Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
192
The
following
curious
instance
of
the
wholesale
misappropriation
of
post-letters
also
came
under
the
notice
of
the
Post-office
authorities
in
London
a
few
years
ago:--
A
man
was
observed
one
day
carrying
off
some
boards
from
a
building
in
course
of
erection
in
the
Wandsworth
Bridge
Road,
Fulham,
and
being
pursued
by
a
constable,
he
dropped
the
timber
and
made
off.
The
man
was,
however,
captured
and
taken
to
the
police-station,
whereupon
the
place
where
he
lived
was
searched
for
other
stolen
property.
His
habitation
was
situated
upon
a
waste
piece
of
ground
on
the
banks
of
the
Thames,
the
erection
being
of
wood
built
upon
piles,
and
so
placed
as
to
be
almost
entirely
surrounded
by
water.
Here
this
man,
who
was
a
barge-owner,
and
who
was
passing
under
an
assumed
name,
had
lived
in
isolation
for
about
a
year;
the
position
selected
for
his
home
being
one
calculated
to
afford
him
that
complete
seclusion
from
social
intercourse
which
would
seem
to
have
been
his
aim.
In
the
course
of
their
examination
of
the
contents
of
the
hut,
the
police
found
not
only
more
stolen
timber,
but
various
other
articles,
the
chief
of
which,
in
the
present
connection,
were
a
large
lot
of
post-letters,
mail-bags,
and
articles
of
postmen's
clothing,
besides
milk-cans
and
a
case
of
forty
rifles.
As
the
inquiry
proceeded,
it
became
known
that
the
prisoner
was
a
Post-office
pensioner,
having
been
superannuated
from
his
office
of
postman
some
three
years
previously,
after
having
served
in
that
capacity
a
period
of
fifteen
years.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
