“_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._