Ten Years Among the Mail Bags / Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office Department

by James Holbrook

So, by way of beguiling the time before the arrival of the clerks, or for the sake of a little improving practice, he one morning looked over the Eastern mail, which lay spread before him, and selected a letter addressed by the Cashier of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of New York, to the Cashier of one of the banks in Boston, containing four thousand dollars in bank-notes of one thousand dollars each.

On the discovery of this "pile," the boy lost no time in "removing the deposits" to his own pocket, substituting for the bank-notes four pieces of paper of an equal size, cut from wrappers lying on the floor. He then resealed the letter and replaced it. The letter was forwarded by due course of mail, and when it was received at the bank, the Cashier discovered to his dismay that the money by some jugglery had been converted into brown paper; and the evident marks of breaking open and resealing, indicated unequivocally that some human agency had been engaged in working the spell.

Information of the loss was immediately conveyed to the New York office, much to the consternation and grief of all concerned, for this office had been considered a model one, and the clerks had taken pride in sustaining its character, to say nothing of their own; and now that suspicion was thrown among them by this daring act of dishonesty, which, from appearances, must have been committed by some one having access to the mails, they felt that all confidence in one another, as well as the confidence of community in them, would be greatly weakened, until the author of the deed should be discovered. It was suggested, indeed, that the robbery might have been committed in the Boston office, but circumstances rather favored the supposition that the guilt rested with New York.

The Post-Office Department at Washington was apprised of the facts in the case, and the attempts made to investigate the matter elicited a good deal of correspondence, which, however, produced no successful result.

Among other expedients, intimations were thrown out that a thorough search should be made of the residences and persons of the clerks, although it was not likely that the thief, whoever he might be, was so green as to keep the money for such a length of time, in any place where its discovery would be positive proof against him; and if the search were unavailing, the only result would be the infliction of mortification upon those who were innocent of the crime.

At this juncture, a ray of light appeared. It was then as well as now the practice of the assorting clerks to place the letters "mis-sent" and "overcharged," in a box by themselves, and one morning a letter of this description was mis-sent to this office, directed to Jamaica, L. I., which was accordingly placed in this box. On our return from breakfast this letter was found to be missing. As the boy before mentioned was the only occupant of the office during our absence, the disappearance of the letter naturally induced the belief that he had taken it. This second instance of delinquency assumed a double importance from the fact that the purloiner of this and the robber of the Boston letter, were in all probability one and the same person. Every exertion was therefore made to bring the truth to light.

One of the clerks was dispatched to Jamaica to ascertain whether the letter might not have been somehow received at that office, but his proposed investigations were prevented by the unofficial behavior of his horse, which, unmindful of the important business in hand, ran away, upset the carriage, and spilt out its contents. The clerk was so much injured as to be unable to proceed, and therefore returned without the desired information.

On the next morning, while the "drop letters" were being assorted, this letter was found among them and was identified. It had been broken open, examined, resealed, but not robbed of a draft for a large amount which it contained. Near the seal were written with a pencil the words "Picked up in Vesey Street."

The hand-writing was believed to be that of the suspected boy, and he was immediately charged with taking and breaking open the letter, which accusation he stoutly denied, but when he was assured that we knew his hand, that the words which he had written on the letter showed conclusively that he knew something of its whereabouts during its absence, and that it was our determination to investigate the matter thoroughly, his courage gave way, and he confessed opening the letter, but said he did not meddle with the draft which it contained, as he could make no use of it.

Having thus applied an entering wedge, I lost no time in turning to account the information already obtained, which I hoped would lead to the detection of the person who robbed the Boston letter. Indeed, I was entirely unprepared to admit the existence of two such rascals in the New York office, as such repeated instances of delinquency would imply, and was quite positive that the boy before me was the only culprit. I accordingly said to him, "Now, Samuel, I am glad for your sake that you have confessed your guilt in relation to this letter, and I hope you will be equally frank if you have been doing anything else of a similar nature. I strongly suspect that you robbed the Boston letter that we had so much trouble about, and if you did, the best thing you can do will be to confess it."