Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-12-22
GUARD THE LETTERS
FORCE OF INSPECTORS PROTECT
THE PUBLIc'S MAIL.
Number of Post Offices B~urglarized
in the Last Year-Few Dis
honest Employees in
the Service.


"Are offenses against the postal
laws on the increase?' repeated an
old post office inspector to a Washing-
ton Star reporter. THAT query c%oversI
a very broad scope OF criminal investi-'
cation, too comprehensive to be brief
ly answered, but will say that n
serious crime against the postal laws
has decreased during the past year,
and that is the burglarizing OF post
offices. To give the public an idea of
the operations of the e%nterprising post
Office burglar l will say that a trif1e
less than 1000 post Offices were bur
glarized during the last year, or about
one post Office to every A of the
total number established of all classes.
This class of crime maintains about
the same average year after year, with
slight variations on one side or the
other. But we got in our good work
on the burglars themselves, however,
for we ran the arrests of the perpe-
traitors of this offense up to II per
cent. increase over the number made
the previous year. This is the higli-
est percentage of increase in the num-
Der of burglars arrested over any year
for over a decade.
There are many causes for the de-
crease of the number of post office
robberies and for the increase OF the
number of burglars ~apprehended for
his crime. The BertiTlon system OF
measurement is used whenever prac-
ticable, and there are now on file the
descriptions and histories of many
criminals. In addition to this, the
! information compiled by the national
bureau of identification is at the COM
mand of the post Office inspectors.
The standing rewards which an an
nual appropriation of $4,000 for that
purpose permits. the postmaster gen
! eral to offer for the apprehension Of
postal service criminals is a great in
: k~centive to the local peace officers and
i. to the police and detective force
throughout the entire country. There
are few small individual appropria-
tons made by congress which are pro-
ductive of such tangible and crafty
ing results as from this little appro-
p~riation for rewards for postal crimes.
"The most recent and important ar
rest OF an emlpoye in the service was
; that of the railway mail clerk who was
caught with the goods upon him a
few days ago in Baltimore. This man
had not only been a postal thief for
years. and had stolen enough to buy
and stock a small farm in the en-
, virons of the Monumental city, but he
f had been base enough to make his
: mail distractions from the section of
a fellow-clerk in the postal car, to
: throw suspicion on him. To the
credit of the inspectors, who finally
caught this fellow ~red-handed, he
failed in his efforts, as his would-be
innocent victim was not even under
suspicion by our men, even though
, the letters came from his section and
: were handled at certain stages by
him.
ut is a mystery to me why men in
the service yield to the temptation of
r stealing letters. Their detection is
j only a matter of time, perhaps not
Immediately upon complaint, but it is
: ultimately certain, and practically in
all cases of actual guilt their convic-
ton is a moral certainty. We do
not take our cases into court until
we lave sure evidence for conviction.
Perhaps it is because they are not
Immediately detected that postal
thieves have a sense Of false security.
They usually begin with a few petty
thefts, secure small sums of money,
and wait to see if these are discovered.
Finding that no apparent notice is
taken of their ~stealings, they fiatter
themselves with the belief that they
are very shrewd and cunning, be-
come holder, and finally every piece
of mail matter hat seems to them to
contain money is fish in their net.
In most cases inspectors have been
patiently watching them for weeks to
secure the positive discriminating evil
dence, and very often the men work
ing on. either and sometimes ON both
sides of their cases are inspectors
only biding their time to catch them
with the discriminating letters actually
upon their persons. We make of pa
tience a fine study in our business of
protecting the public"