Omaha daily bee., 1874-07-20
OMAHA POSTAL "IRRE6-
ULARlTlES."
Postmaster Yost has Serious
Charges Preferred Against
Him, as has also Special
Mail Agent Furay.
An Investigation t. be Had
Next Week.

For some time past the BEE has
been aware that charges were being
prepared to be sent on to Washing
ton and there preferred against
Postmaster Casper E. YOst, of this
city. Those charges were forward
ed to the postal authorities at
Washington recently, and an in
veshgation was ordered. Special
Agent Hawley was instructed to
visit Omaha for that purpose, and
he would have been here last week
had it not been for his detention in
Chicago by the fire.
He will arrive here on Tuesday
next, and will at once prOaeed to in
vestigate the matter. The charges
against Mr.. Yost are quite numer-
Gus, and are certainly of a more
serious nature than those which
were the means of ousting lis pre-
decessor. They were preferred by
F. r. Bye, a postal clerk on the
Union Pacific railway, and they are,
in substance, briefly as follows:
L. He Is charged with specu-
lating on mail contracts, and
defrauding the government out
of a certain sum of money
The manner in which this was
done was this: A certain mail con-
tractor was about to throw up his
contract. Mr.. Yost SO arranged it
with a postal clerk, who is now out
of the service, to allow the next
lowest bidder for the contract, a
livery man of Omaha, to obtain
the contract at this price, he pay
ing over SIS as q bonus. This SIS
was divided thus: $3.50 to YOst,
$3.50 to the now ex-postal clerk,
and $40 to another postal clerk for
some minor service that he did in
the transaction, and the Govern
ment had, of course, to
pay the price of the next lowest
bidder, which was considerably
higher than the first. This was
done Notwithstanding another liS-
eryman of Omaha had offered to
take the contract at the figures of
the original contractor. All can and
! will be substantiated by the ex-
postal clerk.
2. He is charged with speculating
ON clerks salaries, by advancing
them money, and charging them
interest at the rate of S. to $40 q
month per 500.
8. He is charged with having had
one clerk in his Office, who was on the
! payroll for S125 per month, but who
received only 500.
4. He is charged with allowing
Pattee, while he was in the lottery
business, to cancel his own stamps,
and send his lottery circulars
through the mails contrary to the
regulations.
5. He is charged with permitting
3 clerk in his Office of drawing two
salaries from the government at the
same time. The clerk referred to
gets 81, 700 per year, and not long
ago he drew 500 from the govern
ment for Q contract of planting
trees at the national cemetery at
Fl. Mcpherson.
Another charge connects him,
in some way, it is said, with the
following somewhat irregular tran
saction: A postal clerk on one of
the Iowa roads received three big
sacks of mail, consisting of Pattee's
circulars. He did not intend to
distribute it, but upon finaing an
official envelope marked ''tracer,"
he opened 1t, and discovered $40 in
side and a request that he distribute
the mail matter. He did so.
Charges have also been preferred
against John B. Furay, special mail
agent, the nature of which we are
not yet permitted to state.
These charges, if proved true, will
agitate the postal menagerie, and
the investigation is looked forward
to with a great deal of interest by
the pubic generally, as rumors of
the investigation have been afioat
for some few weeks past.