"A letter said to have been posted by a person at Fochabers, enclosing a letter of credit for £50, was supposed to have been appropriated by an officer of the Post-office; but on inquiry it was ascertained that, instead of posting the letter himself, as he asserted, the writer had intrusted it to a servant, who had destroyed the letter, and had attempted to negotiate the order."
"A person complained repeatedly of letters addressed to him having been intercepted and tampered with, and of drafts having been stolen from them and negotiated. There being ground to suspect that the thief was in the complainant's own office, he reluctantly consented to test the honesty of his clerks; and the result showed that one of them was the guilty party, the man being subsequently tried and convicted. The thefts had been committed by means of a duplicate key, which gave the clerk access to the letter-box."
"Several complaints were made of the non-delivery of letters addressed to the editor of a newspaper; but this gentleman afterwards intimated that he had discovered that the delinquent was his own errand-boy, who confessed to having pilfered his letter-box."
"A similar case occurred at Romsey, where, on an investigation by the surveyor, it was discovered that the applicant's errand-boy had abstracted the letters from his private bag, which it was found could be done even when the bag was locked."
"Application was made respecting a letter containing a cheque for £79, 12s. 11d., which had been presented and cashed. The letter had not been registered, and no trace of it could be discovered. The applicants, however, ultimately withdrew their complaint against the Post-office, stating their belief that the missing letter had not been posted, but had been stolen by one of their clerks, who had absconded."
"A merchant sent his errand-boy to post a letter, and to purchase a stamp to put upon it. The letter contained negotiable bills amounting to £1200; and as the merchant did not receive an acknowledgment from his correspondent, he cast the blame on the Post-office. An inquiry followed, which resulted in showing that the errand-boy had met another boy on a similar mission, who undertook to post the letter in question. On further reflection, however, the latter resolved to convert the penny intended for a postage-stamp into sweetmeats, which he did, and then destroyed the letter with its contents, carrying the fragments into a field near the Post-office, where they were found hidden."
A sailor applied for a missing letter containing a money-order for 30s., which he said had been sent, but had not reached him; but when he found that the matter was under strict investigation, he confessed that the money had been paid to him, and that he had denied having received it, in order to excuse himself from not paying a debt to the person with whom he lodged.
"A person having applied for a missing letter, said to contain two £10 and one £5 Bank of England notes, and which he stated had been sent to him by his father, it appeared on inquiry that no such letter had been written; and he afterwards confessed that his object in asking for the letter was a device to keep in abeyance a pecuniary demand upon him by his landlady."
Some years ago a person complained that twelve sovereigns had been abstracted from a letter received by him while it was in transit through the post, but he was told in reply that the envelope bore evidence that it had not contained coin to that amount. This person then communicated with the sender of the letter, who persisted in declaring that she had put therein the amount stated. At this stage of the inquiry an officer was despatched to investigate the matter; and upon his requiring the woman who had sent the envelope to accompany him before a magistrate to attest the truth of her statement upon oath, she confessed that the statement was false, and explained her conduct by saying that she had promised to lend the person to whom the envelope had been addressed £12, but that she had been unwilling to do so, as she felt sure that she should never get her money back again; and that she determined, therefore, to keep her money, and throw the blame on the Post-office.
"A bank in Glasgow some years ago complained that a letter had been delivered there without its contents—halves of bank-notes for £75; and on a strict investigation, it appeared that the letter had been intrusted to a boy to post, who confessed that, being aware the letter contained money, and finding that the wafer with which it was fastened was wet, he had been tempted to steal the contents, which, at the time, he believed to be whole notes; but who added that when, on afterwards examining them, he found them to be halves only, he enclosed them in an unfastened sheet of paper, which he directed according, as he believed, to the address of the letter from which he had taken them. The halves of the notes and sheet of paper were subsequently discovered in the Glasgow Post-office, the address on the paper being, however, very different from that of the letter in which the notes had been enclosed."