Dead Letters and Melville's Bartleby*

                                HERSHEL PARKER

                      University of Southern California

In the Albany Daily State Register for Thursday September 23, 1852 (misdated the 22nd), is a very long article (over three 1 columns) on "DEAD LETTERS." The full heading is "DEAD LETTERS-BY A RESURRECTIONIST. WRITTEN FOR THE ALBANY REGISTER." Elsewhere on the same page this editorial notice appears: " 'DEAD LETTERS.'-An esteemed correspondent furnishes our readers this morning with an epistle upon the very grave subject of 'Dead Letters.' It is written in a style admirably adapted to the subject, and conveys much information with regard to the interior working of the Dead Letter office that is both interesting and new." This essay by the esteemed Resurrectionist (presumably one who digs up the buried subject of dead letters) was widely admired. I first encountered it in slightly abbreviated form in the Washington National Intelligencer for October 9, 1852; Hans Bergmann independently found it (also slightly altered) in the New York Daily Times for September 24, 1852, the day after its first publication. More or less melancholy accounts of the Dead Letter office were much in vogue. As both Bergrnann and Hennig Cohen have noted, the Carpet Bag for November 29, 1851, carried an effusively melancholy revery entitled "Dead Letters-A Vision." In addition, Bergmann has found a brief squib in the Albany Evening Journal for February 10, 1853, with reflections like these: "How many anxious hearts have waited for the kind messages which a misdirection has sent to the dead letter office and to the flames! How many an undutiful son has died in foreign lands without his mother's blessing!" Bergmann and I, as well as Bernard Rosenthal, have noticed still other items, but the most significant is the essay in the Daily State Register, both because of its intrinsic literary merits and for the possibility that Herman Melville saw it before writing "Bartleby," which was serialized in Putnam's Monthly during November and December, 1853. It was published when Melville was living at nearby Pitsfield, and at a time when his relatives were scanning the papers-with mounting anxiety-for reviews of Pierre. I do not, of course, argue that this essay is specifically a source for "Bartleby"; even less do I think that we are to attach anything like the significance the narrator does to the rumor of Bartleby's previous employment in the Dead Letter office. Still, it is not without "a certain strange suggestive interest."¹

                     DEAD LETTERS--BY A RESURRECTIONIST.

                       WRITTEN FOR THE ALBANY REGISTER

In a notice published some years since, commemorative of the death of the late Mr. Marley, of the firm of "Scrooge & Marley," the writer took occasion to say, episodically, that in his opinion, the adage "dead as a door nail" was feeble and inexpressive, and to suggest that of all pieces of ironmongery extant, a coffin nail was, if it met the view of the public--the deadest, known to the trade, thus putting forth a seeming truth through the medium of a fictive superlative. We are willing to concede to Mr. Dickens the full benefit of his discovery, and are glad also, to have this opportunity of thanking him for putting to rout one of those stale proverbs which constitute the whole of some men's wit, and enter vitally into the arguments of others. But while we make these concessions, we may be permitted to claim what we deem equally our right--the discovery of a more intensely dead and gone corpse than either, a door or a coffin nail. We mean a Dead Letter.

A letter viewed in its nominal and more suggestive light, conveys the impression of good news, cheering suggestions, pleasant surprises, or perhaps the reverse of these, bad tidings, woe, sorrow; but always some stirring and awakening impulses are to be derived out of a letter--whether they be good or ill, for pleasure or for pain. Think over the mass of letters written by yourself dear madam, or you bluff sir; consider of that number, how many were not epitomes of pleasant gossip, of happy news, daguerreotypes of your life and the life about you for some days or weeks or months, as the case might be; but always telling of life and the living, save when perhaps, the ominous black seal hung its funeral pall at the portal; and then even, the bulletins of sadness to the quick who were to receive them-not letters to the dead, but only of them to the living.

An epitaph, an oration, a funeral sermon, may be considered as of the dead, by a proper assignment of place-and being lugubre and cadaverous in their liveliest moments, we think it no wonder that they go down quietly to their graves and are heard of no more. They have fulfilled their destiny, and henceforth there is laid up for them eternal rest, which they usually deserve, being destitute of vitality in the beginning.

But we are accustomed to look upon those "paper pellets of the brain," letters in the light of ever living companions and friends, never written to die and not fit subjects for the tomb. They are essentially of life, lively and have no sympathies in common with perishable things; hence the superior and inexpressible deadliness of a really dead letter.

