Omaha daily bee., 1897-10-16
ARREST is LIKELY TO OCCUR
Postal Authorities Believe They Are on the
Right Track,
MORE ABB UT THE LOST REGISTER P.UCH
Investigations Throw Little Light
on the Occurrence and Result in
ExonerntinE Several of the
Railway Clerks.
MORE AB UT THE LOST REGISTER P,UcI

THE MAJ who stole the postal registry
pouch will be arrested as sure as his name is
-" remarked a postal employe yeste day.
And he will be arrested before he is many
days older. too" continued the speaker "He
has gotten away with a bigger load than he
can carry, and he will either drop it soon or
it will be taken away from him"
About all Of the facts connected with the
disappearance Of the $4,000 package were
bought to light yesterday, despite the efforts
of the postal authorities to keep it all quiet.
The date of the disappearance Is much longer
ago than was at first stated. The pouch
reached the transfer depot here on the after
noon of September 20, and the special agents
OF the department have been puzzlng their
brains over 1t ever since. The circumstances
under which it disappeared were correctly and
| exclusively stated in The Bee yesterday
morning. The postal clerks into whose hands
it vas last traced both reside in this city.
! They beth declined to make any statement
concerning the matter for the reasOn thai 1t
was the custom OF the depl: tment to seal the
lips OF all of it's employees under such circum-
stances. George " b. Brill who receiptel
for the missing pouch and neglected to enter
1t on his book, resides at 2535 Fourth avenue.
He has lived in Council Bluffs for many
years, and has been in the railway mail serv-
ice tor the last ten years. He bea.s the
: y.
His run is from Council Bluffs to Cheyenne.
Thomas Pheney the clerk on the Burlington s
fast mail, who consigned the pouch to Brill
and took his receipt for 1t, lives with his
family, on the corner of Avenue b and North
Ninth street. He has been in the railway
mail service for more than ten years, and is
! likewise above suspicion.
1t was admitted yesterday that the depart
ment had about ceased inves. igating the en-
ployes on the eastern end of the Union Pa
citc division and were looking up some
warm clews on the western end, and al
though it was most strenuously denied yes
terday it was quite well understood that
special agents of the department and the
insurance company were sufficiently well sat
isfed as to the identity of the thief as to
| justify his arrest.
HOW "REGISTERS" ARE HANDLED.
The methods pursued by the department
are supposed to throw every possible safe
guard around the handling and transpOrta-
tion of valuable property that goes through
the mails. The regulations require the per-
son1l inspection and checking by two or
three men Of every pouch containing regis
tered mail, but owing to the rush this is
frequently impossible. Often it is counted
hastily and checked and received in lump
When the pouch containing the small for
tune disappeared this rule Of the depart
ment fully observed and every one of
the bags passed through the hands of the
two mail agents and were checked by the
transfer clerk at the depot, John Powers
BY some means that the department can only
explain as an oversight Postal Clerk Brill
| failed to make the entry of the pouch in his
book. 1t has also been asCertained from the
| Chicago end that there were on this par
| ticular day two register pouches for Ogden
| There is always one each way every day
and the postal clerks have become so fa-
miliar with it that it would be an impossi-
bility to overlook it in checking or entering
il on their books The fact that there were
two this day was extraordinary and gives
rise to the suspicion that a conspiracy to
steal it might have originated in Chicago and
chance would be given if by some oversight
one of the clerks should fail to
note the presence of two and ac-
| cording to custom receipt for only
the one that came regularly. The
two Ogden pouches would be entered on the
books, the regular one first and the extra
represented by ditto marks under it. 1t is
supposed that this might have been the case
with the books in this instance and that
Brill had overlooked the ditto marks when
making his entries. From the time the
pouches are received in the mail cars until
they are delivered at their destination or to
some other clerk they are not taken out OF
the iron cages prepared to receive them. 1t
is presumed that when some other clerk
along the line found Brills report showing
but one bag and two on hand he concluded
that it was his pie. AT least this is the the
ory the department officers are working The
fact that seems the strangest of all is that
particular and valuable pouch should be the
one that is missing.