A ghost of municipal bureaucracy survives in pristine penmanship — this December 4, 1893 official government postal card from Medford, Massachusetts notified a resident named Edward that the estimated cost of constructing particular sewer No. 381 at 152 Salem Street was $18.00, a tidy sum in the Gilded Age. The card instructs Edward to deposit this amount with the City Treasurer, whose receipt must accompany the formal application; the amount would credit toward the final sewer cost but was explicitly "not a full or final settlement." Signed in a confident copperplate hand by the clerk, E. G. L. Littlefield, this pre-linen government-issue postal card bears the printed United States America "Postal Card – One Cent" header on its reverse, with a postmark struck at Medford on December 5, 1893. The "COLLECTOR" watermark stamp appears twice on the face, suggesting this card passed through a tax or collector's office archive before entering the philatelic market. A rare and highly specific piece of New England municipal history that brings the infrastructure-building era of the 1890s vividly to life.