In the building known as the (General Post Office, and on the first floor thereof, there sit from morn till night, and day after day, a body of grave, calm men, whose duty it is to deal with these mortuary remains, sadly exemplifying the scripture teaching of the nearness of life to death.- Grey they have grown, many of these men, and solemn all of them, as befits their calling. The rooms which these co-laborers with the worm inhabit are tomb-like and dark-echoing to the footfall like crypts and like them, finished with groined arches while the air is close and smells of decay. Here comes no sounds of mirth, no bursts of ribald humor are deflected from these massive walls, but all is silent labor, save perhaps when one workman having more "feeling of his business" shall his neighbor, quavers out a dreary stave of some forgotten hymn, or hums a snatch from STERNHOLD and HOPKINS.

Piled in the halls, outside the doors of these melancholy vaults, arc great sacks, locked and sealed and labelled "DEAD LETTERS," and ever and anon, appears a grim, sexton-like old negro, who seizing a bag disappears with it into one or other of the tombs. You may enter with mc if you will, and treading carefully over the ashes that lie scattered everywhere beneath your feet, watch the processes by which living thoughts and high aspirations, and love's word-tokens, and the burning phrases of ambition, and hope, and joy, and the fitful dreamings of the poet, the cool calculations of the money getter, the prophetic outgivings of the politician-all the thousand varied emotions, sympathies and expressions that go to make up "correspondence" are here converted into lifeless. meaningless trash. And to do this understandingly, you must consent to be, for a short time, statistical.

Before a letter can become "dead," it must have lain unclaimed, in the office to which it was sent for delivery, during three months, and have been advertised in the newspapers, by its address. At the end of this period, if still uncalled for, it is dispatched to the General Post Office, there to be dealt with in those dim, mysterious chambers we have alluded to, by the hands of the grave men who minister in them. Of such letters there were sent to the Department during the fiscal year last closed, the number of 2,750,000.

When received at the Department they are opened and examined, which is the business now proceeding in this first of the vault-like rooms. Here are three men seated at tables, and engaged solely in the process of opening and examining letters. Before each is a heap of missives of all shapes, sizes and conditions; from the lace edged, perfumed billet' to the heavy, yellow enveloped official dispatch; from the square folded, greasy epistle of the serving girl, to the prim, red-waxed document of a foreign embassy; a thousand more in number, no two of which are alike, except in that sad likeness which the grave gives to all things, animate or inanimate. See how rapidly the accustomed fingers tear from them their covers, or break the seals that hold them, and expose their inmost secrets. -And see, too, how torn and cut are those same fingers, with labor in this never ending. still beginning routine. It is severely trying to the hands, for letter paper is sharp o' the edge, and many a bleeding wound is inflicted by these innocent weapons--though not so lasting, perhaps, as the contents of some of them, had they reached their destination. See how the practice eye runs over the sheet, and without reading a word, detects by its face whether there be reason for preserving it for future and more thorough inspection. Here is one contains a lock of hair-nothing more; valueless in the hard, unromantic judgment of the law. The next reveals a ring-put it by for another clerk to deal with. Money, bills of exchange, Daguerreotypes, notes of hand, receipts, emigrant passage tickets, lottery tickets, an old wallet, health, fire and life assurance policies, a bunch of keys, a specimen of wheat, bottles, sugar samples, hanks of yarn, a bed quilt, a rattlesnake skin, two diamond ornaments an old hat, a draft for ten thousand dollars, a paving stone, a suit of boy's clothing, a box of tea nuts from that indefatigable gentleman, Jn. Junius Smith, addressed to some delinquent correspondent, who has omitted to claim them, a pot of ointment, a bundle of watchmaker's tools, maple sugar, a bullock's horn, a galvanic battery, garden seeds, lawyer's papers without end, officer's commissions and discharges, jewelry of all sorts and values, "forget me not" worked in worsted on a perforated card, a screw driver, patterns of silk goods for city cousins to match for country friends, etc., etc. There are some of the thousand and one varieties of articles found in letters and laid aside, the valuable to be returned to their owners, if they can be found, and the others to serve as credits to the post masters against whom they stand charged with postage. But not one letter in many, contains anything beyond the chirographies of the writer. The many are thrown down unread, and at the close of each day the accumulation is bundled into sacks-At the end of each quarter these are transported for the last time, to a place without the city, and there solemnly burned, no human being but their writers knowing how much of labor and of pain has been expended upon them, thus to perish by fire and be exhaled in smoke.

