concluded that the papers were printed somewhere else, and sent into New York in bulk, and privately prepared for the mails. This was the situation of things when I took hold of the matter. I was advised of what had previously been done, but was, of course, allowed to pursue my own method. After a day or two's experimenting in following clerks from the post office, and finally tracking one of them into a lawyer's office on Nassau Street, and being coolly informed by the lawyer that the company were his clients, and having had some difficulty with disaffected parties, had put their correspondence into his hands for a while, I thought best to pursue another course. There was little or no use in attempting to convict him of complicity with the matter. He said he would take his oath that he did not know whether the company was bogus or not, or were really the agents of responsible companies in foreign states; and as for that matter he did not care. He had been, he said, employed by them to attend to certain legal matters of theirs, and he never inquired into the private character of his clients except when necessary. "They pay me well for my services, generally advancing my fees, and I am satisfied." My own opinion was, and is, that he was one of the firm himself, and as guilty as any of the rest, but he was shrewd enough to not get trapped. I saw it would cost more than it would come to to pursue that line. If I arrested the letter clerks for a few days, and took them before the mayor, that would not break up the business. The company's plans were safely laid. When I did get at them, I wanted to break them up effectually; and I set myself about procuring copies of their papers, which I did by writing from the mayor's office to the parties who had sent in their complaints, asking them to forward all documents and papers which they had received from the company. Receiving these, I submitted them to various wary and knowing printers, in order to find out at what office in the city the printing was probably done. A printer or newspaper man will ordinarily detect, by the size of column, or some other peculiarity, from what paper a given extract has been clipped, as readily as a tailor can tell from whose shop a certain coat or pair of pantaloons came, or as easily as a man can distinguish the handwriting of his friends. But in this case I was baffled at first. Nobody could give me any hint, till I finally came across a printer then working in the Tribune office; and on looking over some of the papers, he discovered something which reminded him of the style of a certain paper in Norwich, Connecticut; and then, as if a new light had dawned upon him, suddenly exclaimed, "By George! I believe I have it, for I know that at the ---- office, a year or two ago, the boys used occasionally to do a great deal of extra night work, and got extra pay. I never knew what 'twas."