The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

As it happened, the obliging comrade was a poor scribe, and was without any great experience in letter-writing, or in the art of addressing letters. The only word in the direction which had been plainly written, and stood out in a way to catch the eye, was the word "Canton." This was the key to the mystery; the letter had been sent to China! At the period in question the sailing-ships conveying the mails took about six months to reach that distant country, and the same time for the return voyage. The soldier's letter had made the double journey; and the blunder being discovered when the letter came back to France, it was sent to the village in Provence to which it was really addressed. But, alas! adversity had overtaken the family in the old home. They had left the place, and gone no one knew whither; and, so far as the Post-office was concerned, it only remained to return the letter to the writer through the Dead-letter Office. The moral of this anecdote is, that letters ought to be plainly addressed. Some examples of the rambling style in which addresses are often written are given in another chapter. It would be a useful work were the school boards to give some instruction in this matter to the children under their care. The copy-books might be headed with specimen addresses for the purpose, and the teachers could point out how desirable it is, in addition to plain writing, that the addresses should be well arranged--the name of the person occupying one line, the street and number another, and the name of the town a conspicuous place to the right, in a line by itself. In this particular "they do things better in France," for in that country instruction of the kind in question was introduced into the primary schools more than twenty years ago.