Year: 1873

| Hrbu WOrk Ol tlle uBtllt IN W uScerluill
what carrier is ON the route in question.
This matter determined, the carrier is
in turn watched, and if guilty it re-
quires but very short time to estab-
lish this fact. 1t may turn out, howev-
er, that the peregrinating distributor
of letters is perfectly innocent, in which
case the only conclusion to arrive at is
that some inside man is dishonest, and
the next step is to find out from what
quarters the missing letters generally
arrive. Boston is


THE DISTRIBUTING CENTER


for New England, and through mails
from large cities arrive at the Club "
in bags made up on the cars. When,
for instance, the northern and eastern
mails are made up in New York, they
have to pass through to Boston, where
they are sorted and made up for their
ultimate destination, except in case
where there is matter enough i'll New
York to fill bag for any special point.
Now, when loss is reported, as men
toned, among other questions asked is,
"Did you loose by your night or morn
ing mails?" which being satisfactorily
answered, simplifes still more


THE WORK OF DETECTION,


and the employee in the office who hap
pens to be on at such times is put un-
der the argus eye of the agent or some
of his deputies. The final result in
some cases is rapid in others slow but
none the less sure, and the culprit is
eventually brought up with n round
turn and regrets when too late, that he
has ever allowed his greed for ill-got-
ten gains to destroy his chances in life.
As q general thing letters are only sto-
len in large offices, partly because there
are more honest men in the country
than can be found in large cities, but
mainly because the opportunities for
theft are more frequent in the principal
Offices


Then, again, valuable letters dropped
in at any principal office are rarely
stolen in that Office but stand a good
chance of being conhscated at some 9TH
er larger Office at distant point and
inst here comes naturally the mental
query by our readers, How do the
men know that letters contain money"
Well, it is just as easy for some of the
post-office employees, especially those OF
long experience, to tell when letter
containing an inclosure passes through
their hands as it is for the party who
put the inclosure in its place.


KEEN SENSE OF TOUCH.


In fact, so keen is the sense of touch
on the part of some of these men, that,
in distributing a mail with the utmost
rapidity they can tell, as each letter
passes through their hands, when there
is inside even folded sheet of tissue
paper. A noticeable instance of this
was made manifest less than year ago,
when man was watched in the Bos-
ton office, seen to put a package of let
ters into his pocket, arrested immedi-
ately afterward, and the number he had
stolen found to be eleven, all of which
being opened were found to contain in
closures, ten with money and one with
check


REGISTERED LETTERS


are very seldom lost. They are bad
stock for post office thieves to invest in,
mainly because it is so easy to trace
them from their starting point and as
certain who the parties were that had
the handling of them when last heard
from. Such cases will occur, however,
the latest being that of Gillis, who was
stupid enough to steal n registered let
ter mailed at Hillsboro' for party in
Methuen. His depredations had exist
ed for some little time, but his work
was performed So clumsily that detec-
ton in his case was comparatively easy.
Another laundering thief was Horace S.
Russell of Charlestown, and as showing
how easily man will dupe himself, a
brief recapitulation of his case may
prove interesting. 1t appears that Rus
sell was employed as substitute car
rier in the Charlestown Office, and as is
supposed, from the time he first enter
ed the Office


BEGAN HIS THIEvING OPERATIONS.


The amount he obtained in full was
not very large, but the job that led to
his detection was the opening of let
ter mailed by lady in Charlestown to
friend in the country, and containing
the sum of 80. This amount Russell
extracted, then put the letter in another
envelope, directed himself and mailed
it. When it reached its destination, the
recipient was OF course surprised at not
finding the money said to be inclosed,
and Immediately wrote to the sender,
VINO in turn requested the letter to be
sent back to Charlestown. This was
done, when the change of envelope was
detected, the case reported to the spe'
cial agent, and in very short time the
handwriting on the envelope was iden-
titled as that OF Russell. He was at once
arrested, eventually confessed and il
now serving out two years in North