Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office DepartmentHolbrook, James
History
Ten Years Among the Mail Bags: Or, Notes from the Diary of a Special Agent of the Post-Office Department
Holbrook, James
Postal service -- United States
In the mean time, the Post-Office Department had been informed of
these facts, and an experienced and skilful police officer in Chicago
was appointed Special Mail Agent to investigate the matter. He very
soon came to the conclusion that whoever the other guilty persons
might be, B. was "one of 'em" to all intents and purposes. As we have
before stated, B. had said that one of the leaders was in New York,
and at the request of the company's attorney, B. wrote a letter to
him.
The Chief of Police of New York was written to, and requested to
station an officer at the post-office to watch for and arrest the
party who should call for the letter, but during the time which
elapsed between the arrival of the letter and the officer who was to
watch outside the post-office, the letter disappeared, and even before
any one connected with the New York post-office had been apprised of
the arrangement.
Four days afterwards, B. informed one of the company's attorneys that
the man in New York had received the letter and sent him a verbal
answer to the effect, that he had better write no more by mail, "as
the letters might get lost." Mr. P., the Chicago police officer, went
in company with a lawyer to New York, with the design of finding the
man to whom the letter was addressed. Their efforts, however, though
assisted by the Chief of Police, and the Special Agent for the New
York district, were unavailing.
It was ascertained that he had paid his passage to Liverpool on the
ship Washington, but having been asked a casual question by one of the
officers of the vessel, concerning his relationship to a certain
Englishman, he had forfeited his passage-money, and disappeared.
Having returned to the West, Mr. P., the government Agent, determined
to arrest B., which he effected, and, without his knowledge, obtained
possession of his boots, which had already supplied such important
evidence against him.
He displayed much virtuous indignation, and talked largely of his
wealth, respectability, and high standing in society; but all this
availed him nothing, and he was committed to jail.
Although he had arrested B., yet Mr. P. doubted whether he had
sufficient evidence to convict him, and determined to condemn him out
of his own mouth. Accordingly he made arrangements with a deputy
sheriff of Milwaukie, to play the part of prisoner, and thus to obtain
the rascal's confidence.
Agreeably to this arrangement, when B. entered the prison, he found
the deputy sheriff already in his cell, apparently a fellow victim to
the demands of justice. For about four weeks this gentleman was most
of the time in the cell with B., representing himself as an "express
robber;" conducting himself in such a turbulent manner that B.
supposed the time of his absences was passed in the dungeon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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