HOW LETTERS ARE LOST.
In dealing with the vast numbers of letters and other post articles
which daily flow through the capacious veins of the British Post-office,
the officials of the department come to learn many strange things
connected with the wanderings of letters from their proper courses; they
learn much in regard to the blunders made by the senders of letters in
writing their addresses, and of the supreme folly frequently shown by
individuals in transmitting valuables in carelessly-made-up packets; and
this experience not only has the effect of causing complaints made by
the public to be sometimes met by doubts and misgivings on the part of
the Post-office, but is of great use in tracing home the blame to the
right quarter, which is found to be, not infrequently, where the
complainer had least reason to suspect it. The following facts will
probably establish what is here advanced, besides proving of interest to
the reader.
It is quite a common occurrence for letters--especially letters of a
small size--which are dropped into a letter-box, to slip inside
newspapers or book-packets, and to be carried, not only out of their
proper course, but to places abroad, thus getting into the hands of the
wrong persons. Such letters are returned from time to time from every
quarter of the globe, but what proportion of those which go astray are
duly returned it is impossible to say; for there are persons who, on
receiving letters in this way not intended for them, proceed to open the
envelopes through sheer curiosity, and having thus violated the letters,
do not hesitate to destroy them. Others again, through dishonest
motives, open letters of this class in the hope of gain. But there are
others who, through no such interest, but merely from the want of a
neighbourly spirit, refuse to take any trouble to put an errant letter
in its proper course. This spirit was displayed in the case of a letter
which had been misdelivered by the postman at a given address on the
first floor of a tenement (it being intended for a person occupying the
ground floor), the person who had received it stating, when questioned,
that he had torn up the letter because he would not be troubled to send
it downstairs! Letters are sometimes, too, carried away to wrong
addresses by sticking to the backs of other letters.
Again, through a great want of sense, or perhaps a redundancy of
stupidity, letters are deposited occasionally in the most extraordinary
places, in the idea that they are being posted. A servant-girl being
sent out to post a letter, drops it into the letter-box of an empty
shop, where it is found when an intending tenant goes to look at the
premises. In a town in the north of Scotland a person was observed to
deposit a letter in a disused street hydrant, and on the cover of the
box being removed, three other letters were found, the senders of which
had similarly mistaken the water-pillar for a letter-box. The letters
had been passed into the box through the space formerly occupied by the
tap-lever. A somewhat similarly absurd thing happened some time ago in
Liverpool, where two letters were observed to have been forced behind
the plate indicating the hours of collection on a pillar letter-box--the
person who had placed them there no doubt thinking he was doing the
correct thing.
It must be that many individuals entertain the greatest confidence in
the servants of the Post-office, or they would not send money and
valuables as they do. They also, perhaps, regard the Department as a fit
subject on which to perpetrate petty frauds, by sending things of
intrinsic value enclosed in books and newspapers. Instances of this kind
are frequent.
Within the folds of a newspaper addressed to a person in Ireland were
found two sovereigns, yet there was no writing to show who the sender
was.
A brown-paper parcel, merely tied with string, unsealed, and not even
registered, was found to contain six sovereigns, one half-crown, two
sixpences, and three halfpenny-pieces, wrapped up in small articles of
ladies' dress.
In the chief office in London, two gold watches were found inside an
unregistered book-packet addressed to New Zealand, the middle portions
of the leaves having been cut out so as to admit of the watches being
concealed within. On another occasion, but in a Scotch post-office, a
packet containing a book bound in morocco, was on examination discovered
to have the inner portion of the leaves hollowed out, while still
retaining the appearance of an ordinary book, and inside this hollow
were found secreted a gold watch and a silver locket. At another time, a
L20 Bank of England note was observed pinned to one of the pages of a
book addressed to the initials of a lady at a receiving-house in the
London Metropolitan District.
A packet done up in a piece of brown paper, unsealed, but tied with
string, was found to contain a small quantity of trimming, a collar-box
with a few paper-collars, and inside the box were two L1 notes and 10s.
in silver. A halfpenny wrapper was used to serve as a covering for the
transmission of a letter, a bill of sale, and four L5 Bank of England
notes. In a newspaper which reached the Dead-letter Office were found
four sovereigns, and in another a gold locket. A packet carelessly
rolled up was seen to contain a sovereign, two half-sovereigns, and a
savings-bank book. In several instances coins have been found imbedded
in cake and pieces of toast; and on one occasion gold coins of the value
of L1, 10s. were discovered in a large seal at the back of a letter, the
gold pieces having come to light through the wax getting slightly
chipped. But the most flattering act of confidence in the probity of the
Post-office fell to be performed by a person at Leeds, who, desiring to
send a remittance to a friend, folded a five-pound note in two, wrote
the address on the back of it, and, without cover or registration,
consigned it to the letter-box. Petty frauds are committed on the
Post-office to a large extent by the senders of newspapers, who infringe
the rules by enclosing all sorts of things between the leaves--such as
cigars and tobacco, collars, sea-weed, ferns and flowers, gloves,
handkerchiefs, music, patterns, sermons, stockings, postage-stamps, and
so on. People in the United States and Canada are much given to these
practices, as shown by the fact that in one-half of the year 1874, more
than 14,000 newspapers were detected with such articles secreted in
them.
Occasionally letters of great value are very carelessly treated after
delivery, through misconception as to what they really are. A person
alleging that a registered letter containing a number of Suez Canal
coupons had not reached him, the Post-office was able to prove its
delivery; and on search being then made in the premises of the
addressee, the coupons were found in the waste-paper basket, where they
had been thrown under the idea that they were circulars. In another
instance a registered letter, containing Turkish bonds with coupons
payable to bearer, was misdirected to and delivered at an address in the
west end of London, though it was really intended for a firm in the
city. The value of the enclosures was more than L4000. When inquiry came
to be made at the place of delivery, it was found that the bonds had
been mistaken for foreign lottery-tickets of no value, and were put
aside for the children of the family to play with.
