A competent Assistant--Yielding to Temptation--An easy Post Master--Whispers of Complaint--Assistant embarrassed--Application to his Uncle--The Refusal--Value of a kind Word--Resort to Depredations--Evidences of Guilt--Decoy Letter taken--The Bowling Saloon--The Agent worsted--The Restaurant--Bother of the Credit System--The fatal Bank-Note--Keen Letter to the Agent--The Arrest--The next Meeting. Those who are connected in any way with the administration of the law, find their sympathies excited in very different degrees by the several cases which they have in hand from time to time. Although the ruin of character is to be deplored under all circumstances, yet it never gives rise to greater commiseration and regret than when it destroys more than ordinary capabilities for adorning and profiting society. Such were the capabilities possessed by Thomas L., the subject of the following sketch. I have rarely, in my official capacity, come in contact with a young man who was more richly endowed with acuteness of intellect, brilliancy of talent, and fascination of manners; and in addition to these gifts of nature, he had received from a devoted mother those lessons of morality and religion which she fondly hoped would guard him from the dangers that might beset his path. Well was it for her peace of mind that she was removed to that world "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest," while yet her beloved son retained an unsullied character, and the respect of his fellow-men. Such was the young man whose fall I have to record. His employer, the post master, was a man of ample pecuniary means, independent of the emoluments of his office, and, as is often true in similar cases, giving but little time or attention to the discharge of its duties. Nor was his immediate superintendence necessary, so far as concerned the details of business, for his young Assistant, though only eighteen years of age, kept everything in complete order, and so administered the office, with the occasional assistance of a younger lad, as to give perfect satisfaction to all who had dealings with it, and to render the angel-like visits of the post master a matter of very little consequence to the public. But this universal popularity, and the absence of supervision and of restraint, other than that supplied by his own conscience, were circumstances unfavorable to the preservation of his integrity, and laid him open to the temptations which so easily assail those of like character and similarly situated. The most gifted and socially attractive are always peculiarly exposed to danger of this kind, and nothing short of firmly established principle can be relied on for safety. Doubtless, the truths which his departed mother had endeavored to impress upon his young mind often sounded their tones of warning in his ears; yet they were too weak to be heard in the roar of the stream which was bearing him along to destruction.