Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-02-08

The recent arrest at the Boston pos. office,
of clerk named Marshal S. z. Laws, was
brought about principally from information
| derived at the Augusta Office by Postmaster
iamlen. As early as last August package
of about forty letters addressed to Augusta,
nearly all for f. c. Allen Co., was picked
up on an island in Boston harbor. They had
been robbed and thrown into the water. This
led to an investigation by special agent Field,
whose suspicious rested on the mail agents of
the Boston & Albany or New York Central
| roads. Search in that direction for the cul
prit proved unavailing. In September it was
noticed at the Augusta Office that large
number of adyices for money orders, nearly
all payable to f. c. Allen & Co., were re-
ceiyed, for which no corresponding orders
were presented. On writing to many of the
| remitters Of these orders it was found that
| they had been duly mailed, but were lost in
| transit. Complaint was made to the Post Of
| fee Department, which ordered special agent
| Carr of Bangor to investigate the case. A
! list of losses was also forwarded by Postmas-
gestion made that the facts pointed to that of
fee as the seat of the trouble. Special agent
Carr, after thorough examination of the Au-
gusta and Portland offices and the mail route
to Boston, reported to the department that in
his opinion the losses did not occur east of
Boston. Meanwhile the money order advces
at Augusta were entered by trains, as receiv
ed, and il was soon found that very large
proportion of the losses occurred on the night
Pullman train which reaches this city at A.
NJ. As prior to Dec. 18th that mail came
| through to Augusta without being opened,
the trouble was brought still nearer to the
Boston Office. Last Friday Postmaster Ham
len, becoming impatient at the continued rob-
berry of mails coming to this office, went to
Boston carrying with him many facts which
he had gathered, ard urging vigorous action.
The Postmaster at Boston was exceedingly
slow to believe that the guilty party was in
his office, but Laws was watched and was
seen to go from the sorting clerk to his over
| coat, hanging in the office. and put something
in the pocket. He was at once arrested, and
IL Was iouHu liat iie udu plaCeu III MS POCKET
| a package of through letters for Montreal,
some thirty in number, and through pack
age for Nova Scotia, some twenty in number,
none Of which he had yet opened, preparatory
to taking them to his home in Roxbury. Laws
stated with the utmost GOODNESS that he had
pursued his depredations constantly for more
than two years past, that he had taken bundle
after bundle to his house in Roxbury, and af-
ter opening and taking out their money con-
tents, had burned them up in the furnace.
He said that with the proceeds of his depreda-
tons he had built three dwelling houses on
Pickering place in Roxbury, upon which he
had paid more than SIG 900, and that he had
also deposited in various banks $4,000 or $4,000
more The amount stolen from Augusta par
ties cannot be far from $4,000. Laws has been
committed for trial in default of bail for $780,
900. He is twenty-five years of age, and I'M
married.
1t seems strange that this system of robbery
should be practiced for so long time at the
Boston office without detection and it must
be particularly gratifying to Postmaster Ham
len that he has been enabled to trace out with
so much accuracy the locality of the perpetra-
tor of the fraud