Cases come to light, too, involving a history--or at least suggesting a
history without affording particulars--or leaving us entirely in the
dark as to the circumstances of the matter. Thus, two packets which had
been addressed to Australia, and had been forwarded thither, were
returned to England with the mark upon them, "unclaimed." On being
opened, one of them was found to contain 100 sovereigns, and the other
50 sovereigns; yet there was no communication whatever in either to show
who had sent them. It was supposed, by way of explanation, that a person
proceeding to Australia had directed the packets to himself, intending
to reach the colony by means of another ship; and that, having died upon
the passage, or his ship having been lost, no application was ever made
for them at the office to which they had been directed.
On one occasion a cheque for L9, 15s. was found loose in a pillar
letter-box in Birmingham. The owner was traced through the bank upon
which the cheque was drawn, but he was unable to give any explanation of
the circumstances under which it had passed from his possession.
The following are a series of instances in which letters have got out of
their proper bearings,--chiefly in the hands of the senders or the
persons addressed, or through the carelessness of the servants of those
persons; and the cases show how prone the public are to lay blame upon
the Post-office when anything goes wrong with their letters, before
making proper search in their own premises. A number of cases are added,
in which the servants of the senders or of the persons addressed have
been proved dishonest, when the blame had first been laid upon
post-office servants; and one or two cases are given where the
Department has been held up as the delinquent, merely to afford certain
individuals an excuse for not paying money due by them, or otherwise to
shirk their obligations.
"A person applied at the Leeds post-office, and stated that two letters
(one of which contained the half of a bank-note) which he had himself
posted at that office had not reached their destination--mentioning at
the same time some circumstances associated with the alleged posting of
the letters. After some conversation, he was requested to produce the
letter which had informed him of the non-receipt of the letters in
question; but instead of producing it, he, to his own great
astonishment, took from his pocket the very letters which he believed he
had himself posted."
"Inquiry having been made respecting a letter sent to a person residing
at Kirkcudbright, it appeared that it had been duly delivered, but that
the addressee having left the letter on a table during the night, it had
been devoured by rats." Another case of the depredation of rats upon
letters is as follows:--
Certain letters which ought to have reached a bookseller in a country
town not having been received, it was concluded, after inquiry, that
they had been duly delivered, but had subsequently been withdrawn from
under the street door, which was furnished with a slit to receive
letters, but without a box to retain them. During subsequent alterations
in the shop, however, when it was necessary to remove the flooring under
the window, the discovery was made of thirty-one letters, six
post-cards, and three newspapers which had been carried thither by rats!
The corners of the letters, &c., bearing the stamps, were nibbled away,
leaving no doubt that the gum upon the labels was the inducement to the
theft. Several of the letters contained cheques and money-orders.
But rats are old enemies to letters, as is known in the Post-office; for
in the olden times, when sailing-ships were in use as mail-packets, sad
complaints were made of the havoc caused by "ratts" to the mails
conveyed in these ships.
Nor are rats the only dumb creatures which have shown a "literary" turn,
in getting possession of post-letters. Some years ago a postman was
going his rounds delivering letters in Kelvedon, in Essex, carrying a
registered letter in his hand ready to deliver it at the next house,
when a tame raven--a worthy compeer, if not a contemporary, of the
Jackdaw of Rheims--suddenly darted down, snatched it from his grasp, and
flew off with it. The bewildered postman could only watch the bird while
it made a circuit over the town, which it did before alighting; and so
soon as it got to a suitable place, it set to work to analyse the
composition of the missive by tearing the letter to pieces. The
fragments were shortly afterwards collected and put together, when it
was found that part of them were the remains of a cheque for L30, which
was afterwards renewed when the singular affair was made known.
Another curious incident in which birds are concerned occurred in the
spring of 1884 at Shewbridge Hall, near Nantwich, in Cheshire. For the
convenience of the people at the Hall, a letter-box is placed by the
gate at the roadside, into which the post-runner drops the
correspondence addressed to Shewbridge Hall. Mr Lockett, the occupier of
the house, expecting a letter from Liverpool, containing a cheque for
L10, went to the box, where, as it happened, he found the letter, but in
a mutilated state, and the cheque gone. Believing that a robbery of his
box had been committed, or that the letter had been violated before
being deposited therein, he forthwith rode into Nantwich to report the
matter at the post-office and to the police. Returning later on, he
examined the box more closely, and discovered tomtits inside; and
further investigation led to the discovery of the cheque lying twenty
yards away on the turnpike road, whither it had evidently been carried
for examination. The cheque was folded small, and could therefore be
easily carried by these small birds.
[Illustration: Letter-box taken possession of by Tomtits.]
The tomtits had taken possession of the box for nesting purposes, and
perhaps they found the letter to be in the way, and accordingly made an
effort to remove it. In the spring of the previous year a pair of
tomtits built their nest in this letter-box (possibly the same pair),
and reared a brood of young, though letters were being dropped into the
box every day.
A very similar circumstance occurred in the same season at a place near
Lockerbie, where a letter-box is affixed to the trunk of a tree
bordering on the main road, for the convenience of the people living at
Daltonhook farm, which occupies a site some distance from the highway.
The letter-box is about fifteen inches square, with the usual slit to
admit of letters being dropped in, and a door to the front the full size
of the box, to allow the postman to clear it or to place larger packets
within. A pair of tomtits, considering the box an eligible place for
bringing up a family, built their nest in it, obtaining ingress and
egress by the letter-slit, and choosing that portion of the interior
farthest from the door for their purpose. In contrast to the
ruthlessness and cruelty of many who show no love to God's creatures
unless they contribute in some way to their comfort or profit, the
post-runner and the family who use the box, in a kind-hearted way took
every care to disturb these objects of interest as little as possible,
and in due time the nest was complete, and eight tiny eggs were
deposited therein. While the female was sitting on the eggs during the
term of incubation, she did not rise from the nest when the post-runner
opened the door, but would make a peculiar noise and peck at his hand as
he put it forward to take out or deposit letters. But after a time the
two became more friendly, and kindness on the one side begetting
confidence on the other, the bird at length became so familiar, that
while it continued to sit on the nest it would peck crumbs from the
man's hand, instead of showing displeasure, as it formerly had done. At
length seven young birds became the joy of the parents. These, however,
did not find the box altogether free from drawbacks; for letters, in
being deposited through the slit, sometimes fell on the top of the
youngsters, and so excited the wrath of the old birds. This was proved
on one occasion when a servant dropped a letter into the box, for when
the post-runner next visited the receptacle, he found the letter so
mutilated, either through sheer rage on the part of the tomtits, or in
their endeavours to eject it by the slit, that he took it back to the
farmhouse rather than send it forward in its badly damaged state.
