[texhax] Trivial in Plain TeX---what about LaTeX?

[Jan-Martin Wagner]

> I do have a solution that is just too ugly to show. In addition, 
> there is probably some solution to be had that, by its elegance,
> will embarrass me by my display of ignorance.

Maybe this not exactly what you wanted, but I think it comes close:

 \documentclass{letter}
 \begin{document}
   
 \begin{letter}

 The City of Winnipeg\footnote{This information can be found at
 \textsf{http://www.winnipeg.ca}} is located at the junction of the Red
 and Assiniboine Rivers, almost at the geographic centre of North
 America. Winnipeg is situated in Latitude 49 degrees 54 minutes North,
 Longitude 97 degrees 8 minutes West, 64 km south of Lake Winnipeg and
 97 km north of the boundary line between Canada and the United States
 of America, almost midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and
 at an altitude of 232 m above the seaboard level of New York.
   
 \end{letter}

  \end{document}

Cheers, Jan-Martin

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Dipl.-Phys. Jan-Martin Wagner

  Institut fuer Festkoerpertheorie   Tel.: + 49 - 36 41 - 94 71 67
  und Theoretische Optik,            Fax:      ...      - 94 71 52
  Fr.-Schiller-Universitaet Jena

  IFTO, Max-Wien-Platz 1,            jmw at ifto.physik.uni-jena.de
  D-07743 Jena, Germany              www.ifto.uni-jena.de/~jmartin