A Windfall for Gossipers--Suit for Slander--Profit and Loss--The
Resuscitated Letter--Condemned Mail Bag--An Epistolary Rip Van
Winkle.
In country villages, where few events happen to interrupt the monotony
of every day life, the occurrence of an out-of-the-way incident is
like seed sown in a fertile soil, producing a fruitful crop of
speculations and surmises, and affording food for conversation for
many a day to the eager gossip-hunters who abound in such small
places.
About thirty years ago, the quiet town of Lebanon, in the State of
Connecticut, was enlivened by one of these occurrences, which brought
a new influx of curiosity-mongers to the blacksmith's shop; covered
all the barrels, boxes, and counters in the store with eager
disputants, and gave new life to the Sewing Society, and its auxiliary
"tea-fights." The cause of this unwonted moving of the waters, was on
this wise:
Mr. Jonathan Little, a well known New York merchant, while on a summer
visit to Lebanon, his native place, mailed at that office a letter
directed to the firm of which he was a member, and containing
bank-notes to the amount of one thousand dollars. The letter failing
to arrive at its destination, and Special Agents being as yet unknown,
Mr. Little advertised in several papers, describing the money lost,
and offering a reward for its recovery. This, however, produced no
results, and the tide of speculation and discussion rose to its
highest pitch.
The loss of the bewildering sum of one thousand dollars naturally
stimulated the imaginative powers of the Lebanonians, and, hurried
away by his zeal, or perhaps by a wish to appear sagacious, Mr. Roger
Bailey, the brother of the Lebanon post master, while in conversation
with several persons, incautiously asserted that Amasa Hyde, the post
master at Franklin, (the next town to Lebanon on the route to New
York,) had taken the letter, adding, "He's just such a fellow."
The by-standers were rather astonished at this bold charge, impeaching
as it did the integrity of a man whose character had always been above
suspicion. That "bird of the air" which is always ready to "carry the
matter," soon diffused the information that Amasa Hyde was supposed to
be the delinquent. This gentleman being indisposed to leave his
reputation at the mercy of "thousand-tongued Rumor," which personage
could not easily be brought before a jury, instituted inquiries for
the purpose of discovering the originator of these injurious reports.
He succeeded in tracing them to their source, and sued the unwary
Bailey for slander. Mr. B., by the verdict of the jury, was compelled
to pay some seven hundred dollars and costs, for the pleasure of
expressing his opinion.
This, however, is but an episode in the history of the lost letter.
After a while the excitement died away, and Mr. Little found it
necessary to place the thousand dollars to the account of "Profit and
Loss," especially the latter.
The theory was once advanced by an acute genius, and applied to the
case of a tea-kettle inadvertently dropped into the ocean, that "a
thing isn't lost when you know where it is." But the subject in hand
seems to show that a thing isn't always lost, if you _don't_ know
where it is. For, about two years after the occurrences above
mentioned, the missing letter came to light with all its valuable
contents. And this resuscitation took place, not in Lebanon, nor in
Franklin, but in the New London post-office!
It appears that the mail bag which contained the letter, was found, on
its arrival at New London, so much worn as to be unsafe, and was
accordingly condemned by the post master and thrown aside as useless,
having first, of course, been emptied of its contents, as was
supposed. Two years subsequently, a quantity of old mail bags and
other rubbish was removed from the office, and the letter in question
took the opportunity to drop out, and return, an epistolary Rip Van
Winkle, to the world whence it had retired for so long a time.