However, the brood at length got through the troubles of their infantile
days; and we may indulge the hope that they have since lived to join in
the antiphonies of the grove, or to adorn the roadside spray with their
neat figures and glowing colours.
It may be added that these little birds are very eccentric in the choice
of their nesting-places. In one case they selected the inside of a
weathercock on the top of a steeple for their breeding-place, and in
another the interior of a beehive in full work. Here they set up house
and reared their young, neither injuring the bees, nor being molested by
them in return.
"A gentleman at Archerstown, county Westmeath, complained of a letter,
containing half bank-notes and post-bills amounting to L400, addressed
to Dublin, not having come to hand; but when the matter came to be fully
examined, it was ascertained that the letter was in a drawer in the
house of the very person to whom it had been directed, but by whom it
had been entirely overlooked."
A banker residing in a country town in Scotland reported that a letter
containing two L20 notes and two L1 notes, addressed to him by another
banker, and posted at a town ten miles distant, had not come to hand. On
inquiry, the sender could not state either the numbers or the dates of
the notes. He had, moreover, allowed upwards of two months to elapse
before taking any steps to ascertain whether his letter had reached its
destination. "As this valuable letter had been posted without the
precaution of registration, and had the words 'county rates' on the
envelope, it was supposed to have excited the cupidity of some one
connected with one or other of the two post-offices concerned, and an
officer was immediately despatched to investigate the case. The
complainant reiterated the statement that the letter had not reached
him; but within half an hour of the officer's departure, an inmate of
the house having made a fresh search, found the letter among some papers
in a press, where it had apparently been placed unopened when received."
"A bank agent sent a letter containing valuable enclosures to another
bank agent. The letter was presumed to have been lost by the
Post-office; but no trace of it could be obtained there, and the
applicant was informed accordingly. It subsequently appeared that the
son of the person to whom the letter had been addressed had called at
the Post-office and received the letter, and that he had afterwards left
the town for the holidays, carrying the letter away with him in his
pocket, where it had remained."
"A letter supposed to contain a L10 note was registered at Moffat, and
in due course delivered to the addressee, who, however, declined to sign
a receipt for it, as the L10 note was missing. The sender was written
to, but he asserted that the note had been enclosed. The postmaster
chiefly concerned (who had been more than fifty years in the service)
was greatly distressed at the doubt thus cast upon his honesty; but on
further inquiry, the sender admitted that he had obtained a trace of the
L10 note, and stated that the fault had not been with the Post-office.
On being pressed for fuller information, he stated that when writing his
letter he had placed the L10 note in an envelope and affixed a
postage-stamp thereon, when a lady came hurriedly into his shop, also
to write a letter, and he had assisted her by getting an envelope and
placing a postage-stamp on it; that he had placed this envelope beside
that which contained the bank-note; and that when the lady had finished
her letter, he gave her by mistake the envelope with the L10 note in it,
and put his own letter into the empty envelope. He had carried the two
letters to the Post-office; and his own, which he supposed contained the
L10, he had registered. Both letters were safely delivered; and the L10
having been returned as evidently sent in error, the lady who had
forwarded it brought it to the complainant, and thus the mystery was
cleared up."
During a snowstorm which occurred a year or two ago, a London firm put
up for posting, among others, a letter to a Glasgow firm containing a
cheque for a sum little short of L1000. The cheque not reaching its
destination in due course, payment was stopped at the bank, and
notwithstanding that every inquiry was made, nothing was heard of the
letter at the time. Eventually, however, the cheque was brought to the
firm who had drawn it, together with the letter, by a police-inspector,
who had found the letter adhering to a block of ice floating in the
Thames off Deptford. The supposition is, that when the letters of the
day were being carried to the Lombard Street Post-office, this letter
was dropped in the street, that it was carted off in the snow to the
Thames, and there, after a week's immersion in the river, got affixed to
the block of ice, as already stated.
On the 27th February 1885, a medical gentleman residing at Richmond,
Surrey, when going his usual round of visits, found on the carriage
floor two letters, one addressed to a person in Edinburgh, the other to
a lady residing near Castle-Douglas. The letters had been duly prepared
for the post, each bearing an undefaced postage-stamp, but nothing in
their appearance indicated that they had ever been posted. The finder
was at first puzzled at the discovery, but on reflection, he remembered
having a few minutes previously opened a large newspaper, the 'Queen,'
which had reached him from Edinburgh two or three days before, but had
till then remained unopened in his carriage. It occurred to him that the
letters might have come concealed within the folds of the newspaper, and
he was good enough to forward a note with each to the persons addressed,
explaining the circumstances under which he had found them. Subsequent
investigation by the Post-office brought to light the fact that one of
the two letters, and the copy of the 'Queen' from which they were
supposed to have dropped, had been deposited in different pillar-boxes
in Edinburgh, but in the same collector's district; and there can be no
doubt that this letter, and probably also the other letter, were shaken
inside the folds of the newspaper during their conveyance to the
head-office in the collector's bag. In one of the notes which the doctor
sent with the letters, he made this remark:--"I cannot help feeling that
the postal authorities and the public should both have their eyes opened
to what a serious danger such a letter-trap as a large newspaper might
prove." He omitted to add, however, that the sender of the 'Queen' had
tied it up very carelessly without a wrapper, and in a way that could
hardly fail to render it a dangerous travelling companion for letters.
