A man was observed one day carrying off some boards from a building in course of erection in the Wandsworth Bridge Road, Fulham, and being pursued by a constable, he dropped the timber and made off. The man was, however, captured and taken to the police-station, whereupon the place where he lived was searched for other stolen property. His habitation was situated upon a waste piece of ground on the banks of the Thames, the erection being of wood built upon piles, and so placed as to be almost entirely surrounded by water. Here this man, who was a barge-owner, and who was passing under an assumed name, had lived in isolation for about a year; the position selected for his home being one calculated to afford him that complete seclusion from social intercourse which would seem to have been his aim. In the course of their examination of the contents of the hut, the police found not only more stolen timber, but various other articles, the chief of which, in the present connection, were a large lot of post-letters, mail-bags, and articles of postmen's clothing, besides milk-cans and a case of forty rifles. As the inquiry proceeded, it became known that the prisoner was a Post-office pensioner, having been superannuated from his office of postman some three years previously, after having served in that capacity a period of fifteen years. It would seem that his official delinquencies had extended over some six or eight years; but so far as the letters showed, theft in the ordinary sense could hardly have been the man's purpose, inasmuch as the letters had not been opened, with one exception, and in this instance the person for whom the letter was intended could not be found. The motive underlying this free departure from the ways of honesty seems to have had its root in simple acquisitiveness; the hundredweight of letters, book-packets, &c., the old mail-bags, discarded uniforms, and waste official papers (not to mention the thirty milk-cans, supposed to have been picked up when going his rounds as a postman, and the case of rifles), having been turned to no profitable account. Had the superannuated postman opened the letters found in his premises, the punishment which would have followed would necessarily have been severe. As the case stood, however, he was merely charged under the Post-office Acts with their unlawful detention, and sentence was passed upon him of eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. It seems astonishing that this postman should have had the folly to retain about him so long the evidences of his errors, which might at any time have been brought up against him; but, perhaps, the feeling prompting this may be akin to that which leads criminals to visit the scenes of former iniquities, even when incurring the risk of discovery, and if discovered, of certain punishment. The following is a case of robbery which occurred in 1883, as reported by the newspapers of the day, the culprit being quite a young person:--