A most touching and plaintive letter was received at the Department some months since, from a poor woman in an eastern State, anxious to obtain tidings of her son "in the Californias." She was old, she said, very old, palsied and nearly blind, and her boy, who had been wayward and reckless, was her only hope. He had reformed of late, as she had reason to believe, and she had thrice written him, telling of her forgiveness, but she feared neither had reached him, for she had received none in reply. When she read of the thousands of letters yearly destroyed at the Department, and thought of the bodily and mental agony it had cost her to indite these three epistles of forgiveness and joy to her poor erring child, it seemed, she said, so great a waste, so wanton a destruction, that she was induced to beg of the head of the Department that he would personally make a search for her missing letters, and, finding them, as she had no doubt he would, forward them direct to their destination! Poor woman, she little knew what she asked, but there was something painfully touching in the innocence of the great world's affairs, displayed in her humble request. Let us hope that no long time elapsed ere the honest old lady's heart was gratified by the receipt of good news from that land which has been the tomb of so many hopes.

Having traced the mass of the Dead Letters to their ultimate destination, let us see what is done with those others, considered of sufficient value to warrant inquiry into their ownership.-And first, let us enter for a moment this next room, where the foreign letters are disposed of. By virtue of postal arrangements with England and Germany, we engage to return to the General Post Offices of those countries, unopened, all unclaimed letters coming through their mails, they reciprocating by a similar course in regard to letters sent from this country and undelivered by them. Letters thus received from transatlantic countries, with which we have postal arrangements, are treated precisely in the same manner as those written and sent for delivery within our own territories, with this reservation, that such letters can only be returned to their writers' it they are to be found, since the persons addressed residing in foreign States are supposed to be without the reach of our departmental machinery. Hence, a smaller proportion of those letters reach their proper owners, through the aid of the Dead Letter Bureau, but, as they chiefly contain bills of exchange, drawn in duplicate and triplicate, and some portion of the set is almost certain to reach the persons for whom they are intended, very nearly full justice is done to all parties. Another reason, and a very important one for the non receipt of letters by the parties addressed, is the want of accuracy shown in directing them. Nothing is more common shall for letters to be mailed, without any address, with the name of the town or State omitted, the wrong post office indicated, or the names of State and county transposed. Among bankers, particularly, the mistake of addressing to a wrong post office is frequent. In sending their paper for collection to another like institution, persons in this business generally address the cashier of the bank with which they are corresponding, and often this constitutes the sole clue by which to ascertain the intended destination of the letter. Sometimes the address on the envelope differs from that on the inside, and in such cases, of which there are thousands every ye.ar, the inner one is usually found to be correct. Banker's clerks, too, generally seem to vie with each other, in writing with brevity and illegibility, and it is actually easier in many cases, to decipher the pothooks and trammels of the poor Irish servants, than the hieroglyphics of these "beautiful writers."

The now constant emigration of the Irish people, especially, affords another reason for the miscarriage of letters addressed by adopted citizens here, to their relatives and friends at home. Many letters are returned, which after having passed through perhaps a dozen or twenty offices, and become completely covered untill the memoranda of Postmasters, to "Try Drogheda," "Try Ballymuck,'' "Try Kinsale," &c., and the Postmasters of the various places "tried" finally get back with the legend, in great letters, "gone to America," inscribed across the face. Of those that two or three years since during the famine were returned with the one word "dead," upon them, we will only say that they were numbered by thousands. Many letters, thus returned, find their owners here, and the little pittance, which thoughtful friends had intended to aid in bringing then out of the land of starvation to that of promise and of plenty, is drawn at the counters of the bankers who issued the draft.

Of late, some of the exchange bankers drawing on Great Britain have abandoned the plan of issuing duplicate and triplicate bills, for what object we know not, but the effect is, of course, to lessen the security of the purchaser, by increasing the liability to loss.

We now come to the room where the letters, decided to be of value, are put in the hands of Clerks, whose duties it is to trace out their ownership, and restore, if possible, the property they may contain. And here is to be seen the admirable working of a system, in great part perfected by the present able and indefatigable Postmaster General, of whose share in this great work of public benefit, we shall again speak.

