The weekly Arizonian., 1859-08-11
T. HOWARD WELLS, Editor.
SPECIAL AGENT HoLBRooK.

t. s {
 We extract the following graphic and pleasr antly written sketch of James Holbrook, author of Ten Years among the Mail Bags" and the we'll known post office detective, from series of papersnow being published in the New York ] Leader, entitled People we Meet,n'ut |'br
 Very agile, very dapper, dressed in neat pro- fessional black, and always looking as ifhe had just dressed for professional visit to his belo- we'd "department," this gentleman, rather below the middle height, and of slender but active build, with piercingly keen black eyes, framed under heavy black eyebrows in horid New En- gland features, and these again framed in a dense black growth of oval whlskers4-th;s ac- tiye and perplexingly subtle physiognomist
 whose quick black eye seems to flash into the very depths of your nature,1is James Hobrook, author of Ten Years among the Mail Bags" and for the last twenty years or more the most trusted and reliable Special Agent of the Post Office authorities at Washington. Born to full | precisely his present business with iss4tissss $ . Sch have never misled or deceived him. and with a magnetic power which extracts conf dence and confession from the least promising natures-James Holbrook, we scruple not t1 say, has done more real public service, and pre- vented more public injuries in the department with which he is connected than can be readily imagined by any one who have not been initia- ted in the mysteries of post office routine. The very nature of his business prevents it's general recognition and the complex investigations through wbich he marches to result expected from the first, are not of the kind which it would do to ventilate; and more eager to be useful than to be praised for being so, he does his ut most to suppress and public mention of his name in the announcement of those discoveries and detections which his perseverance and acuteness have accomplished. We hear of leaks discovered in the New England and New York districts, frauds detected, errors detected,
 mail robbers arrested, and immense sums sent through the post office and long mourned as lost, suddenly restored to the rightful owners; i; but nothing is said iu the notices of these mat ters to point attention to the omnipresent ever
 working Special Agent whose invisible but eer- tain hand has yielded the sword of justice and pulld the wires by which these strange events have been produced. Itis not too much to say thatthe money rescued and restored to the public in any average week of Mir. HolbroOk' s service, would more than pay the insufficient salary which is allowed him for the year while in the more important character of a preventive to crlme-an Ominous, overshadowing retrbu- tion constantly at hand-felt in all the depart ments of the service, and dreaded by all Ihe Buily ly--uiS reputation anu HIS Value cannOt possibly be ovorestimated Despite his hard ex- perience of human infrmity aud error he car ries sound, warm generous heart into all his private relations; and his little country seat in beloved Connecticut is a secure haven of do. mestic peace, to which he flies for rest and re- taxation in the few unoccupied moments of his busy and anxious life Wherever James Hol- brook travels, be sure that the telegraph wires are flashing words of doom to those who suspect nothing of his presence: the keen black eyes are reading terrible stories every where and the compact, energetic mind is wet ving all the mi mute details of guilt into one consistent and un- broken chain. Enjoying the fullest c6a6dtnte of Government, and famed for penolna tInn in all the departmeats qt secret iayes44gaiiop, his services are otteh called into r59Uis't0n in diff. fcult eases outside the post office limit and it ia but very recently tLa. a tempting o8er wa5