CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE—ITS MARVELS AND MYSTERIES.
The Post-Office—Its Architecture—The Monolithic Corinthian Columns—The Postal Service in Early Times—The Act of Queen Anne’s Reign—“Her Majesty’s Colonies”—After the Revolution—The First Postmaster-General—The Present Chief—A Cabinet Minister—The Subordinate Officers—Their Positions and Duties—The Ocean Mail Postal Service—The Contract Office—The Finance Office—The Inspection Office—Complaints and Misdoings—Benjamin Franklin’s Appointment—He Goes into Debt—One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago—Franklin Performs Wonderful Works—His Ideas of Speed—Between Boston and Philadelphia in Six Weeks—Dismissed from Office—The Congress of “The Confederation”—A New Post Office System—Franklin Comes In Again—The Inspector of Dead Letters—Not Allowed to Take Copies of Letters—Only Seventy-five Offices in the States—Primitive Regulations—Only One Clerk—Government Stages—The Office at Washington—Saved from the British Troops—Franklin’s Old Ledger—The Present Number of Post Offices—The Dead Letter Office—The Ladies Too Much Squeezed—Some of the Ladies “Packed”—Opening the Dead Letters—Why Certain Persons are Trusted—Three Thousand Thoughtless People—Valuable Letters—Ensuring Correctness—The Property Branch—The Touching Story of the Photographs—The Return Branch—What the Postmaster Says.
Though injured in comparison by the higher site and loftier walls of the Patent-Office opposite, the Post-Office, in itself, is one of the most beautiful public buildings in Washington. It occupies the entire block situated on Seventh and Eighth streets west, and E and F streets north. Like the Treasury and Patent-Office, it incloses a grassy court-yard on which its inner offices look out.
The architecture of the Post-Office is a modified Corinthian, and is regarded by critics as the best representation of the Italian palatial ever built upon this continent. It was designed chiefly by F. A. Walter, at that time architect of the Capitol, an artist who has left monuments of architectural beauty behind him in marble which, seemingly, can never perish. On the Seventh street side there is a vestibule, the ceiling of which is composed of richly ornamented marbles, supported by four marble columns; the walls, niches and floors are of marble, polished and tessellated. This is the grand entrance to the General Post-Office Department. The F street front affords accommodation to the city Post Office. It has a deeply recessed portico in the centre, consisting of eight columns grouped in pairs, and flanked by coupled pilasters supporting an entablature which girds the entire work. The portico is supported by an arcade which furnishes ample convenience for the delivery of letters, and the hurrying crowds which come after them. The Corinthian columns of this portico are each formed of a single block of marble, and each in itself is a marvel of architectural grace. The entrance for the mail wagons, on Eighth street, consists of a grand archway, the spandrels of which bear upon their face, sculpture representing Steam and Electricity, while a mask, representing Fidelity, forms the key-stone.
The Postal Service of the country is the oldest branch of the Government. As early as the year 1792, a proposition was introduced into the General Assembly of Virginia, to establish the office of Postmaster-General of Virginia and other parts of America. The proposition became a law, but was never carried into effect. In 1710, during the reign of Queen Anne, the British Parliament established a General Post-Office for all Her Majesty’s dominions. By this act, the Postmaster-General was permitted to have one chief letter office in New York, and other chief letter offices at some convenient place or places in each of Her Majesty’s provinces or colonies in America. When the colonies threw off their allegiance to the Crown, especial care was given to preserving, as far as possible, the postal facilities of the country. When the Federal Constitution was adopted, the right was secured to Congress “to establish Post-Offices and Post-Roads.” In 1789, Congress created the office of Postmaster-General, and defined his duties. Other laws have since been passed, regulating the increased powers and duties of the Department, which is now, next to the Treasury, the most extensive in the country.
The Postmaster-General, the head of the Department, is a member of the President’s Cabinet, and is in charge of the postal affairs of the United States. The business of the various branches of the Department is conducted in his name and by his authority. He has a general supervision of the whole Department, and issues all orders concerning the service rendered the Government through his subordinates. During the first administrations of the Government, the Postmaster-General was not regarded as a Cabinet Minister, but simply as the head of a Bureau. In 1829, General Jackson invited Mr. Barry, the gentleman appointed by him to that office, to a seat in his Cabinet. Since that time, the Postmaster-General has been recognized, as _ex-officio_, a Cabinet Minister.
The first Postmaster-General was Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts. The present Postmaster is Marshall Jewell, of Hartford, Connecticut.
