Sec. 45. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall buy, receive, or conceal, or aid in buying, receiving, or concealing, any article mentioned in the twenty-first section of this act, knowing the same to have been stolen or embezzled from the mail of the United States, or out of any post-office, or from any person having the custody of the said mail, or the letters sent or to be sent therein; or if any person shall be accessory after the fact to any robbery of the carrier of the mail of the United States, or other person intrusted therewith, of such mail, or of part thereof, every person, so offending, shall, on conviction thereof, pay a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and be imprisoned and confined to hard labor for any time not exceeding ten years. And such person or persons, so offending, may be tried and convicted without the principal offender being first tried, provided such principal offender has fled from justice, or cannot be found to be put on his trial.
Act of 1836.
Sec. 38. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall be accessory after the fact, to the offence of stealing or taking the mail of the United States, or of stealing or taking any letter or packet, or enclosure in any letter or packet sent or to be sent in the mail of the United States, from any post-office in the United States, or from the mail of the United States, by any person or persons whatever, every person so offending as accessory, shall, on conviction thereof, pay a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and be imprisoned for a term not exceeding five years; and such accessory after the fact may be tried, convicted, and punished in the district in which his offence was committed, though the principal offence may have been committed in another district, and before the trial of the principal offender: Provided, such principal offender has fled from justice, or cannot be arrested to be put upon his trial.
Sec. 28, Act of 1825.
* * * And if any person shall counterfeit the hand-writing or frank of any person, or cause the same to be done, in order to avoid the payment of postage, each person, so offending, shall pay, for every such offence, five hundred dollars.
Sec. 5, Act of 1845.
And be it further enacted, That if any person or persons shall forge or counterfeit, or shall utter or use knowingly, any counterfeit stamp of the Post-Office Department of the United States issued by authority of this act or by any other act of Congress, within the United States, or the post-office stamp of any foreign Government, he shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and, on conviction thereof in any court having jurisdiction of the same, shall undergo a confinement at hard labor for any length of time not less than two years, nor more than ten, at the discretion of the court.
Sec. 11, Act of 1847.
* * * And any person who shall falsely and fraudulently make, utter, or forge any postage stamp with the intent to defraud the Post-Office Department, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and on conviction shall be subject to the same punishment as is provided in the twenty-first section of the act approved the third day of March, eighteen hundred and twenty-five, entitled "An act to reduce into one the several acts establishing and regulating the Post-Office Department."
Act of 1851.