Post Masters as Directories--Novel Applications--The Butter
Business.
A Thievish Family--"Clarinda" in a City--Decoying with
Cheese--Post Master's Response.
A Truant Husband--Woman's Instinct.
Editors are supposed by many to be walking encyclopedias, with the
record of the entire range of human knowledge inscribed on the tablets
of their brains; and there are those who in like manner seem to
consider post masters as living Directories, able at short notice to
inform any one who chooses to ask, where Smith lives, and what
business Jones is in, or what is the price of guano, (an inquiry
actually made by letter, of a New York post master.)
In short, these Government officers are often called upon to serve the
public in a sphere which Congress never contemplated in the various
enactments it has passed respecting the duties of post masters, and
the details of the postal system.
A few specimens of letters received by different post masters, may not
be uninteresting, as illustrating this phase of post-office life.
Here is one from an individual desirous of entering into a mercantile
transaction in the "botter" line, and receiving the post master's
endorsement of some good "commish marchan" who could be interested in
the business.
G---- ----, Pennsylvania, January 29, 1855.
Postmaster will pleze to give this letter to a good Commish
Marchan what he could pay for fresh botter everry weak if a man
would cent a hundred up to 3 hundred paunts my intension is to go
in sutch bisnis You will plese rite me back to this present time.
Yours Respectful
J. S.
If the "fresh botter" was "cent everry _weak_," as was proposed, it
must undoubtedly have been very much sought after, as possessing the
negative, but important merit of not being _strong_.
Our next specimen was received by the post master of one of the cities
in Western New York, and is unique both as regards its object, and its
orthography, or rather cacography, which appears like "fonotipy" run
mad.
North S----, Nov. 19, 1854.
Dear friend it is with plaisure that I take my pen in hand to inform
you of a famly moveing from this place the wider stacy and her to
girls they are poor and haf to work for their liveing clarinda is the
girl that workes the most from home mr sam shirtleff says that she has
worked for him and she stole pork and cheese and the pork hid between
the bed blankets and they found it and weid it and thaught a rat had
braught it there and the cheese she carid home with her they sent to
ladies there a visiting and sent a peic of cheese with them and they
got tea and had cheese uporn the table and they sliped a peice of the
cheese in thir laps and compard it togather and it was the same cind
it was a large inglich cheese that shirtleff bought she has also
worked to mr alford blax and his brother the old batchlor his mother
was old and generly done the niting she nit seventeen pare of socks
and layed them up for her boys when she got old and coldent nit no
more and they was all taken away by her to pare afterwords was found
at the store and she sed that she had took them they owed her five
dolars yet and they wont pay her till she delivers the socks and she
dare not make no fuss for fear they will bring her out she worked to
mr cringlands and she hooked a pare of white kid gloves and a hym book
and a pocket handkerchief and the gloves she traded away to the store
for a dress by giveing a pare of socks to boot and she worked to
truman buts this sumer she had taken a pare of stockin which they
found in her sunday bonet and they lost to shiling in money and then
they discharged her bengman grene bought a set of dishes and they
lost to platters out of the set they lost sope and buter out of their
sular she borrowed of mister spicer a silver pen which coast a dolar
and after he was dead she denied haveing it and she told it herself
that she sold it for half a dolar and a pennife and the pennife was
fifty cents they borrowed a pale of wheat flour and when they carid it
home and put to thirds rie The pepole most look out for them in the
trincket line mr sir post master plese answer this as soon as you can
and oblidge your friend much yours with respect
Direct your leter silas stickney North S----, N. Y.
The zeal of Silas, if he was actuated by no sinister motives--no
spite toward "the wider stacy and her to girls," especially
"clarinda," whose exploits form the burden of his complaints--this
zeal is highly commendable, and united with it there is a fulness
of specification in the catalogue of "clarinda's" misdemeanors
which equals in richness and effect anything that even the fertile
brain of Dickens could conceive.
The ingenious device of sending ladies to the suspected domicil
under color of a friendly visit, but provided with a touchstone in
the shape of "a peic of cheese," wherewith to detect the other
piece supposed to have been purloined by some one of the thievish
family, was worthy of a Vidocq; and the triumphant issue of the
case, when their worthy Committee of Investigation "sliped a peic
of cheese in their laps" and settled its identity with the
"inglich cheese" which the victimized "shirtleff" had purchased,
showed the power of genius, attaining great ends by the use of
simple means.
This epistle developes a new ramification of the postal system. A
post master entreated to act as a conservator of public morals; to
exert all his powerful influence against "clarinda," who proved
treacherous to "mr sam shirtleff" in the matter of pork and
cheese; and abstracted from "mr alford blax and his brother the
old batchlor, the seventeen pare of socks" that their mother had
"nit" to comfort their nether extremities when she, by reason of
the infirmities of age, "coldent nit;" and filched "sope and
buter" out of "bengman grenes sular;" to say nothing of the "pare
of stockin" which were secreted in her "sunday bonet," and "to
shilling," the loss of which occasioned her discharge from the
service of "truman buts."
Upon this unfortunate post master was thrown the charge of seeing
that the city received no detriment from the demoralizing
influence of Clarinda!
This gentleman, not willing to be outdone by his correspondent in
his devotion to the public good, indited the following reply:--
B---- Post-Office, Dec. 13, 1854.
Mr. Silas Stickney,
Dear Sir:
I am in receipt of yours of the 19th ult., and in reply would say
that I cannot too highly commend your solicitude in behalf of good
morals, and your discretion in selecting the post master of this
place to carry out your benevolent designs toward its inhabitants.
The corrupting influence of small villages upon large towns is a
thing much to be lamented, and it grieves me to think that the
unsophisticated inhabitants of this place are to be exposed to the
machinations of the "widow stacy and her to girls." It will be,
sir, like the Evil One entering the garden of Eden, where all was
innocence and purity!
If in the course of my official duties, I find it feasible to ward
off impending danger from this immaculate town, be assured that I
shall not fail to do so.
Yours, &c.,
W. D----, P. M.
* * * * *
But post masters are made confidants in graver matters than these.
They are not unfrequently called upon by deserted wives to look up
their truant husbands, and by desolate husbands to aid them in
recovering frail partners, who have been unfaithful to their marriage
vows, and have forsaken the "guides of their youth."
Letters of this description are principally from the more illiterate
class of community; yet amid the crooked chirography and bad spelling,
there sparkles so much tender affection, sometimes for the guilty one,
sometimes for the innocent children, who are suffering from the
unprincipled conduct of a parent, that these cases command the warmest
sympathy of those whose aid is invoked, although the requests thus
made relate to matters entirely out of their sphere, and consequently
they are seldom able to afford much assistance to the parties in
trouble.
I will here give an extract from this class of letters, as
illustrating the above remarks. The following is from a letter
received by the post master of a city in Ohio, from a woman who had
been deserted by her husband five years previous. She requested the
post master to read it to her husband, in case he should find him, so
it is written _at_ the latter person. In the postscript, (which is
generally supposed to contain the pith of female correspondence,) she
says,--
"You would shed tears If you onley could see wat a smart peart
little boy you have hear what a sham It Is to think that A
sensable man should leave a wife and a child that Is got as much
sense as he has--and people say he is as much like you as he can
be he has got the pretys black eyes I have ever seen In any ones
head he has an eye like a hawk."
Thus is the _argumentum ad hominem_ supplied by woman's instinct.
Fatherly pride was called upon to effect that to which conjugal
affection was inadequate.