The subordinate officers of the Department are three Assistant Postmaster-Generals, and the Chief of the Inspection Office. The Appointment Office is in charge of the First Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office are assigned all questions which relate to the establishment and discontinuance of post-offices, changes of sites and names, appointment and removal of postmasters, and _route_ and local agents, as, also, the giving of instructions to postmasters. Postmasters are furnished with marking and rating-stamps and letter-balances by this Bureau, which is charged also with providing blanks and stationery for the use of the Department, and with the superintendence of the several agencies established for supplying postmasters with blanks. “To this Bureau is likewise assigned the supervision of the ocean-mail steamship-lines, and of the foreign and international postal arrangements.”
The Contract-Office is in charge of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the business of arranging the mail service of the United States, and placing the same under contract, embracing all correspondence and proceedings affecting the frequency of trips, mode of conveyance, and time of departures and arrivals on all the _routes_; the course of the mail between the different sections of the country; the points of mail distribution; and the regulations for the government of the domestic mail service of the United States. It prepares the advertisements for mail proposals, receives the bids, and takes charge of the annual and occasional mail lettings, and the adjustment and execution of the contracts. All applications for the establishment or alteration of mail arrangements, and the appointment of mail messengers, should be sent to this office. All claims should be submitted to it for transportation service not under contract, as the recognition of said service is first to be obtained through the Contract-Office as a necessary authority for the proper credits at the Auditor’s-Office.
From this office all postmasters at the ends of _routes_ receive the statement of mail arrangements prescribed for the respective _routes_. It reports weekly to the Auditor all contracts executed and all orders affecting accounts for mail transportation; prepares the statistical exhibits of mail service, and the reports of the mail lettings, giving a statement of each bid; also of the contracts made, the new service originated, the curtailments ordered, and the additional allowances granted within the year.
The Finance-Office is in charge of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the supervision and management of the financial business of the Department not devolved by law upon the Auditor, embracing accounts with the draft offices and other depositories of the Department; the issuing of warrants and drafts in payment of balances, reported by the Auditor to be due mail contractors and other persons; the supervision of the accounts of offices under orders to deposit their quarterly balances at designated points; and the superintendence of the rendition by postmasters of their quarterly returns of postages. It has charge of the Dead-Letter Office, of the issuing of postage stamps and stamped envelopes for the prepayment of postage, and with the accounts connected therewith.
To the Third Assistant Postmaster-General all postmasters should direct their quarterly returns; those at draft-offices, their letters reporting quarterly the net proceeds of their offices; and those at depositing-offices, their certificates of deposit. To him should also be directed the weekly and monthly returns of the depositories of the Department, as well as applications and receipts for postage stamps and stamped envelopes, and for dead letters.
The Inspection-Office is in charge of a Chief Clerk. To this office is assigned the duty of receiving and examining the registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of _route_-agents, and reports of mail failures; noting the delinquencies of contractors, and preparing cases thereon for the action of the Postmaster-General; furnishing blanks for mail registers and reports of mail failures, providing and sending out mail bags and mail locks and keys, and doing all other things which may be necessary to secure a faithful and exact performance of all mail contracts.
All cases of mail depredation, of violations of law by private expresses, or by the forging and illegal use of postage stamps, are under supervision of this office, and should be reported to it. All communications respecting lost money-letters, mail depredations, or other violations of law, or mail locks and keys, should be directed to “Chief Clerk, Post-Office Department.”
All registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of _route_-agents, reports of mail failures, applications for mail registers, and all complaints against contractors for irregular or imperfect service, should be directed, “Inspection Office, Post-Office Department.”
Benjamin Franklin was appointed General Deputy Postmaster of the Colonies, in the year 1753, with a salary between him and his confederates, of £600, if they could get it. This experiment brought him in debt £900, and his success in expediting the mails, which he dwells upon with so much satisfaction in his writings, will create a smile in these days of electricity, steam, and “young-American” speed. In the year 1754, he gave notice that the mail to New England, which used to start but once a fortnight, in winter, should start once a week, all the year, “whereby answers might be obtained to letters between Philadelphia and Boston in three weeks, which used to require six weeks!”
Franklin was removed from his office by the British Ministry; but in the year 1775, the Congress of the Confederation having assumed the practical sovereignty of the Colonies, appointed a committee to devise a system of post-office communication, who made a report recommending a plan on the 26th of July, which on the same day was adopted, and Doctor Franklin unanimously appointed Postmaster-General, at a salary of $1,000 per annum. The salary of the Postmaster-General was doubled on the 16th of April, 1779, and on the 27th day of December, of the same year, Congress increased the salary to $5,000 per annum.
