We have spoken more particularly about carriers and their general good character; but our remarks will apply to those who occupy positions in every department, from the chief clerks down to the wounded soldier who sweeps out the office.[46] It certainly must be a source of satisfaction to postmasters generally, that peculation, fraud, and robbery in their departments are of very rare occurrence. Many losses have been charged to the department, but in nine cases out of ten they have been traced to parties _who act as carriers between the post-office and merchants’ counting-houses_. These are boys and clerks who are authorized by merchants to take letters from their boxes, many of which, as we can prove, never reached their employers, but were opened and the money extracted. Under the old State laws this was laid down as simply a breach of trust: it is now made a criminal offence, and subjects the guilty party to imprisonment. Since the passage of this law there have been _but few such breaches of trust_. In another portion of this work we have alluded to the decoy system as being uncalled for and insulting to the employees. It does seem as if the public and even postmasters themselves have an idea that _dishonesty is a national calamity_, and that it becomes a duty with them to suspect alike all who are in their employ. Suspicion, however, is no proof; and we are inclined to think that many _open robberies_ of the government can be traced to the fact that high positions _seem_ to sanction the deed. The poor wretch who steals a loaf of bread to keep his family from starving finds no mercy at the hands of the law, while the wholesale robber, the thief of millions, is simply required to make the amount stolen good! Where one public official robber is convicted for appropriating the public funds to his own use, thousands are annually tried and punished for taking a penny loaf! It is no wonder, therefore, that suspicion should haunt the guilty mind, and every man in power judge of others by the example set in high places. Some years ago, long before the postal system became the mighty engine of power that it is now, a Philadelphia postmaster, since gathered to his fathers, openly stated that no man should intrust a clerk in the post-office (his own office) with the knowledge that a letter posted contained money! How different is the English post-office in this respect from ours! There the employees are considered a part and portion of its national character, identified with it by all those ties which protection gives and justice sanctions. The government not only studies the present interest of all connected with the postal department, but amply provides for that of the future. (See p. 147.) Their confidence is not easily shaken; but like Othello, when they doubt, they prove; and on the proof there is no more but this:—Away at once! _IMPORTANT POSTAL TABLES._