Nor indeed, if the accused can prove, or it is made to appear upon the evidence of the prosecution, that the letter was placed in the mail or came into a post-office, prepared and intended as a decoy, and was not intrusted to the mail in the way of bonâ fide correspondence, is the criminality of taking it thereby absolved: even if the evidence advances another stage, and shows that the decoy was aimed at and intended for the particular person caught by it, (The United States v. Laurence, 2 McLean R. 441; The United States v. Foye, 1 Curtis R. 307-8.)
These decisions enforce the manifest policy of the statute. The post-office establishment, and the enactments maintaining the security of its action and the fidelity of persons employed in it, compose a great national measure, and the laws governing and protecting it are to be construed so as to subserve the public good, and not with a view to what might be a reasonable rule in transactions between individuals. But I apprehend that even in individual transactions, the agents of a bank, a merchant's clerk, or a domestic servant could not protect themselves against a criminal or civil charge of appropriating the effects of their employers, by proof that the property had been placed within their reach by its owner, in distrust of their honesty, and for the purpose of testing it.
The method adopted by the Department to detect offenders under this law, does not appear to me objectionable in the point of view pressed by the counsel for the accused. No further temptation or facility to the commission of the offence is thereby placed before such offenders than must necessarily be presented in the daily business of their trusts. These packages were in every respect the same in appearance, and with only the same indications of enclosing money, as ordinary letters by which remittances are made. And it seems to me when it comes to be understood by persons handling such packages in the mail or destined for it, that a watchful eye may be following each package from office to office, and noticing everything done to it, that the apprehension of such supervision may act almost with the force of a religious consciousness of accountability, in awing wicked purposes and preventing criminal actions.
I am persuaded that letters would rarely be intercepted in their transmission by post, if every person concerned in mailing or carrying them, could be impressed with the idea that each package enclosing valuables, may be but a bait seeking to detect whoever may be dishonest enough to molest it, and to become a swift witness for his conviction and punishment.
The jury convicted the prisoner, and on the 29th day of December, 1854, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.
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