An Inspector of Dead Letters was also appointed, at a salary of $100 per annum, who was under oath faithfully and impartially to discharge the duties of his office, and enjoined to take no copies of letters, and not to divulge the contents to any but Congress, or to those who were appointed by Congress for that purpose. Dr. Franklin, on the 7th of November, 1776, was succeeded as Postmaster-General by his relative, Richard Bache, who remained in office till the 28th of January, 1782, when he was succeeded by Ebenezer Hazard, who was the last head of the General Post-Office under the Confederacy.
In 1790, there were but seventy-five post-offices in the United States, and but eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles of post _routes_.
The General Post-Office, in 1790, was located in New York, and Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts, was the first Postmaster-General under the Federal Government. His conception of the duties of his office were, doubtless, very humble, as he recommended “that the Postmaster-General should not keep an office separate from the one in which the mail was opened and distributed; that he might, by his presence, prevent irregularities, and rectify any mistakes that might occur;” in fact, put the Postmaster-General, his assistant, and their one clerk, in the city post-office, to see that its mails were assorted and made up correctly.
The salary of Mr. Osgood was $1,500 per annum. Timothy Pickering was appointed by Washington, August 12, 1791, at an increased salary of $2,000. Joseph Habersham was the last Postmaster-General appointed by Washington. He was commissioned April 22, 1795, at a salary of $2,400 per annum. The office was located in Philadelphia, in the year 1796, and was established at Washington when the Federal Government was removed there. In 1802, the United States ran their own stages between Philadelphia and New York, finding coaches, drivers, horses, etc., and cleared in three years over $11,000, by carrying passengers.
That sultry morning of August 25, 1814, when Admiral Cockburn and his drunken crew, eager for fresh destruction, marched from Capitol Hill to the War Office, which they burned, and from it down F street to treat the Post-Office to the same fate, they found it on the site where its marble successor now stands, and under the same roof the Patent-Office. Says Charles J. Ingersoll, in his rambling history:
“Dr. Thornton, then Chief of the Patent-Office, accompanied the detachment to the locked door of the repository, the key having been taken away by another clerk watching out of night. Axes and other implements of force were used to break in; Thornton entreating, remonstrating, and finally prevailing on Major Waters, superintending the destruction, to postpone it till Thornton could see Colonel Jones, then engaged with Admiral Cockburn in destroying the office of the _National Intelligencer_, not far off on Pennsylvania avenue. Colonel Jones had declared that it was not designed to destroy private property, which Dr. Thornton assured Major Waters most of that in the Patent-Office was. A curious musical instrument, of his own construction, which he particularly strove to snatch from ruin, with a providential gust soon after, saved the seat of government from removal, for want of any building in which Congress could assemble, when they met in Washington three weeks afterwards. Hundreds of models of the useful arts, preserved in the office, were of no avail to save it; but music softened the rugged breasts of the least musical of civilized people. Major Waters agreed, at last, to respite the patents and the musical instrument till his return from Greenleaf’s Point, where other objects were to be laid in ruins.”
But with the explosion of the magazine at Greenleaf’s Point, and the tornado, both of which made unexpected havoc with the lives of the British vandals, and their withdrawal under cover of night, they never came back to the Patent and Post-Office, to destroy it. It was, I believe, the only public building in the capital which escaped their torch. It was, however, destroyed by fire, December 15, 1836.
One of the most precious treasures, now in the possession of the Post-Office Department, is the original ledger of Doctor Benjamin Franklin, Postmaster-General, 1776, which upon its title-page bears the following record:
“This book was rescued from the flames, during the burning of the Post-Office Building, on Thursday morning, Dec. 15, 1836, by W. W. Cox, messenger of the office of the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department.”
This ledger is now on file in the office of the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department. Scorched and worn, it tells the story of time and fate. It embraces all the accounts of all the post-offices of the United States for the years 1776-77-78. These are all recorded in the handwriting of Doctor Franklin, and do not cover one hundred and twenty pages. The growth in the postal service may be partly measured by the fact that its money record, kept by Benjamin Franklin, running through eleven years, is equalled, at the present time, by the accounts of two days. When the philosopher was at the head of the Post-Office Department, there were eighty post-offices in the Confederation; there are now thirty-two thousand post-offices in the United States, with the number constantly increasing.
The Dead-Letter Office embodies more personal interest than any other in the Post-Office Department. It is a spacious room, unique in outline, many-windowed and well ventilated. It is surrounded by a wide gallery, supported by spiral columns. An open iron staircase connects it with the lower office. It is set apart for the woman’s work of this division. They are far out-numbered by the men below, and yet in this narrow gallery they are sadly crowded.
