The daily morning Alaskan., 1903-11-08
TRAPPING
 A THIEF
Lcon,rL.hL lan -hr . R- Lsn-.l

In his way uteocs out over his route ! with hundreds Of letters and Is sorting and rcswung mul he can give a pretty ! taod guess at thc contents of each one. .Ihare is. however but one course for ! lm to pursue. He must make mp his mind Co bc strictly honest If he can l. not withstand temptation he Is doom cd. He may escape detection for few weeks OF even months but there ia nothing surer than that Inc will be caught in the end. And one of the most powerful weapons of the post of. fee inspector ls the decoy letter. It J trips up more rascals iu the service than an other schemes combined
 Before Che day of postal notes. mon ey orders and che registry system peo- pie used to .nclosc bills in their letters. ! There has been no falling oI in the custom. Itis calculated that one out of every ten letters mailed has at least a dollar biH in it. The sum total for the year runs up Into the millions. The pcrceutage of dishonest postal em pIoyees is very small and yet on their account au the honest ones must loo watched.
 "Hc who steals knowing that tho . chances arc ninety Co one that he will be discovered must be either very . desperate o- very silly. or SO you will argue. And yet when you take the case 1f a post office employee you generally find that he is an intelligent person and had no pressing need to turn thief li you win take mp thc ease Of each indi viduaI letter carrier convicted during the last five years you win discover lhat the temptation has been less than S8O ou che average and thut none of them had pressing need of thc money. There are. mo doubt plenty of employ ees who have stolen a letter or two and gone no further but it is also true that after thc ice is once hroken a person seldom holds up until exposure comes. Letters containing money are easily "spo,teU by the handlers, no matter how much pains you -o to to conceal the contents.
 'I had % cg-e in % western city live OF six years ago which ast0msued me. even though ] was old iu tde business md seldom surprised at anyth.us
 "A boy had come into the post office and so conducted himself for long term of wears that be was at Inst made assistant chief clerk. He had the ab- soIute confidence of postmaster and au employees. During his time there were three different inspectors on that route. md aI thanked" ou him. as the saying ls He aided us to detect three or four thieves in the office. and such was his reputation for integrity that no change of administration could remove him.
 cone day ! was sent out there on an iuvest.gau1u. something crooked in tle office consulted with the post- master and be turned the whole ease over to Honest Abe. as the boys called the man refer to. He was anxious to lau me stra..lleu things ouJ and he seemed to mako every effort in that way. ] was about the place for a week and failed Go got the slightest clew Then. unknown to any one. but more by accident than design ] employed method which ! cannot allow you to make public. The result was that ! ar- rested tlc assistant as he was leaving the ulId.u- and found uo less than twelve money letters in his pockets Even with that evidence 0f his crimi uauy DuIe.nz out of his pockets he was ou his way Co my hotel to see me and nr0Ho-, trap by which the guilty party could b, caught
 .Hc had wife and three children His salary allowed him to live more .lan comfortably. What did hc want Of tLe moucyt To buy lottery tickets Ue was buying them at the rate ot S20O per month hoping to make big strike When his house was searched we found l51 ono dollar tickets for the current drawing. but he intended to make the number an even 200- In six months he had purchased over Io0 tickets. and yet an his prizes did not foot up Sll0 It isn't six months since he left prison where he served his sen teuce
 "I believe und 1t is the belief of an officials of Che postal department that that lottery did more to dIshouor postal employees than an the other tempta tons gomb.nrd Thousands of letters containing one and two dollar bills were constantly passing through the mails. X percentage of the employees who handled them argued that the lot tery was dishonest and under the ban of the department and that the money would be lost to Che sender even # they didn't steal it In two years ] alone detected fourteen dishonest em. ployecs and brought them to justice. ) win relate one case which had some special features.
 "A railway mall clerk on a certain run south of the Ohio river was under suspicion. The suspicion arose from a singular circumstance He was sin gle man. thirty years old. and had only his salary to live on. His name was among a list of donors for fund to erect a church and he had given Sl25 When ! found this out ] dropped all other clews and concentrated on him While ] was watching he turned in S27J more thus bringing his subscrip. ton Up to S1OC0 One day after ] had an my plans lcid ! entered his car and held him up. He had thirty letters in