proud heretofore emblem of our country, the glorious Eagle!

We care very little about the opinion of Judge Betts, who on one occasion maintained the principle in a very learned speech, which when summed up amounted simply to this, that all men are rogues and require watching,—in fact, in morals as well as honesty they are lame ducks, and a decoy is necessary to watch their actions. The learned judge said,—

“I am persuaded that letters would rarely be intercepted in their transmission by post if every person concerned in mailing or carrying them could be impressed with the idea that each package enclosing valuables may be but a bait seeking to detect whoever may be dishonest enough to molest, and to become a swift witness for his conviction and punishment.”

If this is logic, it lacks one important principle in theory to establish its practical application, and that is, common sense. We consider the decoy system, at least as a national means to detect rogues, beneath the dignity and character of the nation. Reason and philosophy teach us that God never puts evil into our hearts, or stirs it up there by any positive influence. A man is tempted by his own lust, and enticed into sin by the influence, acts, and example of wicked men. “Lead us not into temptation,” is one of those wise and holy lessons which the Saviour of the world instructed his disciples to pray for, so as they might carry it out in their holy mission, strengthened by the Divine blessing resting upon it. Men, however, are not unfrequently placed in situations “as have a tendency,” says Scott, “to give our inward corruptions and the temptations of Satan and his agents peculiar advantage against us.”

Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that a government like ours should assume a Satanic form, and employ agents for the express purpose of leading men into temptation? We consider the “decoy-letter” system exactly a case in point. It may not be uninteresting to some of our readers to give the origin of this ridiculous and equally sinful manner of testing men’s honesty.

As might be supposed, it never could have originated in an enlightened nation, and yet enlightened nations indorse its antiquity of folly. We trace it to China and as far back as the dimness of its history can carry us. It may surprise some to hear the term unenlightened applied to China, the land of classic works, and the richest and most important in all Asia. Philosophers have made the works called “Kings” the basis of their labors in morality and politics. History has always received the attention of the Chinese, and their annals form the most complete series extant in any language. Poetry, the drama, and romantic prose fictions are among the productions of the Chinese literati,—“Literæ inhumaniores” meaning learning rather of an inhuman or barbarous tendency.

The Chinese were in possession of three of the most important inventions or discoveries of modern times long before they were known to the nations of the world, besides which they were the inventors of two remarkable manufactures,—silk and porcelain. The art of printing was practised at least as early as the tenth century; but the use of movable types instead of blocks seems never to have occurred to this ingenious people. The knowledge of gunpowder among them dates at a very early period; but the application of its use to fire-arms they learned from the Europeans. Finally, the peculiar directive properties of the loadstone were applied to purposes of navigation by the Chinese several centuries before they were employed in Europe.

We have given a sketch of the arts and sciences of China, but it would be totally impossible to give the reader any thing like an idea of the character and morals of its inhabitants. When China was first explored by European travellers it was believed to be a nation that had alone found out the true secret of government, where the virtues were developed by the operation of the laws: indeed, judging from what they had read, an almost perfect people was expected to greet their sight. Alas! how is history falsified! Few nations, it is now agreed, have so little honor or feeling, or so much duplicity, cunning, and mendacity. Their affected gravity is as far from wisdom as their ceremonies are from politeness.

The government of China is one of fear; and it has produced the usual effects,—duplicity and meanness. Suspicion is one of their leading features, and thus every man is not only suspected of being a rogue, but in reality every one is a rogue. Expert thieving is considered an art, yet if discovered is punished. The merchants cheat each other by rule: hence it is not strange that the DECOY SYSTEM should have originated in that country.

Laws were enacted to punish those who laid the decoy, as well as those who fell into the trap. These punishments consisted of the bastinado, the pillory, banishment, hard labor, death. These two first are almost constantly in use: indeed, the merchant who is bastinadoed for leading his clerk into crime by the “decoy means,” as well as the clerk himself, looks upon it as a “paternal correction,” and thanks the judge for the care bestowed upon his morals. And yet although this system was practised some three thousand years ago, it is still followed and, of course, still punished.

Even in Jewish history we have instances of this system being pursued. See 1 Kings xiii.

It was also extensively practised in France during the rebellion. Mechanics and others who followed labor for maintenance were subjected to these “decoys,” which presented themselves in various shapes. An old lady residing in this city told the author that her husband found a doubloon on his work-table, placed there by a nobleman in whose house he was fitting up tapestry. Indignant at the insult offered a Frenchman and a citizen, he nailed the coin to the table, from which not without great difficulty the tempter could remove it.

Is it, we ask, consistent with our form of government and the national character of the people that this relic of barbarism, like that of slavery, should be permitted to exist or be practised by its chief officers?

