To the Careless | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 13, 1872

To the Careless.

HERE are a few facts worth the attention of careless people; particularly those who have occasion to correspond with newspapers, inclosing money and expecting answers:

“During the last year there were sent to the Dead Letter Office nearly three millions of letters. Sixty-eight thousand of these letters could not be forwarded owing to the carelessness of the writer in omitting to give the county or State; 400,000 failed to be sent because the writers forgot to put on stamps, and over 3,000 letters were put into the Post Office without any address whatever. In the letters above named were found over $92,000 cash, and drafts, checks, etc., to the value of $3,000,000.”

No doubt nearly the whole of that vast amount of money was made up by inconsiderable sums in separate letters; indeed, the proportionate average is only a little over one dollar per letter. Publishers could add many curious items to these absurdities such as money-letters properly addressed but bearing no date, others without signature, and some even with neither date nor name; and these, too, are usually the most peremptory in their orders for immediate forwarding of papers, etc. People are apt to think nothing of their own little omissions or carelessnesses but once in a while such an aggregate statement as the above will startle them into a consideration of their ways.—Christian Union.