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
The engraving of the "Inauguration of George Washington" appealed to
the patriotic feeling of every American. What friend of his country
would refuse to part with the paltry sum of one dollar, which would
enable him to possess this transcendent work of art, copied from the
"celebrated painting" of the no less celebrated "David Paul Laurens;"
a blood relation, no doubt, of the departed "Van Denton."
Each ticket was so embellished with intimations of the rich gifts
possibly in store for its holder, as almost to make him feel as if he
were already driving a "blood horse," or taking his ease in the
"magnificent residence on the Hudson."
The reader is by this time probably aware of the true character of
"Dashall & Co.," and their magnificent scheme. The former were
atrocious impostors, and the latter was only a bag of wind.
The suspicions of the New York post master were excited as to the
character and destination of the numerous letters which came addressed
to the aforesaid firm; and the Chief of the Police taking the matter
in hand, a detachment from that body made a descent on 486 Broadway,
where they found a respectable female of Milesian extraction, engaged
in washing the floor; and observed an open window, through which the
representative of Dashall & Co. had probably made his exit. There was
no furniture of any description in the room; so, having secured
neither "persons" nor "papers," the civil authority was compelled to
beat a retreat, not without sundry remonstrances from the old woman,
touching the invasion of her "_clane flure_." She could tell them
nothing about the firm, and only knew that she was sent there by the
owner of the room to "clane up," which occupation she resumed, after
imparting this information, with a vigor that threatened the immediate
submersion of the intruders.
The parties concerned in this fraudulent transaction are supposed to
have cleared upwards of fifty thousand dollars by the operation,
which, allowing for the per-centage to agents and other expenses,
proves conclusively that there was more than that number of fools
existing at the time in this enlightened land. We would hope that
those who were taken in by this cheat, will not be thus deceived
again.
We trust that the foregoing record of knavery, whose contrivers were
indebted, in some measure, for the carrying out of their plans, to the
post masters who acted as agents, will have the effect of producing
greater caution on the part of these officials as respects undertaking
agencies for _unknown_ individuals. It would seem that a proper regard
for the public interest would prevent any post master from lending
himself, even undesignedly, to a fraudulent scheme like this of
"Dashall & Co." It would be easy to refuse to have anything to do with
proposed agencies, whose principals were not known to the post master,
or concerning whom satisfactory information could not be obtained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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