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The Seattle Postmaster's Inbox Woes

A satirical poetic complaint from 1885 captures the frustration of a growing city struggling with mail delivery, box rent, and the perceived indifference of the local postal bureaucracy.

The story, cleaned up

A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.

I went down to the post office, to see what the clerk would write, and wondered the clerks would treat every boy with politeness for such paltry pay. 'Don't you got ladder for Ephraim Sobrad? You haven't left letters by my house? Hi! Why she killing, and der earth, here mid from Pennsylvania, my own Bill Brew. Niddling der daily veil, leh geb others dream. If I don't get some ladders, I don't pack him home. But to der by and by she at a pie lamp. Vet dot witt e'f away sudder pig mail robbs, and yet please look over them letters and see if I've got any letter for us? Who's acting did in? Why, of utility and odd, we drive the black news—and boys, of me now. I thought every chop in the town knew me, from here to Port Hope. Now for Jim? That's my name sort, for quite take me down. Tell me name and is on the envelope 'Unaim Postmaster', I crave trouble to get. It stall, she don't fetch me letter, in silence I wait, but not yet, not yet. And I all the time feel no better. O, ah! My anguish, is P'to by the heart. All the day no letter. It's day, for me. If you please tell me day when the letter do. If from my beautiful home in Paree. I, ask I are, young fellow, just tell me the matter that I don't get my mail every day! For what are postmasters, or set postal laws, if this office runs on in this way? I've written at least four times to the staff, and not an answer I've got. You're a great lazy set, and the list of you waits till the mail is all mouldy with rot. Like you catches one little letter, Ellis knows one little game ten. Oka you tell me the reason why letters are shoved in the wrong box now? Do you know you're insulting your [patrons], the ones who the box rents pay? Just be careful how you speak now to me, sir; for the ward where I live is quite mud. That our office is run by a sneer. Yes, you most undoubtedly bad.' Thus I heard all the trash that flowed, the P.M. and as I bid him adieu, I thought there are no K.O.'s in heaven; for mailmen are no inhabitant fee.

“You're a great lazy set, and the list of you waits till the mail is all mouldy with rot.”

— Printed in Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1885
Then · 1885141 years apartNow · 2026

In 1885, Seattle residents were already venting their frustrations at the 'clerk' over service delivery and bureaucratic silence. Today, the debate has shifted from physical box rent to digital privacy and the slow creep of automation, but the fundamental friction between the citizen and the institution remains a defining feature of the Seattle experience.

The original page

Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1885-01-17. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, JAN 17, 1885, Page 4
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.60323, -122.33028 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