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 Court charged the jury in accordance with all the foregoing
requests, except the second and sixth. In relation to the second
request the Court charged the jury, that it was not necessary, in
order to enable the plaintiff to recover, that he should show a
particular act of negligence in relation to the letter in
question; but that, if the plaintiff had shown a general want of
common care and diligence on the part of the defendant, either in
the construction of his places of deposit for letters, so that
they were unsafe, or in the management of the post-office, in
permitting persons to go behind the railing who had no legal right
to go there, and had also satisfied them that the letter and money
in question were lost in consequence of such negligence or
misconduct of the defendant, then the defendant should be liable.
In reference to the sixth request the Court charged the jury, that
as there was no proof that any of the persons who were employed by
defendant in the office had ever been appointed or sworn as
assistants, they were to be regarded as mere clerks, or servants
of the defendant, and that if, through negligence or want of
common care and diligence on the part of such clerks or servants,
the money and letters were lost, the defendant would be liable
therefore.
Verdict for plaintiff. Exceptions by defendant.
The decision was sustained in the Supreme Court.
If the report of the above case shall have the effect to render any
class of post masters more careful of the custody of correspondence,
and in the general management of their offices, the object of its
insertion will have been answered.
CHAPTER XXIV.
OFFICIAL COURTESY, ETC.
The post-office clerk who fails to do his duty thoroughly, is like a
light-house keeper, who now and then allows his light to go out, or
become dim. Sometimes no harm may result; but it may be that the
helmsman of some gallant ship laden with precious goods, and far more
precious lives, seeing no light to direct him through the angry storm,
steers blindly onward, and is wrecked upon the very spot whence the
guiding star should have beamed.
Not only is it the duty of those connected with post-offices to
exercise the utmost carefulness and exactness, in order that mail
matter may promptly reach the persons for whom it is intended, but
sometimes much caution and discretion are required from them, that
letters may not fall into hands for which they were not designed.
There are other qualifications scarcely less desirable for post-office
employés than exactness and caution. Patience and courtesy toward the
various individuals constituting that public which it is the duty of
these officials to serve, go very far in carrying out the idea of the
post-office,--that of being a convenience to the community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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