Were you ever at the Dead Letter Office in Washington? If you have never paid such a visit, you can form no conception of the tons, the hundreds of thousands of letters and parcels that are lost every year in the mails. Unaccounted for drafts, checks, postal orders, books, jewelry, medicine, everything, indeed, that the mails will agree to carry, may be found piled in that cemetery of lost communications, the Dead Letter Office. Have you added to the mortuary list? All these deaths, like many of living creatures, are due to carelessness. As a rule, the sender is to blame. He has misdirected. He has placed papers not properly folded in the envelope and then neglected to seal it. He has neglected to write any address at all, and dropped the letter into the box. Again he has addressed the parcel, but neither men nor angels can decipher the writing. MORE ABOUT NOTES The note, as has been said, is one of the most usual forms of obligation, yet misunderstandings often arise as to its settlement. Here are the points that must be attended to, nor shall we offer any excuse for repeating them collectively: 1. The date and amount must be so plainly written as to leave no doubt as to either. 2. The rate of interest, if any, must be clearly expressed. 3. The post office address of the signer or signees must be written opposite the name. 4. The note should be made payable at a definite place and on a definite date. 5. In taking a note or other obligation from a person who cannot write, be sure to have his "x" mark witnessed. Should you receipt certificates of stock as security for the payment of a note, or the payment of any other debt, be sure to notify the company issuing them. In giving this notice, which should be done at once, state clearly the number of shares you hold, the number of the certificates and to whom issued. The enforcement of this rule will depend altogether on the character of the person with whom you are dealing. Never, if you can help it, buy a past due note, especially if it is not secured by a mortgage. If a note, which a third party has endorsed, becomes due, never agree to an extension of time without getting the written consent of the endorser. Many men have lost through their ignorance of this essential transaction. CHAPTER XXVI LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP We are not quite through with the note. When making a payment of principal or interest on a note, be sure to take a receipt for the amount, stating specifically what the payment is to be credited to. In addition, if it be possible, see that the sum paid be endorsed on the back of the note itself. The endorsement of the sum paid on the back of the note bars its being negotiated for more than the amount actually due. Sometimes the owner and the maker of a note live at points some distance apart. If you were the maker of the note, and wanted to make a payment, but wished to avoid the expense and annoyance of a trip, what should be done?