The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and RomanceHyde, James Wilson
History
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
Hyde, James Wilson
Postal service -- Great Britain
"A letter containing two £5 Bank of England notes was stated to have
been posted at Leeds, addressed to a lady at Leamington, without
reaching its destination; but the inquiry that was instituted by the
Post-office caused the sender to withdraw his complaint, and to prefer
against the clerk whom he had intrusted with the letter, a charge of
having purloined it before it reached the Post-office."
"The secretary of a charitable institution in London gave directions for
posting a large number of 'election papers,' and supposed that these
directions had been duly acted upon. Shortly, however, he received
complaints of the non-receipt of many of the papers, and in other cases
of delay. He at once made a complaint at the Post-office; but, on
examination, circumstances soon came to light which cast suspicion on
the person employed to post the notices, although this man had been many
years in the service of the society, and was supposed to be of strict
integrity. Ultimately, the man confessed that he had embezzled the
postage, amounting to £3, 15s. 6d., and had endeavoured to deliver the
election papers himself."
"Complaint having been made by a dealer in foreign postage-stamps that
several letters containing such stamps had not reached him, a careful
investigation was made, but for some time without any result. The
letters should have been dropped by the letter-carrier into the
addressee's letter-box; but to this box no one, the dealer asserted, had
access but himself. Some time afterwards, however, a cover addressed to
the complainant was picked up in the street, and on inquiry being made
whether the letter to which it belonged had been delivered, the
complainant stated that it had not. But it so happened that the
letter-carrier had a clear recollection of dropping this letter into
the letter-box, and, moreover, remembered to have observed a young girl
who was at the window move, as he thought, towards the box. This led to
the girl being closely questioned, when she admitted the theft,
confessing also that she had committed other similar thefts previously.
Thus, by a mere chance, a suspicion which had been cast on the
Post-office was dispelled."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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