Had the letters fallen into dishonest hands, their loss would certainly
have been attributed to the Post-office, and the case is one which aptly
illustrates a means by which letters sometimes get out of their proper
course, or are lost altogether.
A firm of solicitors in Leith wrote a letter to a client in the same
town, enclosing a cheque for L102; and this letter, although it was
alleged to have been duly posted, failed to reach the person for whom
it was intended. The usual inquiries were made, but unsuccessfully, no
trace being discovered of the letter. Some days afterwards the firm
received the letter and cheque, minus the envelope, from a farmer near
Tranent, in one of whose fields a ploughman had picked them up. This man
was engaged spreading town-refuse upon the field when he found the
letter, which he opened, and thereupon threw away the cover. For the
purposes of investigation, it was very essential that this should be
produced; but it happened that meanwhile the field had been gone over
with a grubbing machine, and the chances of the recovery of the
discarded envelope were thereby greatly lessened. The ploughman's son
was set to work, however, to make a search, and after toiling a whole
day, he found the envelope. On examination, it was seen that the
postage-stamp affixed was still undefaced, and the envelope bore nothing
to show that it had ever been in the Post-office. The whole
circumstances left no doubt that the letter had either got into the
waste-paper basket of the senders, or had been dropped on the way to the
Post-office, and that it had been carried ten miles into the country
amongst street rubbish, with which, as manure, the farm in question was
supplied from the town of Leith.
A registered letter posted at Newcastle, and addressed to a banker in
Edinburgh, not having reached the addressee's hands, a telegram was
forwarded to the sender intimating the fact, and requesting explanation
of the failure. The banker supposed that the letter had been lost or
purloined in the Post-office; but it was afterwards proved to have been
duly delivered to the bank porter, who having locked it up in his desk,
had quite forgotten it.
A lady residing in Jersey applied to the Post-office respecting a letter
which had been sent by her to a clergyman at Oxford. Inquiry was made
for it at all the offices through which it would pass, but
unsuccessfully, no trace whatever of it being found. Subsequently the
clergyman informed the secretary of the Post-office that he had found
the letter between the cushions of his own arm-chair, where it had been
placed, no doubt, at the time of delivery.
"A person complained of delay in the receipt of a letter which appeared
to have passed through the Post-office twice. It transpired that the
letter had, in the first instance, been duly delivered at a shop, where
it was to remain till called for, but that it had accidentally been
taken away with some music by a customer, who had afterwards dropped it
in the street. Subsequently the letter must have been picked up and
again posted, and hence its double passage through the Post-office."
"A barrister complained of the non-delivery of a letter containing the
halves of two L10 Bank of England notes, stating that he had posted the
letter himself; but he shortly afterwards wrote to say that the letter
had reached its destination. It appeared that, instead of putting it
into the letter-box, he had dropped the letter in the street, where,
fortunately, it was picked up by some honest person, who posted it."
A business firm having frequently failed to receive letters which had
been addressed to them, made complaint on the subject from time to time;
but the inquiries which were instituted resulted in nothing. After much
trouble, however, it was at length discovered that a defect existed in
the letter-box in the firm's office-door, and fifteen letters were found
lodged between the box and the door, some of which had been in that
situation more than nine years.
A letter said to contain a cheque for L12, 4s., addressed to a London
firm, not having reached its destination, inquiries were made with
respect to it. At the end of three months it turned up at a
_papier-mache_ factory, whither it had, no doubt, been carried among
waste-paper from the office at which it had been delivered.
In 1883, a registered letter sent from Dunkeld on a given date was duly
received in Edinburgh, and delivered at its address, which was a bank,
the postman obtaining a signature to the receipt-form in the usual way.
Some little time afterwards complaint was made by the manager of the
bank that the letter had not been received; but the Post-office was able
to prove the contrary by the receipt, the signature to which, on being
submitted to the manager, was acknowledged to be that of the wife of the
housekeeper of the establishment. Yet this person could give no account
of the letter, nor had any one else seen it; and as the letter was
stated to have contained four L1 notes and a bank deposit-book, the fact
of its disappearance gave rise to a state of things which can be better
imagined than described. The Post-office, in the circumstances, offered
the suggestion that the bank's waste-paper should be carefully examined.
As it happened, however, a quantity of this material had just been
cleared out, having been purchased by a waste-paper dealer; and the fact
made the chances of recovery in that direction all the more remote. Yet
the housekeeper was set to work: he traced the bags first to the store
of the dealer, then to the premises of a waste-paper merchant in another
part of the city. With assistance he carefully examined the contents of
the bags filled at the bank, and his efforts were rewarded by the
discovery of the registered letter, which was in precisely the same
state as when delivered, never having been opened. It had very likely
fallen from a desk in the bank on to the floor, and by a careless person
been brushed aside with used envelopes and scraps of paper, thus finding
its way into the waste-paper basket.
In April 1873, a letter was posted in a certain village in Ayrshire,
addressed by a wife to her husband, who was in command of a vessel bound
for New York. The letter was properly directed to the captain by name,
it bore the name of his ship, and was addressed to the care of the
British Consul, New York. The captain never received the letter, and
this circumstance gave rise, upon his return from sea, to what is
described as a "feud" between him and his wife,--he, reposing perhaps
greater faith in the Post-office than in the dutiful attentions of his
wife, believing that his better-half had not written to him, since he
failed to receive the letter on application at its place of address in
New York. Time, with its incessant changes, hopes, fears, joys, and
disappointments, winged its hurried flight for a period of eleven years
ere the matter which had caused the feud came to be fully understood. At
the end of that time the same letter was returned to the writer through
the Dead-letter Office, having (according to the stamp upon it) been
unclaimed at New York. It was stated that the return of the letter had
"put all to rights" between the couple concerned, though it is to be
hoped that the healing hand of Time had already done much in this
direction, and that the return of the long-lost letter did nothing more
than put the finishing touch to restored confidence. In connection with
this matter, it was afterwards ascertained that the letter was one of
over 4000 similar letters returned to the New York Post-Office from the
offices of the British Consul in that city, upon a new appointment being
made to the Consulate,--the "new broom," as one of his first acts,
having made a clean sweep of this accumulation of letters, some of which
had been lying there no less than seventeen years. How far the failure
of these letters to reach the persons addressed was due to their not
having been called for, or to the negligence of clerks at the
Consulate, is not known, nor will it ever be ascertained what
heart-burnings and misery may have been occasioned by this wholesale
miscarriage of correspondence.
