The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1899-06-02
PRIVATE MAIL BOXES
No Person Allowed to Use Them without
Showing Good Reasons.

0'N'''''H
Nearly every swinder in the country
has, at one time or another, leased
private letter-boX.
Nearly every burglar, whose opera
lions brought an occasional letter has
had it addressed to private letter.
box.
Nearly every adventures whose bus
mess it 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 its
fears of petty indiscretions has used a
private letter-boX.
Nearly every libertine who makes a
practice of drawing foolish women
from the ways of rectimde has received
perfumed notes through a private let
ter-boX.
Husbands and wives who stoop to
clandestine correspondence have found
it easy to do so by means of private
letter boxes.
Murderers, highwaymen. bunC'o-steer-
ers, counterfeiters, embezzlers, have
found private letter-hoXes an aid to
villainy and a bar to detection.
Until a short time ago 1850 private
postofices 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
letter. boxes included such men as Percy
Warrington, who travelled all over the
United States in 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.
One, j. LeGgctte cleared $4,000
through private letter-boXe by setting
up bogus claims on great English es-
tates and inducing he supposed claim
ants to give him money to push their
interests. Leggette became in turn a
sailor, school teacher, lawyer ant
judge. Forced to leave the bench tc
escape arrest for malfeasance. he elop
ed with a section foreman's wife. Their
he went to Jackson, Tenn, and lived
such pious life that he became q
doctor of divinity a Baptist pastor and
professor of orat0ry in the Southwes-
tern Baptist University and suhse-
quently he caused a schism in the
church and founded a magazine called
the True Baptist
Another dangerous criminal was
Charles Howard, who had privaIe 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 oil
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 Towards person.
Mail order swindlers have been fire.
quent users of letter-boxes. They send
circulars Offering all kinds of things
for sale and use stationery bearing
elaborate headings and pictures Of pa
latial offices. Tie address given is
usually some number on Broadway or
some other leading thoroughfare, and
people are led to believe that the writ
ers are doing business in large Offices
on such streets: in reality the address
is that of private post-offlce, perhaps
in an honest cigar shop or drug store.
hS IldSo vi men anu women VINO,
through the PERSONAL columns of GER
tain newspapers, advertise their desires
to meet somebody with the object,
matrimony," nearly always have pri-
vate letterboXes. and a vast number
Of foolish girls are ruined through
their use. These victims are in many
cases the daughters of prosperous and
refined people, whose environment does
not furnish the romance which their
reading has taught them to wish for,
and which they hope to find through
clandestine correspondence.
Near schools, colleges and other
places attended by young girls one of
these letter-boX resorts nearly always
flourishes, drawing a large patronage
from the more adventurous and roman
tically inclined pupils, and on several
occasions the postoffice authorities
have been asked to break them up.
Some of the private postmasters re-
fuse to let their boxes to very young
girls or to men. But any older woman
can get one. In one of these places
the fee is dollar week for each box
and the lessees are people who can af-
ford to wear handsome clothes and pay
any price that is asked. Postofice in
spcctors told the writer that
some of the matrimonial troubles
which have created sensations in New
York had their beginning in CORE
spondence through private letter. boxes.