Spacious as the Post-Office is, in going thereto, the same conclusion is forced upon one, which is apparent in every public building, that it is already too small for the vast and rapidly increasing demands of the public service. The gentlemen which you see at work below have nothing to complain of in lack of light or air, but the ladies above say that their little gallery is the escape valve to all the poisoned air below; that their heads are so near the roof there is no chance for ventilation, and that sudden death, among their number, has been caused by the air-poison which pervades this gallery. The ladies need more room for a new office; indeed, already they have overflowed the gallery and are packed closely in the halls.
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.”
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.
Letters containing anything, of the smallest value, are saved and registered under their different heads. Money, jewels, drafts, money-orders, receipts, hair, seeds, deeds, military-papers, pension-papers, etc., are all recorded and returned, if possible. A “money letter” has five different records before it leaves the Dead-Letter Office, and is so checked and counter-checked as to make collusion or abstraction almost impossible, in case any soul who surveyed it were fatally tempted.
When the opener of a letter finds money, he immediately makes a record of it. The next morning, the head of “the Opening Table” records in a book each letter found and recorded by each opener the day before. The letters are then taken from a safe, in which they were locked the night previous, and their contents recounted, to make sure of absolute correctness, before leaving the Opening Table. The money-letters, with the record of that day, are then handed over to the head of the Money Branch, where the letters recorded by the head of the Opening Table are certified and receipted. They are next indexed and delivered to the several clerks of the Money Branch, each receipting every letter he has recorded on the Index Book. He then records the letter and sends it to the writer, through the postmaster of the place where the party lives. The owner, on receiving the money, receipts for the same on a blank accompanying the letter, which he sends back to the Dead-Letter Office. The letters are again re-examined by two clerks, to see if the amounts are correct, who conjointly scrutinize and seal the letters. They are then registered to the different distributing offices, with all the precautionary checks of a registered letter. In time, the letter or a receipt from the owner, through the postmaster, is returned. If a receipt is received, it is recorded, with date, as a final disposition of the letter. If the money is returned, it is so noted and recorded on a separate record kept for the purpose, that record showing, perpetually, how much money is on hand. If not claimed at the end of three months, the money is deposited in the Treasury of the United States, subject to the application of the owner. By this minute and exhaustive routine, every money-letter, and every cent which they contain, is absolutely accounted for—traced, refunded, and held.
Drafts, deeds, checks, power-of-attorney and wills are recorded, and sent through postmasters to their owners, they returning receipts for the same.
Foreign letters are assorted, the amounts due this and other countries recorded, and a system of accounts kept, showing, by a list returned with the letters, a correct statement. Foreign letters are returned weekly, to England, Germany and the Netherlands. The liberal postage recently adopted by these countries has opened so large a correspondence, it involves more frequent returns.
The Property-Branch is of a most miscellaneous character. It involves the recording and returning of jewellery, and of almost every other article under the sun. Many of these it is impossible to return. These accumulate in such vast piles, it is necessary to dispose of them at auction, at least, as often as once in four years.
At each sale, a complete catalogue of the articles is presented, and the proceeds are deposited in the United States Treasury.
A room, leading from the Dead-Letter Office, lined with closed closets to its lofty ceiling, is the receptacle of all these stranded treasures. When the custodian unlocks their doors and you behold what is shut within, you are lost in wonder as to what must be the conceived capacity of the Post-Office in the minds of your compatriots. Before your eyes, crammed into shelves, you see patchwork quilts, under garments, and outer garments; hats, caps, and bonnets; shoes and stockings; with no end of nicknacks and keepsakes; “sets” of embroidery, baby-wardrobes, watches, and jewels of every description—though the greater proportion is of the “fire-gilt,” “dollar-store” description. Many really beautiful pictures are retained, because not sufficiently prepaid. Some of these, sent as gifts, are left by the chosen recipients to be sold at auction—the postage often amounting to far more than the value of the picture. Many motley articles peer forth from their hiding-places ignominiously “franked,” yet retained, the frank not being sufficient legal-tender to insure their triumphal passage to the place of final destination. Among these is an iron apple-parer.
Many of these cheap treasures were precious keepsakes from the hearts which fondly sent them—under very unintelligible superscriptions—to sweethearts whom they never reached. Some are tokens from beyond the seas, which came from a far-off land only to find the one sought—dead or living—gone, without a clue.
