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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
191
Some
years
ago
the
following
extensive
robbery
of
letters
occurred
in
London.
An
unusually
large
number
of
complaints
were
found
to
be
reaching
the
General
Post-office,
of
the
non-receipt
by
merchants,
bankers,
and
others
carrying
on
business
in
Lombard
Street
and
its
neighbourhood,
of
letters
containing
bank-notes,
cheques,
advices,
and
important
correspondence,
sent
to
them
from
all
parts
of
the
kingdom.
The
circumstance
naturally
gave
rise
to
careful
inquiry
on
the
part
of
the
Post-office
authorities,
with
the
result
that
suspicion
fell
upon
a
young
postman
of
nineteen
years
of
age,
through
whose
hands
many
of
the
missing
letters
would
in
ordinary
course
have
to
pass.
Certain
Bank
of
England
notes,
which
had
been
contained
in
some
of
the
letters,
were
found
to
have
been
cashed;
and
the
names
endorsed
upon
them,
though
fictitious,
were
in
a
handwriting
resembling
that
of
the
young
man
suspected.
Thereupon
he
was
arrested
and
searched,
when
in
a
pocketbook
on
his
person
were
found
two
L5
notes,
which
had
been
forwarded
from
Norfolk
to
a
banking-house
in
London,
but
had
failed
to
reach
their
destination.
In
a
pocket
in
his
official
coat
were
found
also
some
thirty-five
letters
of
various
dates,
which
he
had
neglected
to
deliver,
to
the
inconvenience
or
loss
no
doubt
of
the
persons
addressed;
but
the
most
astonishing
part
of
the
business
is,
that
when
his
locker
or
cupboard
at
the
General
Post-office
was
examined,
about
1500
letters
were
found
there
which
he
had
stopped,
the
dates
upon
the
envelopes
showing
that
his
delinquencies
had
extended
over
several
months.
This
young
man,
upon
being
tried
for
the
offences
named,
was
convicted,
and
with
the
usual
severity
observed
in
similar
circumstances,
the
judge
passed
upon
the
prisoner
a
sentence
of
six
years'
penal
servitude.
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