In March 1880, a letter plainly addressed to an individual by name, and
bearing the name and number of a street in a certain district of London,
reached the Dead-letter Office, whither it had been sent by the postman
of the district, owing to the person to whom it was directed not being
known at the address given. When opened, with a view to its return to
the writer, the letter was discovered to contain a Bank of England note
for L100, together with a short memorandum suggesting the return of the
note to some person, but in such vague and general terms that no one who
had not had previous information on the subject could have fully
understood the purport of the message.
The memorandum was, moreover, without head or tail--it had no
superscription to indicate whence it had come, nor had it a signature to
show by whom it had been written. The circumstance being one of an
exceptional character, special steps were taken with a view to trace the
owner, and an advertisement was inserted in several of the metropolitan
newspapers--bringing up, it is true, a responsive crop of claimants for
lost notes, but without eliciting any such claims as would warrant the
surrender of the note in question. From the terms of the memorandum in
the letter, and the fact that it was anonymous, the suggestion readily
arose that whoever had had the note last had not come by it in the
regular way of business; and this idea was strengthened by the discovery
that the note had been paid over by a bank about eight years previously
to a person whose name and address were endorsed upon it; and from that
period the note had evidently not been in circulation. It was thought
probable that the endorser had lost the note in some way shortly after
receiving it, and that coming into the hands of some individual who
feared to put it in circulation, it had been kept up during these eight
years. Meanwhile, the right to receive the note not having been
established by any one, the amount was paid in to the Revenue.
In the Postmaster-General's report for 1881, further mention was made of
the finding of the note in the Dead-letter Office, and several claims
again reached headquarters, one of which proved to be so far good, that,
when the facts had been fully investigated, the amount was paid over to
the claimant.
It appeared that the person whose name was endorsed on the note received
it in part payment of a cheque cashed by him in 1872, when he was bought
out of the business in which he had till then been a partner. Two years
afterwards--viz., in 1874--he died, and his widow was unaware at the
time that the note had been lost. From circumstances which this lady was
able to prove, however, there seemed to be every reason to believe that
her husband (whose practice it was to endorse notes when he had received
them) had by some means lost the note, or that it had been carelessly
left by him in some old book or other papers which were sold as
waste-paper after her husband's death; and thus the Post-office was made
the means of restoring a considerable sum of money to the rightful
owner, while the person who had without title possessed it in the
interval dared not claim it.
"A letter said to have been posted by a person at Fochabers, enclosing a
letter of credit for L50, was supposed to have been appropriated by an
officer of the Post-office; but on inquiry it was ascertained that,
instead of posting the letter himself, as he asserted, the writer had
intrusted it to a servant, who had destroyed the letter, and had
attempted to negotiate the order."
"A person complained repeatedly of letters addressed to him having been
intercepted and tampered with, and of drafts having been stolen from
them and negotiated. There being ground to suspect that the thief was in
the complainant's own office, he reluctantly consented to test the
honesty of his clerks; and the result showed that one of them was the
guilty party, the man being subsequently tried and convicted. The thefts
had been committed by means of a duplicate key, which gave the clerk
access to the letter-box."
"Several complaints were made of the non-delivery of letters addressed
to the editor of a newspaper; but this gentleman afterwards intimated
that he had discovered that the delinquent was his own errand-boy, who
confessed to having pilfered his letter-box."
"A similar case occurred at Romsey, where, on an investigation by the
surveyor, it was discovered that the applicant's errand-boy had
abstracted the letters from his private bag, which it was found could be
done even when the bag was locked."
"Application was made respecting a letter containing a cheque for L79,
12s. 11d., which had been presented and cashed. The letter had not been
registered, and no trace of it could be discovered. The applicants,
however, ultimately withdrew their complaint against the Post-office,
stating their belief that the missing letter had not been posted, but
had been stolen by one of their clerks, who had absconded."
"A merchant sent his errand-boy to post a letter, and to purchase a
stamp to put upon it. The letter contained negotiable bills amounting to
L1200; and as the merchant did not receive an acknowledgment from his
correspondent, he cast the blame on the Post-office. An inquiry
followed, which resulted in showing that the errand-boy had met another
boy on a similar mission, who undertook to post the letter in question.
On further reflection, however, the latter resolved to convert the penny
intended for a postage-stamp into sweetmeats, which he did, and then
destroyed the letter with its contents, carrying the fragments into a
field near the Post-office, where they were found hidden."
A sailor applied for a missing letter containing a money-order for 30s.,
which he said had been sent, but had not reached him; but when he found
that the matter was under strict investigation, he confessed that the
money had been paid to him, and that he had denied having received it,
in order to excuse himself from not paying a debt to the person with
whom he lodged.
"A person having applied for a missing letter, said to contain two L10
and one L5 Bank of England notes, and which he stated had been sent to
him by his father, it appeared on inquiry that no such letter had been
written; and he afterwards confessed that his object in asking for the
letter was a device to keep in abeyance a pecuniary demand upon him by
his landlady."
Some years ago a person complained that twelve sovereigns had been
abstracted from a letter received by him while it was in transit through
the post, but he was told in reply that the envelope bore evidence that
it had not contained coin to that amount. This person then communicated
with the sender of the letter, who persisted in declaring that she had
put therein the amount stated. At this stage of the inquiry an officer
was despatched to investigate the matter; and upon his requiring the
woman who had sent the envelope to accompany him before a magistrate to
attest the truth of her statement upon oath, she confessed that the
statement was false, and explained her conduct by saying that she had
promised to lend the person to whom the envelope had been addressed L12,
but that she had been unwilling to do so, as she felt sure that she
should never get her money back again; and that she determined,
therefore, to keep her money, and throw the blame on the Post-office.
