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

by James Holbrook

The seals of the rifled letters were important witnesses in this case. In the resealing, uncommonly large wafers of a peculiar shade had been used, as well as a particular kind of stamp, which circumstances satisfactorily proved that all the robberies were the handi-work of one person, and probably at a single locality. The letters had in each instance been detained somewhere one day longer than the time usually required for their passage over the route.

Now there are certain features or symptoms, so to speak, in cases of mail depredations which go far to assist one accustomed to their investigation in determining whether they have occurred in large or small post-offices, and to distinguish with tolerable accuracy, between city and country embezzlements. A city depredator seldom if ever confines his operations to letters passing over a particular route. Indeed he could scarcely do so were he to attempt it, for in the usual division of labor, a dozen letters arriving on separate days would be likely to be taken charge of by as many different hands, and if letters were passing each way on the same route, it would be still more difficult for the same person to purloin from both, as the receiving and forwarding departments are generally if not always entirely distinct.

Neither is it a city symptom to reseal and replace a letter after it has been rifled, for the reason, among others, that the depredator is not willing, after having succeeded in purloining it, to incur the additional risk of smuggling it back again. While in country or village post-offices, the thefts must in most cases be confined to one route, and there is more leisure and better opportunity for the resealing and returning process.

For similar reasons, the loss or robbery of a number of letters addressed to the same party or business firm, although arriving by different routes, would not necessarily place a city post-office clerk under suspicion, since he could scarcely have a motive for such a selection among the thousands of valuable letters coming into his custody. On the contrary, if he were disposed to be dishonest, he would be more likely to take A.'s letter to-day, B.'s to-morrow, and C.'s the next day. Neither would it, in the case just supposed, be probable that there was a rogue on each of the different routes. The theory which experience and observation have established, would be that the repeated embezzlements had been carried on by some dishonest messenger outside the office who had in his power only the correspondence with which he had been intrusted. At all events, such a conclusion would be fully justified by the very frequent discoveries of similar delinquencies in our cities and large towns.

The peculiar features in the present case showed quite plainly that neither the New York nor Ogdensburg offices were implicated, and that the depredations had occurred somewhere between the latter and the mailing office.

An important question now arose, namely, what postmaster between these points used wafers similar to those upon the rifled letters. Having entire confidence in the Ogdensburg post master, I requested him to write to each of the post masters on the suspected route, asking for information on indifferent subjects and requiring replies. One was requested to send a copy of the post-bill from his office to Ogdensburg of a certain date. Another was inquired of to know whether a letter remained in his office addressed to Timothy Saunders; another to know whether there was once a clerk in his office by the name of Philip Barton, and if so, where he was at present residing. In this way letters were obtained from all these post masters in the course of a few days, and the mode of sealing was in each case particularly examined. Upon one of these letters the large wafer was found! There was not only the kind of wafer, but the stamp identical with that used upon the rifled letters.

For a few days after this, the exterior of all the letters received at Ogdensburg, and which passed through the suspected office, were carefully examined to see if they had been disturbed. This examination showed plainly that a number had been opened, and resealed either with the large wafer, or by the use of the original seals, which of course were mutilated.

Careful inquiry of some who knew the suspected post master, showed that he was a merchant in good standing, against whom no charge of dishonesty had ever been preferred.

The next thing to be done was to visit a point beyond him, in order to pass decoy letters through his hands, on their way to the Ogdensburg office.

Accompanied by a citizen of Ogdensburg, whose services I had secured as a guide, I started in a private conveyance, and when we had arrived within ten miles of the office of the big wafers, we turned into a by-road so as to avoid passing through the village in which it was situated. At a short distance from the village upon the road aforesaid, we saw a sleigh approaching, (it was the month of December, and capital sleighing,) and as it drew near, my companion remarked that he believed its occupant was Mr. Willis, the very person we were endeavoring to avoid! My friend knew Mr. W. by sight, but was not sure that Mr. W. knew him.