The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-01-22

Amount Taken of Course Not Known-Ar-
rest Made by o. s. Marshal Smith on
Complaint of Inspector Boynton and
snow-Parshley Confesses His Mis-
doings and Says He Took Money to Pay
ably of Late.
At eight O'Clock last evening Frank II.
Parshley, clerk in the Portland post
office was arrested by Deputy United
States Marshal Burton Smith, charged
with taking tier from the mails and
removing from it S3 In one dollar bills.
The young man was at once given pre-
liminary hearing before United States
Commissioner William M. Bradley and
| was bound over to the February term of
she United States District court grand
jury in the sum of $1,000. At eleven
| o'clock last night, having been unable to
| obtain bail Parshley was taken to Port
land Jail by United States Deputy
Marshal Smith.
For six months or more. SO Chief Post
Office Inspector Thomas ]. Boynton of
Boston, told PRESS representative
last night. complaints have been made to
Postmaster SWEET and through him to
tho post office inspectors of the loss Of
letters containing money which were
mailed at the Portland office. Many of
these complaints came through promi-
nent business houses of Portland ana 1t
was suspected that the l,sters were icing
tampersd with by some one connected
with the Portland office. Tho post office
inspectors at once set to work to investi-
gate the case, and at different times
within the last few months several post
office inspectors have been here looking
into the case.
which had bssn lost were all mailed so
that they would reach the Portland office
at the time when certain crew was at
work, and this crew was the one to
which young Parshley was attached.
The post Office inspectors traced as far as
possible every complaint of lost letters
that had been made and found that in
almost every case they had been deposited
in letter boxes SO that they were obliged
to pass through the hands of Parshley or
those of the men who worked with him.
Having narrowed the affair down to this
single crew of five or six men the in
speotors began to study the habits and
customs of every man of this crew. The
result was that they found young Parsh-
ley TO be badly in debt, and that he had
been spending more money during the
last few months than his salary cf $500 a
year would allow. Then the detectives
set trap to catch Parshley, and he was
caught the very first time the bait was
offered.
AT about two O'Clock yesterday after
noon the inspectors mailed letter in the
Portland office. addressed to some person
outside of the city, which contained three
one dollar bills. These bills were marked
by the inspectors so that they might
again be identified by them and besides
this the class letter and number of each
bill was taken.
This decoy letter was mailed in time
to catch tho three o'clock mail out of
Portland, AMI in order to he distributed
in time to reach this troin 1t would have
to pass through Parshley's hands as he
was working at the case from which the
mail pouches for this train were made
IN. When the mail out of the Portland
post Office reached the Union station the
inspectors were on hand tossee whether or
not the letter they had mailed was in the
proper pouch. 1t was not to be found,
and the inspectors at once came to the
conclusion that the letter had been hsld
in the Portland office.
The crew in which young Psrshlsy
worked went off duty yesterday after
noon at three o'clock and was at work
again last night at eight. At this hour
the post Office inspectors were in Post
MASTER Swetts Office and sent word to
Parsbley that they wanted to see him for
a minute He came into the room and
the inspectors asked him several
questions about his work, all of which
he answered pleasantly and evidently
without suspeoting that anything was
wrong. Chief Post Office Inspector
Thomas j. Roynton and Inspector Snow
finally told the young man that they be-
lieyed he had in his possession letter
they had mailed that day in the office.
Parshley at first denied all knowledge of
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