Detectives only should adopt the system to aid them in their search for a criminal, but an agent detective has no right to set a decoy to test the honesty of men upon whom, even before and after his appointment, no suspicion rested. We again pronounce it mean and contemptible.

XIII.

Special Agents.

“The special agents are the eyes and hands of the department to detect and arrest violators of the law, and to render the mails a safe and rapid means of communication. In their selection I have endeavored to secure the qualities of integrity, sagacity, and efficiency.”—Report of Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair, June 30, 1861.

In England “special agents” are considered among the most important adjuncts of the post-office department. In this country they are equally important, and hold the most responsible positions in the general arrangement and organization of its managerial system.

It was under the administration of Amos Kendall, whose devotion to the interests of the office forms one of the most interesting features of our postal history, that the special-agent system was introduced. As Mr. Blair observes, in the passage quoted above, “special agents are selected for their integrity, sagacity, and efficiency:” it required more than mere political influence for an applicant to obtain an appointment, simply from the fact that party studies its own interest first and leaves the consequence of its intrigues to time and opportunity. But the postal department, aware of the sort of material which generally makes up the political elements of party, very wisely made the selection of special agents a matter of more serious consideration. And yet we are fearful that even this department will, if it has not already, become one of the links which bind and connect it with the spirit of party and to the chain of its political power. As far, however, as we are able to judge of the character of those who now fill these offices, the upas power of party has not been exercised to any great extent in procuring their appointments. We do not imply that from the political ranks there cannot be found men in every respect calculated to fulfil any office in the postal department, but we do mean to say that in numerous cases men are selected not for their ability to perform the duties intrusted to them, but for a blustering, roystering reputation they had gained in their respective wards. Every failure in our state department, the want of energy, the lack of intelligence, the confusion attendant on improper amusements, can invariably be traced to these improper political appointments.

Special agents, apart from those qualities alluded to by Mr. Blair, should be men of intelligence and character, and possess an intuitive knowledge of physiognomy, phrenology, philosophy, or the ancient Moshical, or, rather, the Mosaical, so as to be able at a glance to read men and become acquainted with their “inward dispositions and with the faculties of their souls,” and be enabled to say, with Mr. Evelyn, who studied the science, “that man is all dissimulation.” But we contend that there are men who, having made the subject of detection a study, not by examining the features or watching the actions of others, but by analytical observations, are alone capable of fulfilling these positions.

The system of ferreting out losses, or, rather, its process, is a science, and one that to succeed must be closely studied.

Science is knowledge, art, power, and skill in the use of such knowledge: if it be directed to one particular object, exercising caution in such connection, the result will inevitably be favorable.

The duties of a special agent are such that these qualifications are essential to success. And we may say that in the selection of men—men who now hold these positions—the postal department has not been governed by petty political influence, but on the principle involved in our popular maxim, “The right man in the right place.”

The duties of a special agent are, in a measure, “secrets of the office,” and his movements are generally so quiet that few persons in and out of the office have the least idea what those duties are: hence the mystery in which all his operations seem involved. Perhaps it would not be proper, or, at least, so far as the interest of the department is concerned, for us to explain the exact position these special agents hold. They have a wide range of duties, which, however, it is not necessary to particularize and, as stated, explain, except so far as either of them may have a bearing upon the object of this work. All losses of valuable letters or depredations on the mails are submitted to them for investigation. The particular means to be used in discovering the exact locality of a theft from the mails or in ferreting out and arresting the perpetrators, are left entirely to their intelligence, vigilance, and ingenuity. It is natural that a special agent should become reserved, unobtrusive, quiet in all his actions, no hurry or bustle, ever cautious, so that he may be enabled to make discoveries without leading to suspicion and alarming the guilty. Indeed, such an effect on a man’s natural temperament would be the consequence of his peculiar business. His means, however, depend upon his observation: he first learns the amount of loss, the nature of the theft, the character of the money, and the line of postal communications between the sender and the expectant recipient. These are his ground-works, upon which he erects his superstructure, theoretical and practical, for the detection of the criminal.

Were we to give our readers some account of these discovered thefts, romance would lose half its charms of enchantment, truth being more powerful and impressive than fiction. To do this would be to betray the secrets of the office and to stimulate the rogues to form new plans of avoiding detection, as well as in their system of thieving.

These agents, as we have observed, keep themselves aloof from the general business of the office, and not unfrequently mystify those with whom they occasionally come in contact. They are not the tempters of the clerks by meaningly employing the decoy-letter practice, but the silent workers of justice in pursuit of the guilty: hence the honest employees of the office can boldly say with Macbeth,—