A crossed letter is a

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...

letter which contains two separate sets of writing, one written over the other at right-angles. This was done during the early days of the postal system in the 19th century to save on expensive postage charges, as well as to save paper. This technique is also called cross-hatching or cross-writing. A cross letter is distinct from a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...

, as cross-hatched manuscripts were written this way at one sitting or for the same purpose (such as a diary), rather than being re-used later.

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External links

* Letters (message) Manuscripts Postal systems Writing {{writingsystem-stub