He was no petty thief, content with doing a small but comparatively safe business at filching, or at least, satisfied to begin with the "day of small things;" but he had hardly taken the oath of office before its strength was tested, and it proved no greater restraint to him than a spider's thread to a wild buffalo. He at once plunged into the tempting field which lay before him, and grasped with a greedy clutch at every opportunity to enlarge his increasing store of ill-gotten wealth. He would sometimes add thousands to his hoard in a single night, and carried on these bold depredations for some time unsuspected, not because he was _above_ suspicion, but because he was _below_ it. In other words, after these robberies had been pretty satisfactorily traced to the New York office, it was necessary to establish the innocence, so far as these losses were concerned, of a large number of clerks, before suspicion fairly rested on the guilty party. Thus, when the investigation was commenced, he was buried up, so to speak, beneath so many protecting layers, all of which were removed before he came to light. I will not attempt to give any idea of the quantity of labor necessary in this and similar preliminary investigations. Some of the numerous complaints made to the Department and the post master of New York, involved large sums of money. Among them was a package of $2000 in bank-notes, mailed at Middletown, Conn., for Philadelphia, Penn. Another of $1800 from Bridgeport, Conn., to Zanesville, Ohio. Still another of $1400 from Joliet, Ill., to New York, and many other smaller sums, from $50 to $1000; also drafts, notes, checks, &c, to an enormous amount in the aggregate. None of these valuable remittances had been seen by any persons properly interested in them, after they had passed out of the hands of the senders. Doubtless to those unacquainted with such matters, it may not prove much for the efficiency of the Special Agent to state that the thefts were occasionally repeated even after he had entered upon this investigation. But the Agent employed in this instance always preferred to catch the rogue, rather than frighten him, thereby leaving innocent parties under the ban of suspicion, as well as destroying all chances for the recovery of the property already stolen. And the benefits and propriety of that course were fully realized in the result of the important case under consideration. As "it is the last straw which breaks the camel's back," so it is often the stealing of the last letter which aids in bringing to light the depredator of former ones.