many of which, as we can prove, never reached their employers, but were opened and the money extracted. Under the old State laws this was laid down as simply a breach of trust: it is now made a criminal offence, and subjects the guilty party to imprisonment. Since the passage of this law there have been but few such breaches of trust.
In another portion of this work we have alluded to the decoy system as being uncalled for and insulting to the employees. It does seem as if the public and even postmasters themselves have an idea that dishonesty is a national calamity, and that it becomes a duty with them to suspect alike all who are in their employ. Suspicion, however, is no proof; and we are inclined to think that many open robberies of the government can be traced to the fact that high positions seem to sanction the deed. The poor wretch who steals a loaf of bread to keep his family from starving finds no mercy at the hands of the law, while the wholesale robber, the thief of millions, is simply required to make the amount stolen good! Where one public official robber is convicted for appropriating the public funds to his own use, thousands are annually tried and punished for taking a penny loaf! It is no wonder, therefore, that suspicion should haunt the guilty mind, and every man in power judge of others by the example set in high places.
Some years ago, long before the postal system became the mighty engine of power that it is now, a Philadelphia postmaster, since gathered to his fathers, openly stated that no man should intrust a clerk in the post-office (his own office) with the knowledge that a letter posted contained money!
How different is the English post-office in this respect from ours! There the employees are considered a part and portion of its national character, identified with it by all those ties which protection gives and justice sanctions. The government not only studies the present interest of all connected with the postal department, but amply provides for that of the future. (See p. 147.) Their confidence is not easily shaken; but like Othello, when they doubt, they prove; and on the proof there is no more but this:—Away at once!
IMPORTANT POSTAL TABLES.
The following tables, carefully prepared, fully prove that there is no surer test of the advance of business and commercial enterprise than that which is learned from the increase of postage. A glance at the table from 1790 shows a wonderful increase in the short space of eight or ten years, entirely unexampled in the history of the world; and taken in connection, as we think it may be, with a similar increase in other statistics, it sets all previous examples completely aside. The fact is, the country is ignorant of the history of our postal department, a knowledge of which would tend materially to strengthen that love of country which a state of ignorance naturally lessens. The post-office department should no longer be as a sealed book to the nation.
Statement of Receipts and Expenditures of the Post-Office Department under Various Heads, and by States, for the Year ending June 30, 1862.