"A bank in Glasgow some years ago complained that a letter had been
delivered there without its contents--halves of bank-notes for L75; and
on a strict investigation, it appeared that the letter had been
intrusted to a boy to post, who confessed that, being aware the letter
contained money, and finding that the wafer with which it was fastened
was wet, he had been tempted to steal the contents, which, at the time,
he believed to be whole notes; but who added that when, on afterwards
examining them, he found them to be halves only, he enclosed them in an
unfastened sheet of paper, which he directed according, as he believed,
to the address of the letter from which he had taken them. The halves of
the notes and sheet of paper were subsequently discovered in the Glasgow
Post-office, the address on the paper being, however, very different
from that of the letter in which the notes had been enclosed."
"Complaint was made that a letter containing the halves of Bank of
England notes for L65, sent to a firm in Liverpool, had failed to reach
its destination. On inquiry, it appeared that the letter had been duly
delivered, and subsequently stolen by a well-known thief, who had the
audacity to go and claim the corresponding half-notes from another firm
in Liverpool, to whose care the stolen letter showed they had been sent
by the same post; and in this object the scoundrel succeeded."
An unregistered letter containing a L10 Bank of England note, posted at
Macclesfield and addressed to Manchester, was stated not to have reached
its destination. Full inquiry was made, but the letter could not be
found. Subsequently, however, the note was presented at the Bank of
England, and on being traced, it was discovered that the letter had been
stolen after its delivery.
"A letter containing two L5 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 L3, 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."
"The publisher of one of the London papers complained of the repeated
loss in the Post-office of copies of his journal addressed to persons
abroad. An investigation showed that the abstraction was made by the
publisher's clerk, his object apparently being to appropriate the stamps
required to defray the foreign postage. In another case a general
complaint having arisen as to the loss of newspapers sent to the chief
office in St Martin's-le-Grand, inquiry led to the discovery of a
regular mart held near the office, and supplied with newspapers by the
private messengers employed to convey them to the post. On another
occasion a man was detected in the act of robbing a newsvendor's cart,
by volunteering on its arrival at the General Post-office to assist the
drivers in posting the newspapers: instead of doing so, he walked
through the hall with those intrusted to him, and, upon his being
stopped, three quires of a weekly paper were found in his possession."
In the spring of 1855, a young lady, fifteen years of age, whose parents
resided in a small English town, which shall be nameless, was sent to a
boarding-school at some distance therefrom to pursue her education. The
mother of the young lady was in a delicate state of health, and, as was
most proper in the circumstances, letters were written from time to time
and forwarded to the daughter at school, giving particulars of her
mother's progress. So far this is all plain and straightforward. The
young lady, however, one day declared that though on a particular date
mentioned by her she had written home to inquire how her mother was,
that letter had not been delivered; and that on the second day
thereafter a brown-paper parcel was placed in a very mysterious manner
in the hall of the house where she was at school. In this parcel was
found a letter for the young lady intimating her mother's death, and
explaining that the parcel had been brought by a friend--thus accounting
for the absence from it of all post-marks. Other circumstances were
related by the girl--that she had seen a man galloping along the road,
and that he had left the parcel in question. Two days after this event,
a letter was posted from her parents' residence to inform the young lady
that her mother was much better; but when the letter arrived and was
opened, she produced another letter requiring her immediate return, in
order to attend her mother's funeral. The case was very puzzling, and
naturally excited great interest,--the more so, as some suspicion arose
that a conspiracy existed to carry off the young lady, in which some
person in the Post-office was aiding and abetting. The matter formed the
subject of two separate investigations, ending in failure, and the
mystery still remained. It was only after a third attempt at
elucidation--when an officer specially skilled in prosecuting inquiries
of a difficult kind had visited the school--that the truth began to
appear. This officer reported that, in his opinion, the whole
proceedings were but a plot of a school-girl to get home; and the young
lady afterwards confessed this to be the case.
It is not probable that the petty fraud of again using stamps which have
already passed through the post is perpetrated with any great frequency
upon the Post-office. Still, cases no doubt do occur, and may at any
time lead to criminal proceedings, like those which took place at Hull
some years ago. A person in that town having posted a letter with an old
stamp affixed, the stamper who had to deface the stamp in the usual
way, detected the irregularity, and brought the matter under notice.
Proceedings were taken against the offender, and the case being
established against him, and the fact being stated that this person had
previously been warned by the Post-office against committing like
frauds, he was mulcted in a fine of L5 and costs, with the alternative
punishment of three-months' imprisonment.
The accidents and misfortunes which are the lot of letters in this
country, seem also to attend post-letters in their progress through the
Post-offices of other countries. A curious case was noticed some years
ago in the French capital. Some alterations were being carried out in
the General Post-office in Paris, when there was found, in a panel
situated near a letter-box, a letter which had been posted just fifty
years before. There it had remained concealed half a century. The letter
was forwarded to the person whose address it bore, and who, strange to
say, was still alive; but the writer, it transpired, had been dead many
years.
On one occasion notice was given to the Post-office by a clergyman
residing in a country town in the south of England, that a packet sent
by him containing a watch had been tampered with in the post, the packet
having reached the person addressed, not with the watch that had been
despatched, but containing a stone, which, it was alleged, must have
been substituted in course of transit. As is usual in cases of this
kind, very particular inquiries were necessary to establish whether the
Post-office was really in fault, because experience has shown that very
often obloquy is laid upon the Department which ought to rest elsewhere;
and accordingly, a shrewd and practised officer in such matters was sent
to the town in question to make investigations. Arrived at the
clergyman's residence, the officer found that that gentleman was from
home; but introducing himself to the sender's wife, he explained his
mission, and in a general way learned from her what she was able to
communicate with regard to the violated packet. While the interview was
thus proceeding, the officer, with professional habit, made the best use
of his eyes, which, lighting upon a rough causeway of small stones
somewhere on the premises, afforded him a hint, if not as yet a
suspicion, as to the locality of the fraud. In fact, he remarked a
striking resemblance between the stone which had been received in the
packet and the stones forming the causeway. In the most delicate way he
insinuated the inquiry whether the lady might not possibly entertain
some shadow of a suspicion of her own servants.
