Cheating the Clergy--Duping a Witness--Money missing--A singular
Postscript--The double Seal--Proofs of Fraud--The same
Bank-Note--"Post-Boy" confronted--How the Game was played--Moving
off.
Our collection of "outside" delinquencies would be incomplete, were we
to omit the following case, which was investigated by the author not
long ago, and in which not a little ingenuity, of the baser sort, was
displayed. It will serve as a specimen of a numerous class of cases,
characterized by attempts to defraud some correspondent, and to fasten
the blame of the fraud upon some one connected with the Post-Office.
We could give many instances of a similar kind, did our limits permit.
A person of good standing in community, who laid claim not only to a
moral, but a religious character, was visiting in a large town on the
Hudson river, about midway between New York and Albany. This person
owed a clergyman, living in New Haven, Conn., the sum of one hundred
dollars; and one day he called at the house of another clergyman of
his acquaintance in the town first mentioned, and requested to be
allowed the privilege of writing a letter there to his clerical
creditor, in which the sum due that gentleman was to be enclosed.
Writing materials were furnished, and he prepared the letter in the
study of his obliging friend, and in his presence.
After he had finished writing it, he said to the clergyman, "Now, as
the mails are not always safe, I wish to be able to prove that I have
actually sent the money. I shall therefore consider it a great favor
if you will accompany me to the bank, where I wish to obtain a
hundred-dollar note for some small trash that I have, and bear witness
that I enclose the money and deposit the letter in the post-office."
The reverend gentleman readily acceded to his request, and went with
him to the bank, where a bill of the required denomination was
obtained and placed in the letter, which was then sealed with a wafer,
the clergyman all the while looking on.
They then went to the post-office, (which was directly opposite the
bank,) and after calling the attention of his companion to the letter
and its address, the writer thereof dropped it into the letter box,
and the two persons went their several ways.
The letter arrived at New Haven by due course of mail, and it so
happened that the clergyman to whom it was addressed was at the
post-office, waiting for the assorting of the mails. He saw a letter
thrown into his box, and called for it as soon as the delivery window
was opened.
Upon breaking the seal and reading the letter, he found himself
requested to "Please find one hundred dollars," &c., with which
request he would cheerfully have complied, but for one slight
circumstance, namely, the absence of the bank-note!
This fact was apparently accounted for by a postscript, written in a
heavy, rude hand, entirely different from that of the body of the
letter, and reading as follows:--
"P. S. I have taken the liberty to borrow this money, but I send
the letter, so that you needn't blame the man what wrote it."
(Signed) "POST-BOY."
The rifled document was immediately shown to the post master, and in
his opinion, as well as that of the clergyman, a daring robbery had
been committed. The latter gentleman was advised by the post master to
proceed at once to New York, and confer with the Special Agent, and
at the same time to lay all the facts before the Post Master General.
He did so, and it was not long before the Agent had commenced the
investigation of the supposed robbery.
In addition to the postscript appended, the letter bore other
indications of having been tampered with, which at first sight would
seem almost conclusive on this point. Upon the envelope were two
wafers, differing in color, one partly overlapping the other, as if
they had been put on by different persons at different times.
Notwithstanding these appearances, there were circumstances strongly
conflicting with the supposition that the letter had been robbed. The
postscript was an unnatural affair, for no one guilty of opening a
letter for the purpose of appropriating its contents, would stop to
write an explanatory postscript, especially as such a course would
increase the chances of his own detection. And in the present
instance, there had been no delay of the letter to allow of such an
addition.
By a visit to the office where the letter was mailed, the Agent
ascertained that it must have left immediately after having been
deposited, and the advanced age and excellent character of the post
master, who made up the mail on that occasion, entirely cut off
suspicion in that quarter.
An interview was then held with the clergyman who witnessed the
mailing of the letter, and from him were obtained the facts already
stated. Concerning the writing of the document, and its deposit in the
letter box in a perfect state, after the money had been enclosed, he
was ready and willing to make oath, and had he been called upon he
would have done so in all sincerity and honesty.
In reply to an inquiry whether he used more than one sort of letter
paper, he informed me he had had but one kind in his study for several
months, and at my request, immediately brought in several sheets of
it. A comparison of this with the sheet upon which the _rifled_
epistle had been written, showed that the latter was a totally
different article from the first. The shape and design of the stamp,
the size of the sheet, and the shade of the paper, were all unlike.
Moreover, the wafers used at the bank, where the hundred-dollar note
was obtained, and the letter containing it, sealed, were very
dissimilar to either of those which appeared upon the "post-boy"
letter.
From the consideration of all these facts, I was satisfied that a
gross and contemptible fraud had been perpetrated by the writer of the
letter, and lost no time in proceeding to the village where that
personage lived. I called upon the post master and made some inquiries
relative to the character and pecuniary circumstances of the person in
question. From the replies made, it appeared, as I have already
stated, that his reputation in community was good.
I thought it might be possible that in so small a place, I could
ascertain whether he had lately passed a hundred-dollar note, as he
would have been likely to have done, if it was true that he had not
enclosed it in the New Haven letter.
Calling at the store which received most of his custom, I introduced
myself to the proprietor, made a confidant of him to some extent, and
learned that the very next day after that on which the aforesaid
letter was mailed, its author offered him in payment for a barrel of
flour, a hundred-dollar note on the bank from which a bill of the like
denomination had been obtained, as before-mentioned, in exchange for
the "small trash." The merchant could not then change it, but sent the
flour, and changed a bill which he supposed to be the same, a few days
afterward.
Armed with these irresistible facts, I proceeded to call on the
adventurous deceiver of the clergy, who had attempted to make one
member of that body second his intention to cheat another. "Insatiate
archer! Could not one suffice?"
"Mr. T----," said I, after some preliminary conversation, "it's of no
use to mince matters. The fact is, you did not send the money in that
New Haven letter. You offered it the day after you pretended to mail
it, at Mr. C.'s store. You see I've found out all about it, so I hope
you will not deny the truth in the matter."
I then gave him his choice, to send the hundred dollars promptly to
his New Haven correspondent, or allow me to prove in a public manner,
the facts in my possession.
Being thus hard pressed, and finding himself cornered, he confessed
that he had prepared the letter which was received in New
Haven--postscript, double wafers and all--before he left home, and
that while crossing the street from the bank to the post-office, he
substituted this for the one he wrote in the clergyman's study! He
promised to send the money, and pretended to have suffered severely in
his feelings, on account of this dishonest act.
There is no United States law providing for the punishment of such an
offence, but public opinion and private conscience make nicer
distinctions than the law can do, and often mete out a well deserved
penalty to those who elude the less subtle ministers of justice.
In the present instance, the foregoing story was made public by
direction of the Post Master General; and the author of the trick,
unable to sustain the indignation and contempt of the community in
which he lived, was compelled to make a hasty retreat from that part
of the country.