The Washington bee., 1899-06-03
PRIVATE MAIL BOXES
No Person Allowed to Use Them Without
Showing Good Reasons.

Showing Good Reasons.
Nearly every swindler in the country
has, at one time or another, leased
private letter-box.
Nearly every burglar, whose opera
tions brought an occasional letter has
had 1t addressed to a private letter.
box.
Nearly every adventures whose bus
mess 1t is to involve men in her affairs
has received letters through private let
ter-boxes.
Nearly every blackmailer, who has
preyed upon the public through it's
fears of petty indiscretions has used
private letter-box.
Nearly every libertine who makes a
practice of drawing foolish women
from the ways of rectitude has received
perfumed notes through a private let
ter-boX.
Husbands and wives who stoop to
I clandestine correspondence have found
it easy to do so by means of private
! letter boxes.
Murderers, highwaymen. bunco-steer-
/ ers, counterfeiters, embezzlers, have
found private letter-boXes an aid to
villainy and bar to detection.
Until a short time ago $50 private
| postoffices were in operation in New
York alone. Some had as many as
one hundred letter-boxes, and brought
the manager an income of perhaps ST.
900 year.
The class of people who used private
letterboxes included such men as Percy
Warrington, who travelled all over the
United States in a luxurious private car
carrying a gas machine which he pre-
tended would make Illuminating gas
for seven cents foot, and selling pat
ent rights for enormous sums.
Cne. j. Leggette cleared $4,000
through private letter-bOXes by setting
up bogus claims on great English es-
tates and inducing the supposed claim
ants to give him money TO push their
interests. Leggette became in turn a
sailor, school teacher, lawyer and
judge. Forced to leave the bench to
escape arrest for malfeasance, he elop-
ed with a section foreman's wife. Then
he went to Jackson, Tenn, and lived
such a piouS life that he became a
doctor of divinity, Baptist pastor and
professor of oratory in the SOuthwes-
tern Baptist University and subse-
quently he caused a schism in the
church and founded a magazine called
the True Baptist.
Another dangerous criminal was
Charles Howard, who had private let
ter-box in a Twelfth street office. He
rarely called there himself, but had his
mail placed in fresh envelopes and di-
rected to other addresses. When the
police got upon his trail the keeper Oi
the Office professed ignorance regard
ing Howard, but as soon as the officer
had gone he wrote to Howard warning
him that officers were after him
When caught this warning letter was
found on HOward's person.
Mail order swindlers have been fire.
Quent users of letter-boXes. They senC
circulars offering all kinds of things
for sale and use stationery bearing
elaborate headings and pictures Of pa
latial offices. The address given is
| usually some number on Broadway OF
| some other leading thoroughfare, an(
people are led to believe that'the writ
ers are doing business in large office!
on such streets; in reality the addres:
is that of a private post-office, perhap!
in an honest cigar shop or drug store.
The class of men and women who
through the Personal" columns of GER
tain newspapers, advertise their desires
to meet somebody with the "object
matrimony,' nearly always have pri
vate letter-boxes. and a vast numbe
of foolish girls are ruined through
their use. These victims are in man.
cases the daughters of prosperous AM
refined people, whose environment doe
not furnish the romance which thei
reading has taught them to wish for
and which they hope to find through
clandestine correspondence.
Near schools, colleges and othe
places attended by young girls one o
these letter-box resorts nearly alway
fiOurishes, drawing large patronag
from the more adventurous and roman
tically inclined pupils, and on severa
occasions the postoffice authoritie
| have been asked to break them up.
Some of the private postmasters re
fuse to let their boxes to very youn
girls or to men. But any older woma
} can get one. In one of these place
, the fee is dollar a week for each bo
and the lessees are people who can al
ford to wear handsome clothes and pa
any price that is asked. Postoffice in
= spcctOrs told the writer tha
some of the matrimonial trouble
which have created sensations in Ne7
York had their beginning in CORE
spondence through private letter-boxe'