Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-02-10

ny registered letter 20 q certain post once
mentioning a post office not far from his
own, which received all Of Its registered
mail through his own office.
The plan, down to the last detail, was car
ried out with artistic completeness To
make it perfect, he appended in each case
to the fictitious letter his own certificate as
postmaster that the bogus person was the
genuine remitter. The banks. not suspect
and forwarded 1t to the address given. AS
the letters passed through his post office,
the postmaster gobbled them, making the
fraud complete and apparently leaving no
trace of the transaction. or course, the
| swindle was sure to be discovered eventu-
| ally at Washington. But, In the meanwhile.
he secured about $4,000 and fled to Canada.
| He was extradited on a charge OF technical
airy.
A Solid Bank.
Actors and particularly circus people,
utilize the money order system as q bank
| Ing and safe-deposit concern. While travel
Ing about the country, for example. player
will buy one Of these securities for Slc0.
drawn on New York. making himself the
payee. Thus he puts away the film In a
place where nobody else can possibly set 1t.
Before the year IL out he Eniy draw the
money and buy az othsr postal order with 1t
and so on, in ;his " ~ keeping the cash Sc
cure for AN indefinite per'oi. IL lie should
lose the orier. bat il IS easy to pr cure i
duplicate.
The whole OF n great brick building hack
OF the Post Oiice department here IS de-
voted to the keeping Of money Cfcer &C.
counts. A vastly elaborate 81 stem of checks
Is employed, SO that no mistake can fail to
be detected. Errors in the reckonings sent
In by postmasters are so frel uent that cor
rect statements may be said to be excep-
tional Eventually the original securities
are filed away in the order Of their consecu-
tive numbers, SO that any one among all
the millions of them that are accumulated
can be referred to at a moments notice. In
addition to the domestic business, accounts
are Kept FOR money orders exchanged with
thirty.two other countries New York Is
the Clearing house tor ihs International
money ORDERS and 1t Is there that balances
are settled with foreign nations on this ac-
count by drafts.
Six Tons a Day.
All the supplies required by the $500
post offices In this country are furnished
from Washing, On. These post Offices re-
quire six tons of Atati ,nery every wLrking
day. They consume 23.tU0 pounds Of jute
wrapping Irvine every week Ti:is Irvine
comes in balls. and. according to contract.
each ball has Tour inches Of string sticking
out Of its middle. Thus employees are in
duced to start nnwrapplng from that end.
Formerly they were as apt as not 10 begin
tangle. SO that quarter of each ball on
an average was wasted
The 65.UO0 post offices use up 100 reams
Of manila paper blanks every day. One Of
these Is put on the outside of every pack
age of letters sent out from post offices.
bearing the name of the sending post Of
flee, the date, &c. Half a million lead pen
ellis are consumed annually in Uncle Sans
postal service, well as 1900 quarts Of
mucilage, 1900 quarts of ink, 10000 pounds
of rubber bands and 1900 gross Of pens
Inc pens alone cost $3,uw every twelve
month. For making postmarks 2S0OO ink
pads and 10000 pounds of stamping ink per
annum are required. Six million cards are
used every year for register letter receipts
Weighing scales for mail are an expense to
the government of $1,000 every year, 90
week being needed to replace those which
are worn out, broken. or burned up with
post Offices
An Interesting Theft.
A good many registered letters have been
stolen lately by train robbers Those enter
prisng bandits usually go straight for the
registered pouch when they tackle the mail
car. One of the most interesting thefts of
such valuable postal matter occurred in
Texas few years ago. The pouch was
robbed again and again between a certain
small town and an army post 1e5 miles dis
tant. The distance was traversed by ten
stage coaches. each of which did a portion
at what stage Of the journey the robbery
was committed. One puzzling element OF
the problem was that the pouch always
reached its destination locked and appar-
Two post Office detectives were mt on the
case. They suspected one Hank smith he
cause ne was the only driver who happened
10 De on DUTY on every one of the occa sions
wnen tne pouch was robbed. They shad-
owed him and found that he was accus-
toned, when off duty, to spend his fine at
town across the Mexican border. dissina.
tng wildly and spending as much as $50
nignt IN gaiety. His stage route lay across
iava desert, utterly desolate and unin-
napited Search disclosed lot of torn let
tiers and envelopes by the roadside. together
with some broken locks. When Smith was
sars TIA tnree or four new locks of the
same kind were found in his pocket He
had stolen the locks. and his method had
been to smash the lock of the mail pouches
swapping a fresh one on after robbing the
bag. He got three years in prison.
For the reason that a good MANY lost
Keys get around after a while, all OF the
locks or Uncle Sans mail bags are CHANGED
once In eight years. Mr.. wanamaker made
different. The work cost "A cents FOR 40 Oh
lock-. AS fast as mail sacks wear out thew
are forwarded to Washington Here more
than 100 women are constantly engaged in
mendlng them. Each bag Is inspected by a
man who Is the only person In the Trnitad
States with whom the decision lies as to
when mall sack is worn out and shall he
used no longer. The last touch 10 40 Oh
mended sack is put by a blind woman who
puts drawing string through IL. Sacks
that are past mending are utilized for patch
es. In the same building are made Ali of
the little money bags in which postmaste
send coin through the mails
Initiating Stamps.
uncle SANS postage stamps are NOT
counterfeited. The business would not pay.
A few years ago there was a big dealer IN
New York who manufactured limitations OF
foreign stamps on a large scale He sold
millions of them. advertising enormously,
and even going so far as to invent a certain
foreign stamp. in order that 1t might be
sold as great rarity. But the law against
obtaining money on false pretenses has
been applied to the suppression OF that sort
of swinde.
AS high as $1,000 has been paid for a sin
gle postage stamp. The greatest collection
In the world is owned by the multi-rnillion-
allie, Ferrary. and is worth $5uO.UUU-that is
to say, 1t would bring that amount at auc-
ton tomorrow. The collection of Baron
Rothschild has been appraised at x2UUUUU
These and one other in possession of an
English millionaire ramed Tapeling are the
three great collections of the world 1t
cannot be said that money spent in this
way is unproductive, irasmuch as stamps
are continually increasing in value Rare
stamps have doubled in value in the last
eight years. There are at present about
loo stamp merchants in the United states,