, 1885-01-29
POSTAL THIEVES.
OCCASIONAL sTEALERs AND THOSE
WHO STEAL STEADILY.
The Former May Escape. but the Latter
Are Certain TO Get Caught
A Matter OF Very Simple
Arrangement.


Washington Cor. Chicago Newsl
This Is the season OF the year whom the
thieving postal clerks can steal with impun-
lty.7 The speaker was Col Sharpe, chief in
spector OF tho postofice department. About
the holidays tho Aunt Marys and Uncle
Johns who have nepheps and nieces they
wish TO remember on Christmas, inclose 81
or 50 in q letter to tho parents. with a TO
quest TO purchase whatever the youngster
may wish. The dishonest postal clerks are
aware OF this, and as the mails are usually
MISUNDERSTANDING the holidays and every
thing is In more or loss confusion, they can
steal letters by the hushel with almost ALSO
luts freedom from detection
But don't they steal as freely at other
timesf'
There Is a class tina does, but they who
do are people we nre always sure to detect.
There Is another class that only steals at in
tervals OF one o, two months. These parties
are seldom II ever caught"
wouldn't It aid you any II people whose
letters miscarry should complain to the de-
partmentF
Exactly. That's just what we want them
to do, but they won't II everybody who
lost a letter would notify US OF the fact we
could have every postal thief inside Of stone
walls within ninety days"
Have you any objection, colonel, to ex-
planning the manner in which these fellows
are apprehendedfr
aNone in tho least While apparently one
of the most intricate and difficult things i'm
aginable, it Ia in reality susceptible of easy
solution. Now, you would imagine, Of course,
that a letter mailed at station B in New
York city, addressed TO San Francisco,
would be difficult to trace In case It were de-
stroyed en- route. So it would be II IL were
-. - .~k,.- - 49, I-I-I L-~t--.a-I~
for US, we receive complaints daily. II the
person making the complaint Is particular to
mention the exact hour at which bis letter
was mailed, 50 much the better. / keep in
my Office a huge map Of the United States,
on which Is plainly marked every railway
postal-route in the country. Whenever a com
plant is received / notice carefully the di-
rection it takes from the starting
point to its destination. We will say
it Is going from New York to San
Francisco. 1 stick a pin at both places,
on the map. l open another complaint
This time the letter Is going from Sandusly,
Ohio, to Chicago. l stick pins at both
places. A third complaint Is from Rich
mond, Va A letter going to Omaha has
never reached its destination. Two more
pins. l keep this up until the map show
that all the missing letters have, at some
time OF other. passed over one particular
route. In this case it would be the Lake
Shore, between Cleveland and Chicago. This
point being settled, we take the hour al
which the letter was mailed and follow it up
until IL reaches Buffalo, where a new set OF
postal clerks take charge Of the mail as fan
as Chicago. We know the exact hour at
which each man runs in and out OF the ter
minal points, and in this way can readily
fasten it upon some particular Grew. You
see We now have the matter reduced almost
to a minimum. The detection OF the crimi-
nal from this point is a simple matter of do
facffva xvorf y