"Oh dear, no," was the reply; "they are all most respectable, and have
the highest characters."
The lady had the utmost confidence in them, and to admit such a thought
was to do them grave injustice. The officer was not to be satisfied with
such an assurance, however, and by using tact and patience he brought
the lady to see that, if there was no dishonesty with her own servants,
they would come safely out of the inquiry, and it might be well to allow
him to question them. It was further permitted, after some objection on
the lady's part and persuasion on that of the officer, that the latter
should ask each of the servants separately whether they would allow
their boxes to be examined. If they had nothing to conceal, the ordeal
could not, of course, hurt them. The female servants were called up one
by one and closely questioned, and on the proposed examination of the
boxes being suggested, the girls at once assented. This was so far
satisfactory, but there was still the butler to deal with. In due turn
the presence of this household ornament was summoned to the room, when,
up to a certain point, everything went well; but it being put to him to
have his boxes searched, injured virtue cried out, and indignation and
scorn were vented upon the obtrusive inquirer. The officer had, however,
gained a point, for he was now in a position to say that if the butler
continued to object, the suspicion would arise that he might possibly be
the culprit, and it might even be concluded that he and not the
Post-office ought to account for the watch. At length the man-servant
gave way, and he and the officer proceeded to the butler's quarters.
Upon the trunk being opened, the first thing to attract notice was three
bottles of wine.
"Holloa!" says the officer, "what have we here? A strange wine-cellar
this!"
"Oh," observed the butler, "these are three bottles of ginger-wine which
were given me by my father, a grocer in the town."
"Indeed!" says the officer, who had meanwhile been noting the colour as
he held a bottle between himself and the light; "it looks a queer colour
for ginger-wine. You won't mind letting me taste your wine, will you?"
Overborne by the assurance of the officer perhaps, or thinking him quite
chatty and chummy, a cork was withdrawn, and the officer was sipping
capital old crusted port. The wine was pronounced very good, but the
missing watch was not forthcoming.
The scene of inquiry was now changed. The officer proceeded to the shop
of the grocer, made some trifling purchase, put on his most affable
ways, and he soon had the grocer talking, first on general topics, then
on personal matters, and at last on the theme of his own family.
"How many have you?" says the officer.
"So-and-so," responds the grocer.
"All doing for themselves by this time, I suppose?" continues the
officer.
This flung the door open for a full statement of the position of the
family, which was given without reserve, as if to an old friend, until
the butler with the clergyman was mentioned, when the officer
interrupted him with the remark--
"Ah, to be sure; I know something of him. That was capital ginger-wine
you gave him lately."
"Ginger-wine!" quoth the grocer; "I never had wine in my house in my
life, and I certainly never gave my son any."
This was enough for the officer, who remarked that there might be a
mistake; and soon thereafter he found means to bring the conversation to
a close.
Returning immediately to the clergyman's house, he again saw the lady,
and told her what had occurred. He made bold to say, moreover, that her
butler was a thief, that he was stealing her husband's wine, that he in
all probability had made away with the watch, and that she ought to give
him into custody, and to prosecute him. At this point the butler was
called in, and in presence of his mistress plainly taxed with the theft
of the wine. Finding it useless to stand out, he confessed that he had
taken it, but protested that he had not stolen the watch.
The lady, however, had no longer any doubt in the matter; and deeply
distressed at finding how greatly she had been deceived in her estimate
of his character for integrity, exclaimed--"Oh John! to think that after
all the pains your master and I have taken to make you a good man, you
should have done this wicked thing! Oh John, John!"
The officer saw that in the lady's view all suspicion was removed from
the Post-office, and prepared to leave; but feeling anxious about the
lady in the absence of her husband, said he should go to the
police-station and fetch a couple of constables to attend to the
matter. On this hint the butler became greatly excited and alarmed, and
earnestly begged that only one policeman might be sent.
"Oh no," said the officer, "you are a big man, and we must have two;"
and beckoning Mrs ---- to leave the room, he turned the key in the door,
and went for the police.
During his absence, the household was in a state of wild excitement, the
lady of the house being in a high state of nervousness, while
below-stairs the servants were in no better condition. Meanwhile, one of
the females, either through sympathy for the idol of the kitchen, or in
pursuance of womanly curiosity, which is not less likely, sought the
vantage-ground of a water-butt at the rear of the premises, in order to
make a reconnaissance through the window, and ascertain how the butler
was comporting himself in the new and extraordinary situation where he
was. But one glance into the room was enough; she sprang to the ground,
and ran to her mistress screaming that John was cutting his throat. Sure
enough he had been engaged in this operation, using a pocket-knife for
the purpose; and the officers of justice, on opening the door, found him
streaming with blood from the self-inflicted wound.
At this juncture the Post-office official left the matter to be dealt
with by the clergyman as he might see fit. He felt sufficient interest
in the case, however, to make inquiry subsequently as to the fate of the
culprit, and learnt that he had recovered from his injury; that his kind
master and mistress had forgiven him; and although they did not receive
him back into their service, they helped him in other ways, and were
assiduous in their endeavours to keep him in the paths of rectitude and
honesty.
The following anecdote, borrowed from a French source,[5] will
illustrate how serious the consequences may be when letters are not
clearly and intelligibly addressed, and by what slight accidents such
missives sometimes go far from their right course.
[5] 'La Poste Anecdotique et Pittoresque.' Par Pierre Zaccone.
About the year 1837 there was garrisoned at a small town in the
Department of the Pas-de-Calais an honest soldier named Goraud, who had
served with the colours a term of seven years. Though he had conducted
himself well, and was favourably thought of by his superiors, he had
never been able to rise above the grade of full private. He liked his
profession, but being unable either to read or write, the avenues to
promotion remained closed against him.
