The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"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."