THE YOUNG WOMAN AND THE STAMPS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 1768, 31 May 1895, Page 4

THE YOUNG WOMAN AND THE STAMPS.

The town of Kaneville, 111., is just now swamped With cancelled postage stamps and letters containing them. With the idea of assisting the crippled sisters of a young man to whom she was engaged to be married, Miss Edna Brown, of that place, : began the task of gathering 1,000,000 of cancelled postage stamps,, which she expected to sell to a man m Chicago, who was said to have made an offer of £40 m cash for that number. At the present time Miss Brown has moitt than 8,000,000 stamps m hand, and they are still coming m at the rate of 200,000 daily. The Chicago purchaser, and all other purchasers, proved to. be. mythical, and the river of stamps that has been turned m the di- 1 feetion of Kaneville cannot be dammed except with a different style of orthography to that used herein. Tbe young woman wrote three letters' to as many friends, and asked each one to send her ten or more cancelled stamps, and also to write tfn-ee letters each to her friends. witU the same request. They ' m turn \yeie. to. follow the saiaerule, thus iftak.ipg.an ever-increasing chain c,f tetters, trhafc was not to be completf -d until fifty persons had written. Fxrom 16,000 to 18,000 letters are now beinf received m Kaneville every twenty -four hours, and the poor postmaster, v /hose salary is only £40 a year, wonder/ s what Ije has done to merit such an annoyance,, as the- daily mail of Kvaneville m. ordinary times does not average much more than 100 letters. The residents of the village are taking turns m assisting the postmaster, as lie has been obliged to hire a clerk whom he pays out of his own small salary. Kaneville is a small hamlet six miles, from the nearest. I railway station. The stage carries the> mail between the station and the towiiv and the stage drivei- wants veiy much to throw up his contract of carrying «le mail. Formerly there was only <me small sack of mail daily ; now tht* *tage is laden with mail, so that there- i& r little room m the coach for passengers, and the driver is, to use the local slang, " kicking like a steer and swearing like a pirate." Since the troubte- began Miss Brown has married the. uaan to whom she was engaged, and. at first they took their letters away from the post office, opened them, and clipped out the postage stamps. Later they had their neighbours to assistf tfiem, but recently they have given, u#, the work altogether.