Meanwhile, in an imposing-looking apartment beneath them, sit their brethren, on either side of the long table, opening the “dead-letters” which they are to re-direct. I believe there are fourteen clergymen, sitting at a single table, opening these letters. Preference is given to gentlemen of this profession, broken in health or fortune, as it is taken for granted that if they have lived to that age and fate, without ever having committed a dishonest act, it is most unlikely that they ever will—and that the treasure-letters are perfectly safe in their keeping. Moreover, their profession is also in their favor. They must have been unworldly-minded, says the reasoner, or they would never have chosen to be clergymen. Nearly all are elderly men, and among the number are a few old ones,—one, who has been in this office over fifty years, a brother of its one time Postmaster-General, Amos Kendall—hair white as snow—back bent over the table—hands trembling as he uses his knife—it is his life to go on opening his quota of daily letters, for the pittance of $1,200 per year. “If he were refused the privilege,” said an officer, “he would die at once.” [Illustration: DEAD LETTER OFFICE, U. S. GENERAL POST OFFICE.—WASHINGTON] In this office, from the thirty thousand post-offices in the United States are received, annually, about three million five hundred thousand dead-letters; unmailable letters, three hundred and sixty thousand; blank letters, three thousand. It seems impossible that three thousand persons, in a single year, should post letters without a single letter traced on their envelopes; nevertheless, this is true. In one corner of this office stand two men, by an open door, whose business it is to receive the dead-letters as they ascend to the office. They come up on an elevator—tied up in immense bags. As they are tossed out on the floor, one would suppose that they contained coffee for merchandise, rather than heart-messages and treasures gone astray. The bags are immediately opened and the letters transferred to the assorting table, where they are classified by clerks. The foreign letters are separated from the domestic, and any irregularity in their transmission is noted. They are then counted, numbered and tied up into packages of one hundred each, and thrown into bins, whence they are withdrawn in the order of the date of their reception, and transferred to the opening table to be _hari-karied_ by our clergymen. Letters containing nothing, if possible, are returned to their writers. If they cannot be, they are thrown into the waste-basket. This waste-paper is not burned but sold—and averages to the Government a revenue of about $4,000 per year. With all his extravagances, this is but one of numerous ways by which Uncle Sam manages to turn an economical penny out of the carelessness and misfortunes of nephews and nieces.