Valuable letters are divided into two classes-money and minor. The former are those containing money, either coin or bank notes-the latter those covering all other articles, of whatever nature, that may be either intrinsically of worth, or presumed to be so, to their owners. In the money letter Department are three Clerks, whose duty is to attend solely to this subdivision. The letters are opened, read, stamped with the stamp of the D. L. Bureau, and entered, by number, under the letter in the alphabet, corresponding with the initial of,the surname, of the addressed. For this purpose, large books are kept and to illustrate better our meaning, we will follow the process, suppositiously. A letter is received addressed to William Smith, Philadelphia, containing a two dollar note of the Chemical Bank, New York, and written at Boston, by Henry Jones.-Turning to "S," the initial of Smith, the Clerk finds the next number to be 1046, which is accordingly marked upon the letter, within the circle of the stamp of the Bureau; the date is also inscribed, and the bank note is marked, in a particular ink, with the same number, so that on the book, on the letter and the bill, appear the identifying figures-1046. The Clerk then enters on his book, first, the word PHILADELPHIA as the place "where the letter was addressed"; then, ''SMITH, WILLIAM," as the "party addressed"; then, "HENRY JONES," as "the writer"; then, 2 DOLLARS; CHEMICAL BANK; NEW YORK, as the "description of the con- tents" and then-he looks carefully through the letter to gather, if possible, where it should be sent, with most prospect of reaching the proper party. Philadelphia has been already tried, for the letter has lain there three months and been advertised; so, if there be any better place, it should not go there again. Boston next suggests itself, as the writer's probable place of residence-and in most cases, this would be the case, but our Mr. Jones says, "I shall return home on Saturday. Please acknowledge the receipt of this to me, at Bellows Falls." Ah! so he resides at Bellows Falls, and, accordingly, in the next column, the Clerk enters BELLOWS FALLS as the place "where sent"; the date follows, and the entry is, for the time, complete. The letter is then enveloped in a printed blank, containing brief instructions to Postmasters, as to their duty in regard to Dead Letters, and having also, a blank receipt, which is filled up by the Clerk, with a transfer of the entries on the book, and is left for the party to sign, to whom the letter is delivered. The whole is then addressed to "P. M. Bellows Falls." and despatched. In due time, if the investigations of the Clerk shall lead him to the correct conclusions, the receipt comes back, signed by the party to whom the letter has been delivered by the Postmaster, and dated with the day of its delivery. This is filed away and kept for future reference if called for. It is also entered in the last column on the page of the book, which finishes No. 1046 S. for ever.

But, it may he that, Owing to Jones' having moved, or some other cause, he is not found and, at the end of thirty days the letter is returned, with the receipt unsigned, then turning again to 1046-S. the Clerk enters RETURNED, such a date, in the last column, and, either sends the letter out again, inserting its then destination over the previous "Bellows Falls," or files it away, as his judgment, formed upon its contents, shall direct him.

This general outline of the process, will show how much pains is taken to restore to persons entrusting their property to the mails, any portion of it which either from their own fault, or other cause, goes astray and finds its way into the Dead Letter Office. Of the thousand and one accidental and ever varying circumstances, tending to modify the mode of procedure in minor points, we have not the room to make mention. We omitted above to state, that the amount of postage due upon the letter and the cost of advertising is always noted for the post master to collect, and this is the only expertise incurred by the party, in obtaining his money, nothing being charged for its transmission from the Dead Letter Office. By a clause in the new law, regulating postage and postoffices, letters which are endorsed "to be preserved," on the seal side, are so preserved, and forwarded whenever subsequent letters of inquiry may direct. In that case, the postage from Washington to the point designated is charged.

Of such entries as we have described, the gentlemen in the Bureau, will, such is the expertness given by practice, make from thirty to forty in the six office hours, from nine to three, despatching of course, a corresponding number of letters. And of these letters about one in ten, perhaps, not more than that proportion, fails to find a claimant.

Letters which have been returned, are as we have said, filed, and after the lapse of a certain time, the contents are taken out and sold. The owners, then, are credited by name and number, with the proceeds of the sale, deducting of course, if there be any, the discount paid, and the nett amount is then deposited in that mysterious and terror striking vault or cavern, the Treasury, there to remain until called for! This final residuum is small, as will be understood from a glance at the statistics again. The number of Dead money letters, sent out during the last fiscal year, was 6,453, containing an aggregate of $40,336.73. Of these 5,347 containing $36,090.61 were delivered and receipted for, leaving 1,106 letters, containing $4,246.12 for the number and value of the unclaimed. Of these, a small portion have since been restored from the Dead Letter Office, where the rest are deposited for future disposition.

