1. When you go out with the intention of posting a letter, be sure you do not put it in your pocket, or the odds are ten to one that you will return home with it.

2. Always address the envelope before you write a letter.

3. If you write love-letters to two different women, be careful to enclose the first one in its properly addressed envelope before you begin writing the second one, or Maria may receive the letter intended for Eliza, and vice versÂ.

4. Do not apologize in your postscript for having forgotten to stamp your letter. It might get you found out.

5. If you have written an important letter, or one containing money, put it in the letter-box yourself. If anything wrong happens to it, you will have no one to accuse or suspect.

6. When you send currency by post, do not let anyone know it by having the letter registered. Money stolen through the post has always been abstracted from registered letters. I have never heard of one letter of mine not being delivered in Europe and in America. People never take their chance. They never open a letter unless they know there is money in it. How can they know if you are careful in concealing paper money under cover? Never label your letters, 'There is money in it.'

7. If you post a letter, which you do not want anybody to read except the person to whom it is addressed, do not forget to write your name and address on the back of the envelope, so that, if not delivered, or mislaid, it may be returned to you unopened.

8. If you want an important letter to be delivered in New York at a determined time, take my advice: Post that letter, in the city, twenty-four hours before the said determined time.

9. Never, or very seldom, in some exceptional cases, answer a letter by return post, even if the request be made. Always take twenty-four hours for consideration. Besides, it will give you the appearance of being a very busy man, which is always a splendid advertisement.

10. When you enclose a bill or a cheque in a letter, pin it to the letter, that it may not drop when the envelope is opened, and before posting it feel the letter-box inside to see that it is not choked.

11. If you write a letter of a private nature—words of love that you would be sorry for everyone to read except the lady you are addressing, put a blank sheet of notepaper around the letter. Most envelopes are transparent, and may disclose your secrets.

12. Always read twice the address you have written on your envelopes. Apply the same process to your letters; your time will not be wasted.

13. When you write to a friend, do not inquire about his health and that of his family after your signature. It would look like an afterthought.

14. Ladies, whose minds are full of afterthoughts, generally write the most important part of their letters in the postscript. I once received a letter, in a woman's handwriting, the signature of which was unknown to me. At the end of sixteen pages of pretty prattle there was a postscript: 'You will see by my new signature that I am married.'