Goraud came from an obscure village in Provence, where his poor old
mother, a woman of over sixty, lived, and where also resided a married
brother, younger than himself, who was surrounded by a rising family of
children. The soldier received from time to time letters from his
mother, which, on being read to him, affected him deeply, sometimes even
to tears. There were, besides, other friends in his native place of whom
he entertained kindly recollections, and with whom he kept up
intercourse through his family; especially a young woman towards whom he
had formerly had very tender feelings, which, though not now so strong,
time and distance had not as yet effaced.
Becoming home-sick, and having no bright prospect before him in the
army, Goraud yearned to be set free, so that he might spend the rest of
his days "in the midst of those he so much loved," as is expressed on
the tomb of the great Napoleon. He had already, as has been before
stated, served seven years; he had been of good conduct; and now he had
but to demand his discharge in order to accomplish his fondest wish.
But just as he was about to make the necessary request, and to realise
the dream which he had been cherishing, a letter from his brother
changed all his plans. His joy was turned to sorrow. This letter
informed him that his mother was seriously ill, and, moreover, that some
distemper had assailed his brother's stock, carrying many of them off;
in fact, misery stared in the face those among whom he had hoped to live
happily, and to eke out the remainder of his days in comfort. The poor
fellow was sadly cast down; the phantom of pleasure had passed from his
view; he shed bitter tears of disappointment, and was at his wits' end.
Dejection and irresolution did not, however, last. He soon regained
command of himself, and filial affection suggested to him the course
which he should pursue.
Next day he proceeded to the office of an agent whose business it was to
procure substitutes for individuals desirous of avoiding service in the
army; and in a few days thereafter he engaged to serve his country for
seven years more, receiving in return a payment down of 1500 francs. It
may be guessed what was the next step taken by the worthy soldier. He
remitted the 1500 francs to his mother, in a letter directed to the care
of his brother; and at the same time he intimated that he was to start
at once for Algeria, there to join the new regiment to which he had been
posted.
Three months passed, and as yet no acknowledgment for the money came to
hand. This to Goraud, after the sacrifice he had made, was sadly
disappointing; but he did not at first feel alarmed. The idea occurred
to him that his mother might be a trifle worse, or that something might
have delayed the reply. He decided to write again. He related what he
had done, explained the cause he had for uneasiness, and begged that an
early answer might be sent to him. This was not long in coming. It
stated that the old mother was again well, that the brother had had a
hard struggle, and that though he hoped to pull through, it might prove
necessary for him to quit the place. In regard to the alleged
remittance, it was briefly added that no money had been received.
This latter statement created a most painful impression upon the
soldier. His brother's letter appeared to breathe a tone which was not
usual; he imagined that, under the guise of calculated frigidity, was to
be perceived an insinuation that no money had been sent: and, smarting
under the sting of such reflections, the blush of offended virtue rose
to his cheek. His feelings ran over the whole gamut of wounded
sentiment. He saw himself an injured man, and felt deeply hurt; his
money had gone unacknowledged, and he became roused to anger; and then,
revolving the whole circumstances in his mind, suspicion took possession
of him. Recollecting that the money-letter had been sent as an ordinary
letter by post, and that the reply had not seemed quite right, he now
suspected that his brother had received the remittance, appropriated it
to his own use, and denied the receipt of his letter. In this frame of
mind, he had a communication penned to his brother full of denunciations
and reproaches, and couched in such terms of violence, that he would not
allow the epistle when written to be read over to him. Next day he
started with a distant expedition on active service.
Gloomy, cast down, and above all irate, he was ready to fight with the
wind or his own shadow. In the first brush with the enemy he threw
himself into their midst with fury, and fought desperately for several
hours, as if to provoke the end which he now longed for. Instead of
meeting his death, however, he gained the hero's prize--the cross of
honour. One month previously he would have hailed this distinction with
delight; now everything was dull and indifferent to him--even glory!
About a year after this event Goraud accompanied his regiment to Paris.
As he was leaving the barracks one day a voice hailed him with the
question, "Is not your name Goraud?" "Yes, major," was the soldier's
reply. "Very good," says the other, "here is a letter for you. There are
several Gorauds in the regiment, and the letter has already been opened.
I see you are wanted at the Dead-letter office of the Post-office about
some business which concerns you."
He took the letter, and at once hastened to the Post-office. There an
explanation awaited him of the miscarriage of his remittance, and the
mystery which had clouded his spirits and embittered his life for a
whole year. The same letter that he had despatched lay before him with
its contents intact. It had been written and addressed for him by a
comrade in the regiment, the superscription, turned into English, being
something in this form--
"To M. Jacques Goraud,
for Widow Goraud,
at La Bastide,
CANTON
of Marseilles."
As it happened, the obliging comrade was a poor scribe, and was without
any great experience in letter-writing, or in the art of addressing
letters. The only word in the direction which had been plainly written,
and stood out in a way to catch the eye, was the word "Canton." This was
the key to the mystery; the letter had been sent to China!
At the period in question the sailing-ships conveying the mails took
about six months to reach that distant country, and the same time for
the return voyage. The soldier's letter had made the double journey; and
the blunder being discovered when the letter came back to France, it
was sent to the village in Provence to which it was really addressed.
But, alas! adversity had overtaken the family in the old home. They had
left the place, and gone no one knew whither; and, so far as the
Post-office was concerned, it only remained to return the letter to the
writer through the Dead-letter Office.
The moral of this anecdote is, that letters ought to be plainly
addressed. Some examples of the rambling style in which addresses are
often written are given in another chapter. It would be a useful work
were the school boards to give some instruction in this matter to the
children under their care. The copy-books might be headed with specimen
addresses for the purpose, and the teachers could point out how
desirable it is, in addition to plain writing, that the addresses should
be well arranged--the name of the person occupying one line, the street
and number another, and the name of the town a conspicuous place to the
right, in a line by itself. In this particular "they do things better in
France," for in that country instruction of the kind in question was
introduced into the primary schools more than twenty years ago.