The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-02-14
MAILS EASY TO ROB.

0NA w NC euCTdppeU anu punished III Cne
end, said an old detective of the post Office
department. And may add, he contin-
ued, that no thief is harder to catch than
the one who robs Uncle Sans mails. Their
methods are ingenious, the plumber is easily
hidden or destroyed and their rascality is.
well masked by the honesty and integrity of
associates"
Post office thieves are not arrested every
day, although valuable letters and other ar
ticles are stolen almost daily, and an army
OF shrewd inspectors are on the alert. Posi-
tive proof of guilt must be in the possession
OF an inspector before an arrest is made. In
almost every instance arrest means convic-
ton. A post office employee never knows
when he is being shadowed Even when not
under suspicion of theft he may be watched
outside of business hours to see if he is
spending more money than his salary will
permit and if he is galloping with fast
gang. 1t sometimes happens that an in
spector may not be able to prove his man
thief and the accused is turned loose with
verdict of mot guilty" as his certificate of
honesty, but that man is not wanted by the
post office department any more.
From one point of view it is wonderful
that there are SO few thieves among the
many thousand clerks who handle the mail
first and last, for great temptations con-
stantly rise as they handle the millions of
valuable parcels. 1t is known that these
clerks soon learn to tell by the very touch
of letter whether it contains money. If
SO inclined, it would be an easy matter for
the dishonest clerk to slip letters into his
pocket and open them in the privacy of his
room. That the cases of dishonesty are
comparatively few is high tribute to the
moral qualities of post Office clerks.
Years age" resumed the inspector, as he
reflled a beautiful pipe presented to him
by ex-lnspectors Booth and Whitesides, con
one of the old star routes out in New Mex
leo hundreds of letters containing money,
drafts, checks and other valuables were
stolen. AT first letters and all disappeared,
but the thieves changed their mode of OPP
GRAFTON and simply stole the contents, reseal-
ing the letters and sending them on. As
letters pass through the hands of many
clerks it is always difficult to locate the
thief. Months of faithful work resulted in
nothing being discovered as to the identity
of the thieves, and the rifling of letters con-
tinued
Finally there was happy solution of the
trouble. One of the inspectors procured a
quantity of different kinds of drugs and sent
other inspectors over the entire route with
instructions to make a tour of book investi-
cations, and while thus engaged to place
some of one kind of the drugs in the mucilage
bottle at each Office, taking care to make a
memorandum which would show at which
Office the drug had been placed. 1t was not
long before a registered letter came through
with the money gone. The inspector put
his lips to the seal of the envelope, tasted
the mucilage, referred to his book, and at
once named the Office at which the partic-
ular drug had been placed in the mucilage.
Then lot of decoy registered letters went
to that Office, and the dishonest postmaster
secured the contents and the inspectors Sc
cured him. This, think, was one of the
cleverest pieces of work ever done by the
department. The inspector who put it into
execution was fine chemist, and knew ex-
actly what kind of drugs to get.
"There are two successful ways to catch
post Office thief-constant watching and
decoy letters. With these and patience the
game will be landed, although it often re-
quires months and sometimes years. 1t is
one of the most annoying and difficult lines
of detective work man ever engaged in,
and requires the most earnest application.
Not a single circumstance or detail must be
overlooked. Sometimes luck helps us out
of our difficulties. remember once in a
city not very far from Washington things
were in fearful state in the distribution di-
vision of the Office 1t appeared as though
we would never catch the fellow who was
making away with valuable letters. One
day there came a terrific rain and with this
came a happy thought to the inspector. He
carried bucket of water into the loft and
threw it on the overhead plastering just
over the distributors. Naturally leak was
sprung and workman, who was taken into
the confidence of the inspector, was sent
into the loft to make an investigation. Ac-
cidentally on purpose his foot went through
the wet plastering, leaving a hole.
"Of course, to repair this it would have
been necessary to do the work from the dis
tribution room, and as this was not done,
the clerks went ahead with their work,
while the inspector looked down at their
dentally-made hole. Finally he was re.
in the Office slipping letters into his pocket
The inspector colared the fellow and found
the letters in his pocket Seeing he was
caught dead to rights, the man confessed
everything In court he attempted no de
tense, save to say that he had been dealing
in futures, had had his wings severely
clipped, and stole to even up.
"a German named Klamath gave the in
spectors world of trouble in the same city
Thousands of letters were missed, and good
ness only knows how much money stolen II
was case which puzzled the department
and after weeks of the closest invest ;gatior
it was decided that the crooked work was
not done in the post office. Then an outside
campaign was begun and Klamath was ar
rested while stealing letters from one Of
the street boxes. He did not have key
but used wire for extracting the letters
His operations were confined to boxes in the
business sections, and he admitted that he
had stolen not less than 10000 letters be
fore he was caught The amount of money
he got could never be ascertaned. but he
must have secured snug sum. His con
fession sent him to the penitentiary for .
long term.
"Did you ever think about the fact that
few arrests have been made here in Wash
ington? There's powerful array of EN-
ployes here. but they seldom 60 wrong, and
| vet inspectors are no more numerous here
than in other cities. This is often spoken Of
by inspection"
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