The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-05-31
FOR MAIL THIEVES.
Letters Mailed by Inspectors Brings
the Best Results.

the Best Results.
There have been several arrests and
convictions of local postal employees
recently for mail depredations, and IN
discussing these instances a post office
inspector said:
although we use the same old bait
in catching postal offenders, and the
novice at the business and the
old hand know what it is as
well as we. they keep on just the same
until the time worn but deadly certain
'decoy letter lands them high and dry
in the parliamentary, to wonder and
lament at their leisure why they were
so weak and foolish to bite at it.
The decoy letter. is such a simple
thing that the average citizen may
wonder at it's effectiveness, or why the
thief doesn't succeed in lodging it. 1t
is the greatest silent thief catcher in
use by men who MAKE it their business
to apprehend their dishonest fellows,
will remain so, and doesn't need i'm
proving to insure its stability in the
criminal world
There is an angle of delusion in
AllcAlCLo AZ liOAANob cbAle'iiH'
and the postal thief's slant is that he
thinks heI will not be discovered; at
the same/time he knows perfectly well
that complaints of missing letters con-
tanning valuables are invariably made
to the department, and that the de-
partment's machinery for the investiga-
ton is practically perfect, based upon
years of experience.
THE postal thief emboldened by
initial successes and elated by the
pleasant novelty Of having in his peck
cts ready and easy money for which he
did not have to work, goes along mer-
rily until the innocent appearing decoy
letter is silently slipped in the mails,
to find its way to his hands assurely
as does the fish torpedo the steel mag
net of the battleships sides.
do they try to doge this missive of
danger? OH they do try, The eX-
plosion does not necessarily follow the
launching of the first letter. If postal
thief is suspicious of Letter he will let
it go through, even though he is
morally certain that it contains the
coveted cash he is after. In thse cases
the deeoy continues. its part Of the sill
emit detective just the same. If the
dishonest employee allows it to slip by
it tells the inspectors at the other end
of the line in its mute way that the
employee is on they just send another,
and still others, IL necessary, until the
inevitably certain one lands In the
pocket Of the thieving employees then
to change its role of detective to do
cumentry evidence which winds up
the career of the victim of his own
| cupidity.
THE decoy letter contains all the
outward and inward, for that matter,
appearance of an ordinary piece Of mail
intended for the addresse, who may be
some private citizen or business house
whose mail is being tampered with.
That's how we get EN- they can't tell
the difference, 1t being a case of all
| looking alike to me- Only postal
thief is naturally cautions, and doubly
so if he he thinks he is being watched.
But they don't all look alike to the post
| office inspector in charge of the case,
| Their private earmarks are as big as a
house to the inspectors, and when they
are shown up in court, one by one.
| guess that they look about twice as
| large to the thief on ial'-Washing-
| ton Star.