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
When he looked at the post-mark, (that of a town some twenty or thirty
miles distant,) he remarked, "I can't imagine who can have been
writing to me from there," and after opening and reading it, he
returned it to the post master, saying that it was not for him.
But his honesty was only of a transient nature, for he could not keep
the money out of his thoughts, and he soon began to think that he had
been rather hasty in returning the letter, when, for aught he knew, he
could have retained its contents with impunity. For was not the letter
directed to Johnson Clark? And may not one take possession of a letter
directed to himself?
This course of thought and these queries were followed by the
determination to recover the letter, and appropriate the contents.
Clark accordingly went to the post master the next day, and stated
that he had heard, the evening before, of the death of a relative who
had been living at the West, and who had left him a small legacy,
namely, the sum contained in the letter. On the strength of these
representations, the post master gave him the document, without, so
far as appears, making any attempt to verify his statement. The
inheritor of legacies proceeded forthwith to the Bank in the village,
and obtained the money on the draft, endorsing it, as is customary. It
only required his own name to be written, and where was the harm?
thought he.
A few days after this, the person who had written the letter came to
Windsor, Vt., having been informed by his correspondent at Windsor,
Ct., that it had not reached him; and thinking it possible that it
might have gone astray.
On his arrival at the former place, he soon ascertained that the
Vermont Dromio had taken possession of his letter.
This worthy found that the name of Johnson Clark was not a spell
potent enough to protect him in the enjoyment of his unrighteous gain.
He was sent to the State Prison for two years.
In this instance, the post master was clearly guilty of carelessness
in allowing Clark to obtain the letter on the pretext that he offered.
As there was a well known town in Connecticut of the name of Windsor,
prudence would have required a closer examination of the address,
after the letter was returned by Clark. And the story by which Clark
imposed upon him, was sufficiently lame in some particulars to have
called for a closer investigation of its truth. If the post master had
requested to be allowed to read that part of the letter which referred
to the pretended legacy, a refusal on the part of Clark to permit it,
would of course have created a strong suspicion that he was playing a
dishonest game, and would have justified the post master in
withholding the letter until further proof could be obtained as to the
identity of Johnson Clark with the one for whom the epistle was
designed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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