Morning journal and courier., 1884-10-04
THE POSTAL THIEF CAUGHT.

been traced to the th1ef who cOmm1CCeo bneAu and the culprit now languishes in the tolls The guilty party proves to be Albert Bowen, the colored janitor of the postof1ee. He was arrested yesterday afternoon by United l States Marshal George R. Bill and Inspector L. A. Newcome, who ferreted out the rob 1 Der, and taken before United States Com missioner Johnson T. Platt. He was bound over under $1 ,0O0 bonds.
 To get clear understanding of the affair it may be well to go back little. About the middle of August the Yale Silk com pany missed letter that had been opened
 and left in the postoffice box during the day ! The next day other letters were missed. Mr. l George G. Powning, the manager of the com l pany, undertook a little detective work, and | satisfied himself that some of the men who were at work in the office at night were | taking the letters. He hired detective who watched the box from the outside, and even changed the lock on the box, but the | thefts went on. MT. Powning went at once to
 Mr. Sperry and made complaint
 Last Monday New York broker named
 Crosby sent some telephone securities to
 Mr. Watrous in Easthampton, Mass, in reg I reached Easthampton the securities had been I taken out and piece of brown paper care
 fully folded up in their place and the letter
 sealed down with mucilage. The letter had | lain in drawer in the money order office of
 the New Haven postoffce during Monday night. As soon as the loss was reported, Postmaster Sperry notified the New York office, telegraphed to MT. Newcome, who is | the head of the postoffce detective depart ment for Connecticut, New Jersey and south
 ern New York, and telegraphed Messrs. Cros- | by and Watrous to come here. MT. Sperry met MT. Newcome at the depot. At the lat ter's suggestion MT. Sperry left town, as the
 detectives always prefer to have the post | masters away when working up such cases. | The detective commenced his investigation l He had the envelope containing the regis l tered letter and the brown paper that was substituted for the telephone certificates On | this paper was the imprint in hardened mu- | cilage of the bottom of mucilage cup. On measuring it it was found to correspond | precisely with the somewhat peculiar one | used in the money order office in 1 this city. That was the first clue. That led Mir. Newcoms to believe that the theft was 1 made in the New Haven office. But the
 paper itself was unlike anything that was in
 use at that office, so that the detective was not yet completely satisfied that he was on
 the right track. But his investigations at New York, on the road and at Easthampton | led him to the belief that the thief was To- cated here in New Haven, so he worked | ahead, convinced that he was on the track of the thief.
 It should be said that watch had for two weeks been set upon the night clerks in the office MT. E. E. Boyd, chief clerk, and one of the assistant clerks watched from beneath
 heaps of mail bags and in other places where they could see and not be seen, but could not detect any one of the night clerks in stealing.
 After working up the case for awhile and eonferring with MT. Boyd, MT. Newcome's suspicious were narrowed down to two men.
 One of these was the colored janitor, Albert
 Bowen. Thursday night the first positive in
 dication against him came out. Messrs Newcome and Sperry went into the basement
 of the postoffice where he sleeps. Bowen was sleeping sound1y. They cautiously opened his wardrobe and found cigar box in which were some broken envelopes,
 some $7 or $8 in money and about fifty cents worth of postage stamps. The envel-
 opes were directed to West 6 Co.,, New
 Haven. They are card dealers. Nothing
 else could be found at that time Subsequently 1 the boy awakened and charged with l the thefts He denied any knowledge l of them whatever, said he never had taken
 
 l time, but the janitor was placed under strict l surveillance Messrs. Newcome and Boyd went to West & Go. with one of the post | marked envelopes and after much search found postal card which came from the same place as the letter found in the ianitor's possession, Pennsville, Ohio and asking why
 the response to his order had not been receiv- ed. The card was signed J. N. Dougan. Bowen was arrested yesterday afternoon.
 He saw that he was in for it. The evidence against him was made known, and he confess
 ed, first to Detective Newcome and later to
 Mir. Sperry, that he had taken letters from the Yale Silk company, West & Co.,, and the Eagle Card company, while sweeping out in the morning between and 8 o'clock.
 But he denied any other thefts. Mir. Sperry
 questioned him closely and finally he admitted
 taking the registered letter package contain ing the telephone securities. These were found in the basement of the postof1ce un- derneath pile of mail bags in a cupboard where labels, tags, etc., are kept. Hid
 curely away so that it was with great difficult ty that they were found was the much talked
 of package containing five shares of the Overland Telephone company's stock, worth about $425. So the thief was caught and the New Haven postofice officials are happy
 Bowen is young man only twenty-one years old. His father is mason here. He had been janitor one year and half, hay ing succeeded James Adolphus Fuller, who was promoted to letter carrier. Previous to his undertaking the janitorship Bowen was employed as a servant by MT. Sperry and was considered very honest, faithful and capable. He says he has not been at it long, \ but was first tempted to steal just before go- ing to camp at Mantle, he is a member of the colored company and wanted money to spend. He used to put his hand into box while sweeping, take out aletter, break it open and take out the contents at his leisure and destroy the letters. In this way lo 1I@ol1, good many letters, the Home Cheer" letters, the Hughes letters and others that have been lost He took them out of the registered letter office under circumstances which show him to be young man of much nerve.
 The robbery occurred Tuesday morning The drawer was unlocked as registered letter agents came in to get their letters. Three of those agents went into the room at intervals of not more than ten minutes while the janitor was in there sweeping, the door lead ing to the adjoining room was open adn four clerks were in the office at the time. He must have worked hurriedly to open the package, take out the securities and replace them with paper and fasten the package together again. The head clerk of the night division was in the office at the time, as he delivers the packages to the agents.
 Everybody is much surprised to find Bow en dishonest, as he had always borne good reputation. Detective Newcome is entitled to much praise for his clever work. .
 Inspector Newcome expresses himself very forcibly about two things One is the way New Haven business men allow cases where | money is missed through the mails to go un- reported at headquarters. He says that l every one should report any such losses at l once, and then the matter will be properly | and promptly investigated The other is the | conduct of the Union and the Morning News | in hindering the officials in their duty by | rushing into print with wild stories about | postof6ce robberies and the detectives pres ence here. MT. Newcome says, and he is | backed up by the positive assertions of MT. | Powning of the Silk company, that the thief | would have been caught some time ago but | for the News account of the robbery, which | put the thief on guard of course. ''The | Union man met us at the depot,'' said the detective, "and demanded to know what was the matter. He was told by MT. Sperry that newspapers should try to serve the l public in any emergency where fhe nnbIic,s