Fletcher, now that his hand was in, did keep it going, and in three weeks the fund was increased to two hundred and twenty-five dollars. Barrett had given him certain instructions, which he strictly followed: these were, not to take more than one package of letters at a time, and then only such as were passing through the office; nor was he to take any belonging to the Jackson office; also, he was to take no letters unless they had Washington City post-mark on them. The understanding between them was that Fletcher was to retain all the money until their final departure; then it was to be divided among them, or a treasurer appointed until they reached their wild-wood destination. Fletcher kept the money hid away, as Barrett told him it was dangerous to carry it about him. On several occasions, however, he tried to get money out of Fletcher, but the latter invariably refused to advance a cent, holding the former to the bond, which was not to use any of the money until their general meeting previous to their departure West. It seems, however, that about this time the losses were being looked to by the post-office department, and, for reasons which are foreign to the matter in hand, young Fletcher exhibited a more liberal spirit to a boy named Brownson than he did to Barrett, by furnishing him with forty dollars to enable him to run away from home. It was not a very difficult matter on the part of the department to trace the robbery as soon as the money from letters was missing. Once on the railroad of suspicion, the detective soon reached the depot,—the scene of theft.
The boy Fletcher was at first supposed to be the only person concerned in the affair; but the investigation developed the facts above stated, and Barrett, who had suddenly left for New York, was arrested at Genesee on the 9th of June. On the 16th he was taken to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where the United States District Court was held; on the 17th he was put on trial; on the 18th found guilty; and on the 20th he was lodged in the Western Penitentiary at Alleghany City, Pennsylvania, the court having sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment. Barrett’s age was fifty-six, which influenced the court in shortening the term of imprisonment.
The principal witness against Barrett was young Fletcher. A large number of letters was found at a place designated by him. One hundred and sixty dollars and other mailable matter were found where he said they were concealed. The most important item of testimony, however, was that which related to a silver half-dollar, which Fletcher alleged he had taken out of a letter, and which he had sold to Barrett for sixty cents in currency. It was ascertained that a drafted man, on leaving for the army, had taken inadvertently with him a half-dollar belonging to his little son. At the time the tampering was going on with letters at the post-office, he had enclosed a half-dollar in a letter to his wife to replace the one he had taken away with him. This letter had to pass through the Jackson office, but it never reached its destination. Doubtless this was the one out of which Fletcher got the half-dollar sold to Barrett. It is a curious fact in the history of criminals that their detection, in nine cases out of ten, is caused by some very trifling incident connected with the operations. So it was in this case.
The 126th section of the act of Congress of March 3, 1825, makes the opening, embezzling, or destroying of mail-letters or packages containing articles of value an offence punishable with imprisonment not less than two, nor more than ten, years. The 129th section of the same act provides “That every person who, from and after the passage of this act, shall procure and advise, or assist, in the doing or perpetration of any of the acts or crimes by this act forbidden, shall be subject to the same penalties and punishments as the persons are subject to who shall actually do or perpetrate any of the said acts or crimes, according to the provisions of this act.” It was under this clause Barrett was convicted, and it is, perhaps, the only case of the kind on record.
This interesting case—and were all the details given it would prove highly so—came under the official management of S. B. Row, Esq., special agent of the post-office department for the State of Pennsylvania. The moment the first intimation was received of the mails being tampered with, he fixed upon his starting-point, and, with a sure eye to the end, he pursued his course until he arrived at Jackson, and by a little stratagem the whole plot was discovered. He traced it from the first step young Fletcher made into crime, after receiving his lesson from Barrett, up to the loss of the silver half-dollar. The case, if fairly written out, with all the details, would make an invaluable paper for some Sunday-school tract-publishing institution. It is, indeed, a lesson for youth.
THE DISHONEST MERCHANT.
Crime in high places has of late become fashionable; law itself has become aristocratic, and maintains its character for partiality by shielding aristocratical rascals beneath its wings. Justice is no longer blind,—at least, one of its eyes is open,—and the distinguishing marks on a greenback, denoting its value, are readily discerned by the goddess. The poor wretch who steals a loaf of bread to save his children from starvation invariably gets on the blind side of Justice, and, of course, the sense of hearing, and not of seeing, is exercised in his case. Bacon, in his Essay of Judicature, says, “The place of justice is an hallowed place, and, therefore, not only the bench, but the foot-pace, and precincts, and purprise thereof, ought to be preserved without scandal and corruption.” The fate of the bread-snatcher is an evidence that the precincts of justice and the foot-pace to its throne must be paved with gold, or his chance, or that of any other poor man, from escape is totally impossible. The man who steals a loaf of bread commits a crime: he should be punished: so should the man who swindles the government, robs the widow, commits forgery, nay, even murder, but whose wealth paves the way for his acquittal. (See records of our courts.)
In the following case it will be observed that the postal department, having some knowledge of the manner business is conducted in our courts, took the matter into its own hand, the chief clerk acting as detective, judge, and jury, and who settled the case in a manner, without loss of time or money, highly satisfactory to all, save the guilty party, who, shortly after the scene we are about to describe, was compelled to quit the city and left for parts unknown.
The gentleman(?) who is the hero of the narrative—for he was recognized as a gentleman in society—had been in the frequent receipt, by mail, of remittances in large and small sums. Not long since he made his appearance at the desk of the chief clerk in the post-office, and alleged that he had just taken from his box a letter from which a draft on a city bank for about one hundred dollars had been fraudulently abstracted, and, as the point from which the letter had been mailed was but a short distance from Philadelphia, he was confident that the draft had been abstracted by some one in the post-office here. This imputation on the character of the office nettled the chief clerk, and that functionary determined to sift the matter to the bottom and ferret out the criminal, if such there was. He made the necessary inquiries as to the day the letter was due here, closely cross-examined the clerks, and, after a diligent investigation, proceeded to the bank on which the draft was drawn. He found that it had been paid, and bore the indorsement, or seeming indorsement, of the loser. He borrowed the draft and brought it to the office. On comparing the apparently-forged signature of the loser on the back of the document with the handwriting of a certain night-clerk, a remarkable resemblance was discovered. Several experts were called in, and declared that the handwriting of the clerk and the chirography of the “forger” were one and the same. A clerk in the bank was privately shown the suspected clerk, and he identified him as the man to whom the money had been paid! The network seemed to be closing around the poor night-clerk, and it was determined that he should be arrested. The chief clerk, jubilant at his discovery, sent for the merchant who said he had lost the draft. While the chief clerk and the merchant were closeted in the postmaster’s private office, and the former was detailing his success to the merchant, he observed, as he proceeded with the recital, that the merchant began to wear a livid hue; his countenance assumed a pallid aspect, in which a guilty conscience seemed to come to the surface to horrify and disgust the beholder. Trembling lips, too, were seen, and, as the truth in all its damning meanness flashed across the mind of the chief clerk, he at once boldly charged the merchant with having written his own signature in a feigned hand, so as to secure the spoils of his own guilt and ruin an innocent man. The guilty, miserable creature, overwhelmed with confusion, confessed his guilt and implored mercy. He acknowledged his criminality in the whole transaction,—a transaction which was about to stain forever the reputation of an honest, hard-working man, whose only capital was his skill as a scrivener and his integrity in his clerical position. The chief clerk, determined that the reputation of the night-clerk should be vindicated, threatened to have the guilty merchant exposed and punished unless he proceeded to a magistrate at once and made an affidavit confessing the crime in all its details. The merchant humiliated himself by signing and swearing to the odious confession, and the matter there rested.