St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1880-11-05
The Chinese Forgery.
A sTUrENDoUs WRONG ATTEMPTED.

We presume that before this paper is
printed nearly all interest in the Chi
nese letter alleged to have been written
by Gen. Garfield, will have passed
away; but as at the present writing
this is the all-absorbing topic, we will
give a summary of the history of this
remarkable transaction.
When we went to press last week,
the forgery had been published and also
Garfield's denial. But this was not suf
ficient. The Republicans could not let
such stupendous wrong to a promi
nent man, and possibly to the country,
go without hunting down and exposing
if not Furnishing the perpetrator. This
was partially accomplished when one
Kinward Philip, an editor of New York
paper misnamed the Truth, was found
to be the man. He was arrested and is
being tried before Judge Davis of New
York-the same man who tried Tweed
for libel. The following is a snmma-
ry of what has been proved:
The Morey letter is dated Jan. %,
1880. 1t is claimed to have been trans
mitted through the mail to Lynn, Mass.
The envelope in which it is said TO have
been so transmitted is produced by
Philips counsel. On that envelope there
are three distinct lines of erasure, cor
responding in position to the place
where, if this envelope had been previ-
ously used, the address to the person,
the city or town and the state would
naturally come. The erasures are dis
tinctly visible to the naked eye. What
words have been erased cannot be seen
except that at the end of the first eras-
ed line, the word Esq, can be made
out. In this envelope, which has thus
obviously had upon it some other adj
dress than that which now appears, the
Morey letter is alleged to have been
transmitted through the mail to Lynn,
Mass. This envelope has upon it an
undoubted stamp, showing that it has
been in the New York post office. But
it is undisputed that by the routine of
the post Office, no letter posted in
Washington and addressed to Lynn
could come into the New York post
office. The bags containing such let
tiers pass directly from the cars at Jer-
sey City to the Boston cars in the up
per part of the city. On Sundays, how
ever, as there is no morning train to
Boston, the bags remain in the New
York post Office, but are never unlock
ed or opened. This alone shows that
when this envelope was i'll the mail, it
was not addressed to Lynn, but was ad-
dressed to some person in New York
city. But, more than this, there are in
New York Is sub-statiOns to which the
general post office in that city sends
letters received there by the mails and
addressed to persons residing or having
their places of business within the dis
trict in which the sub-station is situat-
ed. On receipt of a letter at one of
these sub-statiOns it is again stamped.
The envelope produced has on
it the stamp of Il sub-station, thus
showing that it has not only been in the
general post office in New York, but has
been sent from there to a sub-station in
that city. What sub-statiOn it was
cannot be ascertained, as that has also
been erased from the center of the
stamp. The result of this evidence is
that under the system prevalent in the
| POob OhiSS1 a. iOhtOA POceOA - W
ton and addressed to Lynn could not
under any circumstances get into the
New York post office. If however it
accidently got there, it could not from
there get to sub-station. 1t is by this
alone made perfectly obvious that the
envelope is fraud, that the envelope
of letter which was originally address
ed to and received in New York has
been taken, the address erased and a
new address to H. L. Morey, Lynn,
Mass, written upon it, and that it has
never been in the mail with that ad-
dress on it.
This address to Morey is, by the ad-
mission of all parties, in the same hand
writing as the body of the Morey letter.
This envelope was probably selected
for alteration because it has on it the
printed stamp of the House of Repre-
sentatives. But the undisputed truth
goes further. The Morey letter is dat