I had been hard at work for a week in pursuing this investigation, having for the third time passed decoy letters over the road on which the suspected office was situated, (the road being one of the roughest kind, about forty miles in length, and very muddy,) and was flattering myself that _that_ day's work would enable me to bring my labors to a conclusion satisfactory to the public and myself, if not to the delinquent; when my hopes were, for the time, dashed to the ground by the innocent hand of the village parson. And it happened in this wise:-- The mail carrier was instructed to throw off his mail, as usual, at the suspected office, and to remain outside, in order to afford the post master a good opportunity for the repetition of the offence which he was supposed to have committed, the Agent being all the time a mile or two in advance, in another vehicle, impatiently waiting to learn the fate of his manoeuvres. As the part of the road where I was stationed, was in the midst of woods, and the carrier had no passengers, no particular caution was needed in conducting the conversation, and before my associate had reached me, he called out, "I guess you'll have to try it again; the Dominie was there and helped to overhaul the mail to-day." The sportsman, who, having just got a fair sight at the bird which he has been watching for hours, beholds it, startled by some blunderer, flying off to "parts unknown;" the angler, who, by unwearied painstaking, having almost inveigled a "monarch of the pool" into swallowing his hook--sees a stone hurled by some careless hand, descending with a splash, and putting an end to his fishy flirtation;--these can imagine my feelings when the mail carrier made the above announcement. "Confound the Dominie," involuntarily exclaimed I, "why couldn't he mind his own business?" I examined the mail bag, but nothing was missing except the matter that properly belonged to that office. But at the next trial, the parishioner did not have ministerial aid in opening his mail, and accordingly, probably by way of indemnifying himself for his forced abstinence, he not only seized the decoy package, but several others. The following day, instead of overhauling the mail, he was himself thoroughly overhauled by an United States Marshal. A man of such weak virtue, should hire a "dominie" by the year, to stand by and help him resist the devil, during the process of opening the mails. Not the least painful of the various duties connected with the detection of crime, is the sometimes necessary one of revealing a husband's guilt to his wife. I anticipated a severe trial of my feelings in making such a disclosure during the progress of a recent important case where the mail robber was in possession of a mail-key by means of which he had committed extensive depredations. He was at length detected, and has lately entered upon a ten years' term in the State Prison.