During the war, tens of thousands of photographs were thus sent astray. The husband, the father, the brother, the son, under whose name they came—alas! when they reached his regiment, he was not—the heaped-up trench, the unknown grave, the unburied dead—somewhere amid them all—he slept, and the memento of the love that lived for him, came back to this receptacle of the nation, and here it is! On a stand near the window, is an immense open book lined with photographs, all the photographs of soldiers. With a tender hand, the Government gathered these pictures of its lost and unknown sons and garnered them here, for the sake of the living, who might seek their lost. Turning over the pages, we see many empty spaces, and find that friends coming here and turning over the pages of this book have identified the faces of loved ones who perished in the war. Many of these are photographs of a poor character, (whose transient chemicals are already fading out,) which were taken on the field, and sent, by soldiers, home to mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts. The chances of war are sufficient to account for their going astray of their objects and for their return here—where more than one tear-blinded woman has sought and found them, at last.
To return to the dryer details of the Dead-Letter Office, we find that all letters held for postage, all blank, unmailable, and hotel letters pass through a like process with the dead-letter, with the exception of the unmailable letters, which come directly from the office with written lists, which are checked to see if the letters are all with the lists. These the opener counter-checks, marking the contents both on letter and list, to show that it was received and doubly opened. These lists, with their letters, are sent to the Return Branch. Here they are returned to their writers, and their lists are made to show the disposition of every letter. These lists are carefully filed and subject to re-perusal. The Return Branch, which is composed entirely of ladies, sends average dead-letters back to their writers at the rate of seven thousand a day. In this branch we find the application-clerk whose duty it is to trace letters, and to send such information to persons applying for letters as the records may show. In case of the loss of a valuable letter, the Department spares no pains in its efforts to trace and find it.
The Postmaster-General, in one of his recent reports, says of this branch of the Postal Service:
“In the examination of domestic dead-letters, for disposition, 1,736,867 were found to be either not susceptible of being returned, or of no importance, circulars, etc., and were destroyed after an effort to return them—making about 51 per cent. destroyed. The remainder were classified and returned to the owners as far as practicable. The whole number sent from the office was 2,258,199, of which about 84 per cent. were delivered to owners, and 16 per cent. were returned to the Department; 18,340 letters, containing $95,169.52, in sums of $1 and upward, of which 16,061 letters, containing $86,638.66, were delivered to owners, and 2,124, containing $7,862.36, were filed or held for disposition; 14,082 contained $3,436.68, in sums of less than $1, of which 12,513, containing $3,120.70, were delivered to owners; 17,750 contained drafts, deeds, and other papers of value, representing the value of $3,609,271.80—of these 16,809 were restored to the owners, and 821 were returned and filed; 13,964 contained books, jewellery, and other articles of property, of the estimated value of $8,500—of these 11,489 were forwarded for delivery and 9,911 were delivered to their owners; 125,221 contained photographs, postage-stamps, and articles of small value, of which 114,666 were delivered to owners; 2,068,842 without inclosures. Thus of the ordinary dead-letters forwarded from this office, about 84 per cent. were delivered, and of the valuable dead-letters (classed as money and minor) about 89 per cent. were delivered. The decrease of money-letters received (about 3,000) is probably owing to the growing use of money-orders for the transmission of small sums.”
In August, 1864, Hon. Montgomery Blair appointed Dr. C. F. Macdonald, now the Superintendent of the Money-Order Department, and J. M. McGrew, now Chief Clerk of the Sixth Auditor’s office, commissioners to visit Quebec and examine the workings of the Money-Order System which has been in operation in Great Britain and Canada for several years.
The system, as used by the British Government, was modified and simplified by the commissioners, and on the 8th of November, 1864, the Money-Order System of the United States was inaugurated, with 138 offices authorized to issue and pay.
During the part of the fiscal year commencing November 8, 1864, and ending June 30, 1865, there were 74,277 money-orders issued, amounting to $1,360,122.52; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1866—138,297, amounting to $3,977,259.28; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1867—474,496, amounting to $9,229,327.72; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1868—831,937, amounting to $16,197,858.47; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1869—1,264,143, amounting to $24,848,058.93; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1870—1,675,228, amounting to $33,658,740.27; during the next fiscal year ending June 30, 1871—2,151,794, amounting to $42,164,118.03; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1872—2,573,349, amounting to $48,515,532.72.
During the present fiscal year, which expired June 30, 1873, the number of orders issued will reach 3,000,000, and the amount will be over $50,000,000.
The above figures, in themselves, contain the history of the money-order system from its beginning to the present time. During the war one letter was received at the Dead-Letter Office which contained $12,000. Rarely now does any sum inside of an envelope amount to $50. As a rule, any sum over $5 is sent by money-order—at least by all persons who have any reasonable idea of what is absolutely safe.