Chain letters are a nuisance and a serious epidemic, according to a report published in a U.S. newspaper in 1922. In fact, chain letters were so widespread across the world during the early 1900s that some people complained of health problems when they received the annoying letters in the mail.
One London gentleman had a nervous breakdown after receiving a chain letter because it threatened bad luck if he did not follow the forwarding instructions to a T. His worry over incurring any misfortune caused him to nearly starve himself to death before someone intervened.
Chain letters affected everyone, but as you will see, they were ingenious and even a little silly at times. [Sources 1, 2]
The Kiss Chain
A kissing chain letter broke out in 1937 and involved sending kisses through the mail. The letter stated that the kiss chain began two years previous in London and if you got the letter, you had to send out ten more of the chain letters to ten young members of the opposite sex.
The goal was to have the whole world kiss each other through the mail. Even more incredibly, the letter promised that “world peace will consequently be a matter of course.”
Of course, anyone who did not participate in the kissing chain was courting some unforeseeable danger, but, as one Australia newspaper put it, people should make a point to deliver their kiss personally. Real life kisses “are much nicer, apart from the saving in stamps and stationary.” [Source 3]
Christ’s Very Own Chain Letter
In 1908 a very special kind of chain letter was making the rounds. This one was started by Jesus Christ himself and, as the letter states, it was “found by a child under a rock at the foot of the cross.”
Quite a few people, including newspaper reporters, found the chain letter humorous because it used “latter day phrases.” In other words, the letter was written all wrong and, ultimately, in the wrong language.
Nevertheless, the letter of dubious divine origin claimed “he that hath a copy of this letter, written by my own hand, and spoken from my own mouth, and keepeth it without publishing it to others shall not prosper.”
Unfortunately, many people believed that the chain letter really did originate from Christ himself and many attempted to publish the letter in a number of different newspapers. The only thing that stopped them from succeeding was the cost of printing the entire letter. [Source 4]
The Prayer Chain
One highly annoying, endless chain letter involved a prayer that was supposed to be sent around the world.
While sharing prayers is nothing new, this particular letter claimed that the prayer was from Bishop Lawrence who wanted everyone to recite it.
When questioned about the letter, Bishop Lawrence called it a fraud. He even went as far as to address the public directly to let them know that he had nothing to do with the chain letter.
The prayer itself was short, but the penalty for not saying the prayer and continuing the chain letter was rather high for those who were superstitious. If the receiver did not follow the instructions within nine days, he could expect some great calamity to befall him.
Since the letter was a religious one, many feared that they had to continue the chain letter or God would thwack them with bad luck. [Source 5]
Stamp Collecting
Stamp collecting was once a very popular hobby, enjoyed by the young and old, across the globe. One woman, from Finland, took her stamp collecting hobby a little further than most people and started her own chain letter in 1936.
The idea behind the chain was to increase everyone’s stamp collection with stamps from all over the world. All the receiver had to do was send ten used or new stamps to the first name on the list. Then she had to rewrite the chain letter five times, adding her name to the bottom of the list while removing the first name. After sending out the letter, the stamp collector could expect as many as 156,250 stamps from all over the world, as long as no one broke the chain.
Of course, these types of chain letters rarely produced the results that were promised. [Source 6]
Easy Money Maker
One of the more popular chain letters of the past involved sending money. The idea was that when a person received the chain letter, he would then send a small amount of money to the person at the top of the list. Then he would rewrite the letter with his name and address at the bottom of the list and send it out to several other people.
When his name finally reached the top of the list, he could expect to receive a nice lump sum of money from numerous people, but that never happened.
According to an article published in 1935, the only people who made any sort of money off the chain letter were those who got in on it first. The first person named on the list would only make money off the initial five people unless he rigged the game and mailed out over a hundred letters. The fifth person listed on the chain letter could make a substantial windfall, but after that first cycle of names, the chain letter would grow stagnant as more people received it and threw it into the trash. [Source 7]
Raised Money For Family In Need
Mr. Van de Water had severe rheumatism and was confined to his bed. His wife and daughter were in a dire mess because the head of the household could no longer provide for the family. Would you please send a coin or two to provide aid for this needy family and, in good spirit, send several copies of this letter to your friends?
Probably not in this day and age of extreme cynicism, but in 1916, it was estimated that the person who started this chain letter could have easily made millions of dollars.
Unfortunately, the family mentioned in the letter was a real family living in Portland, Oregon who felt humiliated and shamed by the letter’s false account of their situation. They publicly came out, stating that they did not initiate the chain letter, that the husband was not sick, and that they never received a penny of this “aid.”
The man who was listed in the letter as the person in charge of the fund was out of state at the time of the investigation and could not be reached for any questioning. [Source 8]
Stamps To Build A Children’s Ward
One chain letter that circulated throughout Australia in 1910 claimed that a hospital in New South Wales had very limited space for children and that many children were turned away at the door.
In order to combat such limited space, Miss So-and-So was supposedly told that if she could collect 500,000 used stamps, a new children’s ward would be built onto the hospital.
To reach this goal, Miss So-and-So started a chain letter, asking everyone to send her ten used stamps and to forward the letter on to three more people.
Needless to say, the whole thing was a scam. The woman receiving the used postage stamps was, it was assumed, either a stamp collector or she was selling the used stamps to other collectors. [Source 9]
The Hanky Club
People love getting “free” things through the mail and it was no different back in 1946. That is how the hanky club chain letter got its foothold in the history of unusual chain letters.
The whole idea of the club was to send out a hanky to the first person named on the list and then add the sender’s name to the bottom of the list. Within three days, the person who received the chain letter had to write out four copies of the letter and send them to their friends. By the end of the cycle, each person should receive 256 hankies.
It was a fabulous idea at that time for women who collected hankies and for those who used them regularly. The only cost was one hanky and postage for mailing the hanky and chain letters. What could go wrong? [Source 10]
Wave Your Legs
Chain letters were like inbox spam. There was no way to prevent them from showing up in the mailbox and finding the originator of the letter was often difficult or even impossible.
The letters annoyed a lot of people, but one man decided to have fun with the ridiculous superstitions involving the chains and wrote his own letter in 1932.
Calling himself Norma Shearer, he wrote:
“On receipt of this letter, stand on your head and wave your right leg three times in a northern direction’; then reverse and wave your left leg three times in a southerly direction. Wear nine horseshoes on your watch chain as good luck charms. This chain was first started by a mental patient in Goodna Asylum, so that it would go round the world three times, visit the moon, Venus, and Mars, and return to this planet.”
At the close of the chain letter, he advised the receiver to choose twelve other “idiots” to send the letter to. It is unknown how far the chain letter made its rounds, but it is certainly one of the more entertaining letters to hit the mail. [Source 11]
Wife Swapping Humor
While early chain letters were directed mostly towards women, a joke of a chain letter made its rounds among the men in the 1940s.
The chain letter promised to bring all the tired business men who participated in the chain the ultimate happiness in life. All a man had to do was copy and send the letter to five of his man friends, bundle up his wife, and “send her to the man whose name heads the list.”
By the time the man’s name reached the top of the receiving list, he could expect a shipment of 15,799 new wives.
Of course, the idea of having to feed and support all these women would have no doubt caused a tremendous amount of anxiety for some fellows, but the chain letter warns readers not to break the chain because “one guy broke it and got his wife back.”
One certainly hopes that no one took this particular chain letter seriously. [Source 12]