The next room which we enter, and the last, is that devoted to the "Minor" Letter Department, and here generally arises what little of amusement there is to be derived from this dusty research among the corpses and coffins of defunct correspondence. Not that the money letters do not afford some remarkable and curious revelations, occasionally, or do not show human nature under many varying phases, but it is in the minor ones that are found all those nondescript and multiform objects of value despatched through ignorance of the laws, which after long drifting about in pursuit of some proprietor, at,last find a haven of rest, or a point of fresh departure in this asylum for the destitute. Compared with the great mass of the minor letters, however, there are few, the major portion of them covering bills of exchange, bunch drafts, checks, certificates of stock, &c. We need not follow the process of sending out this variety of dead letters, as the plan is the same as that pursued in the room we have just left. It was here, however, in this branch of the department, that the progressive mind of its present head, found room for the greatest improvement. Previous to his assuming the duties of the post, but little attention had ever been given to the delivery of minor dead letters, and the system, crude at best, was in woful confusion. Aided by the efficient practical intellect of Mr. JOHN MARRON, the much respected and beloved 3d Assistant Post Master General, in w hose bureau this section is included, Judge HALL commenced the work of renovation and reinvigoration, and the system perfected by the combined ingenuity of these two able public officers, will long continue without material modification, if the best interests of all concerned are regarded.

Many publications have found their way to the fireside and the reading room, purporting to describe the details of this interesting subdivision of the great central heart that controls the workings of our postal system: but none, we believe, have gone beyond attempts at cataloguing, with more or less accuracy, the so-called "curiosities" of the minor letter room. -Far and wide these statements have been scattered by the Briarean arms of the press, and the natural result has been to send clouds of sight seers to the General Post Office, in quest of the Museum. No day passes without some of these visits, and during times of great public excitement, when Washington is filled with strangers, the influx of "curiosity" hunters is so great as to almost paralyze the working of this section. At the inauguration of (Gen. Taylor, more than one hundred visitors a day, for several days, were received and entertained with a sight of these marvels; and a like tide of wonder seeking humanity ebbed and flowed during the sittings of the recent political Conventions at Baltimore. To say that these visitors almost invariably depart disappointed, is only to state what their own common sense ought to have taught them would be the case. The articles of real value are enclosed in the letters where they were originally found, and can not, of course, be shown. The only things, therefore, to he seen, are the few odds and ends, not entirely valueless, and yet not of sufficient worth to warrant any efforts at restoration. Of these, there are some dozen or two specimens, including a bottle of salve, a suit of child's clothes, a pair of flannel drawers and other articles of like character.--Add to these a quantity of refused daguerreotypes, and the reader will have a fair catalogue of the renowned "curiosities" of the Dead Letter Office, and may therefrom derive a hint that a visit to Washington for the purpose of inspecting them, "will not pay."

Many articles of great intrinsic value find their way to the "Minor Letter" room, as may be readily conceived from the previous statement that here are examined and sent out all valuables other than money. It was only recently that a set of rich and expensive jewels, failing to find a claimant, were returned to the Dead Letter Office, and were, by the Minor Letter Clerks, despatched anew. After considerable difficulty, they were placed in the possession of their owners, and the Clerks had the satisfaction of knowing that they had in the prosecution of their ordinary duties, been the agents in restoring an heir loom, valued far beyond its considerable intrinsic worth, and long, given up for lost.

We have attempted in this article to give a correct idea, as far as it can be conveyed in print, of tee theory, working and results accruing from the Dead Letter Office system. If we have succeeded, we may, with some confidence in the concurrence of our readers, assert that there exists not in the whole machinery of our Government, a part more nearly approaching perfection, shall this, little known as it is. When we consider the immense good that it has done; the many stifled hopes that it has revived; the frequent disappointments that it has assuaged; the supposed losses that it had restored-and then reflect upon the great good it has yet in store for performance-we can but look with an affectionate eye upon the humble, uncared for, Dead Letter Office. Its workings are quietly achieved, and the workers almost unknown, but its results are felt throughout the land, and, dreary and dismal as are the caverns where its machinery moves, a halo of light and cheerfulness is about its perfected labor.

NOTE--The intelligent reader will scarcely need to be told that this article was written before the recent change in the Head of the Department. Ed's. Register.²

¹ Apparently the Albany Daily State Register and Semi-Weekly Register are extant only in the broken run for 1850-54 at Cornell University. Wayne State University has a microfilm made from the Cornell file. Melville items had appeared in the newspaper (including a review of White-Jacket and a partial reprinting of the first Literary World notice of Moby-Dick), so Melville or his family might well have been on the lookout for a review of Pierre in September, 1852. I am grateful to Hans Bergmann for his generosity in sharing his own discoveries, and to Bernard Rosenthal who very generously Xeroxed for me not only the article by the "Resurrectionist" but several others on dead letters as well. Nancy Kotler kindly Xeroxed the reprinting in the National Intelligencer for me.

²The intelligent (that is, well-informed) reader would have seen in the Register for September 7, 1852, the news that Postmaster General Nathan K. Hall had resigned and been repalced by Samuel D. Hubbard.

return to bibliography