Devices employed for the public good, if predicated on the principles that maintain _all men dishonest_ and are themselves deceptive, both in theory and practice, cannot be considered either honorable or complimentary to our public men. The system, more particularly in its connection with the postal department, originated, we are inclined to think, from some suspicious postmaster or his chief clerk, and thus was established a plan to test the employees, alike unjust and questionable in equity. It is said that these decoy-letters can never injure honest men. Are we to understand from this that men of questionable character and thieving proclivities are employed by the government? Is it customary to appoint rogues to office, and, after appointing them, lay traps for their detection? If this is the fact, then may we well exclaim, with Cowley,— “Man is to man all kinds of beasts,—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous _decoy_, a rapacious vulture.” Once establish the decoy system as a general one, extending it to all branches of the government, trade, and commerce, introduce it into stores and factories, and we shall soon have the flag of suspicion waving over that of the Stars and Stripes: we will constitute ourselves a nation of rogues, and become in the eyes of the world a huge “DECOY DUCK,” instead of the proud heretofore emblem of our country, the glorious Eagle! We care very little about the opinion of Judge Betts, who on one occasion maintained the principle in a very _learned speech_, which when summed up amounted simply to this, that all men are rogues and require watching,—in fact, in morals as well as honesty they are _lame ducks_, and a _decoy_ is necessary to watch their actions. The learned judge said,— “I am persuaded that letters would rarely be intercepted in their transmission by post if every person concerned in mailing or carrying them could be impressed with the idea that each package enclosing valuables may be but a bait seeking to detect whoever may be dishonest enough to molest, and to become a swift witness for his conviction and punishment.”