The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-08 00:00:00

FI?ENTII POST OFFICE ROBBTIRT.

The Court of Assizes on Wednesday tried a yonns
man named Lafont for stealing a great number• of let-
Vas, many of them containing money and se, 7;uzities,
from the Post-office. In February last complait its were
made at the Post-office that several letters which had
been posted on the 24th and 29th January ha d never
reached their destination, and a day or two se- reral of
them, some sealed, where torn open, together with some
bills of exchange and law papers, which had been
picked up in the Seine by a boatman, were taken to
the Pi st-office. The attempts made to discover the
pErson who had abstracted the letters failed. In April
it was ascertained that another robbery of about E;0 let-
ters, several of them containing money or securities, had
been perpetrated, but the thief could not be discovered.
One of the letters was addressed to a M. Boulaxd, and
contained a Treasury bill for 2,000 f. This per's( in went
on the 12th May to the Treasury to request t hat the
bill should not be paid, and whilst there, singulf it to re-
late, a commissionnaire came in with it. The i :tommis-
sionnaire stated that be had been sent to present it for
payment by a young man who was waiting for him in
the Rue des Bourdonnais. This young man was at once
arrested, and on being seized he exclaimed, " I am
caught ?" He turned out to be Lafort, who vas em-
ployed at the Post-office to collect the bundles of sorted
letters and to fasten theni up in bags. He afte r a while
made a full confession, from which it appear( d tl M he
bad committed even more numerous and more .important
ronheries than had been supposed. Thus, on the 2d
January he stole a letter containing two drafts for 1,000
dollars each, addressed to aM. Claurs. On tht 3d Jan.
he stole a letter bearing the Birmingham po at mark,
addressed to a pries t named Rodez, of the neighb ourhood
of Arras, containing 22 bills of exchange a ind two
halves of bank-notes. On the sth of the same month,
he took a letter, containing nine bills of exe hange,
addressed to a iralesman at Troyes. On the B,th, he
stole seven letters containing 33 bills of exchange;
on the 9th, a letter containing five bills; on the
24th, thirty-three letters containing bills, notes, or secu-
rities (in one of them from Mexico was 1,000 f., and in
another, addressed to the lady superior of the House of
Refuge at Blois, was 300 f. in notes), and on the same
day 113 letters, in which there were no securities. On
the 29th, he obstructed eight letters, in which were bills
or notes, and 90 in which there were none. On the 6th,
10th, 12th, and 13th April he stole about 80 letters, but
all that he found in them was two Reman bonds ; and
on the 30th of the same month, be stole 40 letters, but
the only one which contained anything of value was
that addressed to Boulard above mentioned. All the
letters stolen, the prisoner either burnt or threw into the
river ; and the money he obtained from them he spent in
debauchery. The jury declared him guilty, with exten-
uating circumstances, and the court sentenced him to
five years' imprisonment and five years' surveillance of •
he police.

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