Infallibility is not claimed by those connected with the Post-Office Department, and it cannot be denied that mistakes sometimes occur through the carelessness or incompetency of some clerk or other official. But if there is a body of men who perform the duties of scape-goats more frequently than any other, those men are post masters, and post-office clerks.

Whoever takes this responsible station with the expectation that a faithful discharge of his duty will protect him from all suspicion and blame, cherishes a pleasing dream that may at any moment be dispelled by the stupidity, or carelessness, or rascality of any one among the many-headed public, whose servant he is.

When it is considered that in the selection of persons to fill the important office of post master, the Department makes every effort to secure the services of competent and honest men, and that they, in the appointment of their clerks, generally endeavor to obtain those of a like character, it may reasonably be supposed that at least as high a degree of accuracy and integrity can usually be found inside of post-office walls, as without its boundaries.

I cannot, indeed, claim for this corps of officials entire immaculacy. Could I justly do so, they would be vastly superior in this respect to mankind at large. But without setting up any such high pretensions, I would suggest that those connected with the post-office receive a greater share of blame for failures in the transmission of letters than justly belongs to them. Many people seem to think that nobody can commit a blunder, or be guilty of dishonesty in matters connected with the mails, but post masters or their employÉs.

Acting on this impression, such persons, when anything goes wrong in their correspondence, do not stop to ascertain whether the fault may not be nearer home, but at once make an onslaught upon the luckless post-office functionary who is supposed to be the guilty one.

The investigation of some such unfounded charges, resulting in placing the fault where it belonged, has brought to light curious and surprising facts, respecting the atrocious blunders sometimes committed by the most accurate and methodical business men. Such men have been known to send off letters with no address, or a wrong one; and even (as in one case which will be found in this chapter) to persist in attempting to send a letter wrongly directed. They have been known to mislay letters, and then to be ready to swear that they had been mailed. The blame of these and similar inadvertencies has been laid, of course, upon somebody connected with the post-office.

Mr. A. is a man of business habits; he never makes such mistakes, and indignantly repudiates the idea that any one in his employ could be thus delinquent. So the weight of his censure falls on the much-enduring shoulders of a post-office clerk.

Besides the class of cases to which I have alluded, which arise from nothing worse than carelessness or stupidity, many instances occur in which the attempt is made by dishonest persons to escape detection, by throwing the blame of their villany upon post-office employÉs. Cases like the following are not uncommon.

A merchant sends his clerk or errand-boy to mail a letter containing money. This messenger rifles it, reseals it, and deposits it in the letter box. On the receipt of the letter by the person to whom it is addressed, the robbery comes to light; and, as the merchant is naturally slow to believe in the dishonesty of his messenger, he at once jumps at the conclusion that the theft was committed after the letter entered the post-office. In such cases, and in those of which I have been speaking, it would be well to establish the rule that scrutiny, like charity, should "begin at home."

Letters are sometimes mailed purporting to contain money for the payment of debts—when in fact they contain none—with the intention of making it appear that they have been robbed in their passage through the mails. In short, the cases are numberless in which, through inadvertence or design, censure is unjustly thrown upon the employÉs of the post-office; and the investigations of this class of cases forms no unimportant branch of the duties of a Special Agent.

It has been the pleasing duty of the author, in not a few instances, to relieve an honest and capable official from the load of suspicion with which he was burdened, by discovering, often in an unexpected quarter, where the guilt lay.

The following case, which might properly be entitled "The Biter Bit," displays still another phase of the subject in hand.

A lady of a very genteel and respectable appearance, called one day on a prominent New England post master, with a letter in her hand, which she insisted had been broken open and resealed. She handed the letter to the post master, who examined it, and appearances certainly seemed to justify her assertion. She further declared that she well knew which clerk in the office had broken it open, and that he had previously served several of her letters in the same way. Upon hearing this, the post master requested her to walk inside the office, and point out the person whom she suspected.

Such an unusual phenomenon as the appearance of a lady inside the office, produced, as may be supposed, a decided sensation among the clerks there assembled. Nor was the sensation diminished in intensity when the post master informed them, that the lady was there for the purpose of identifying the person who had been guilty of breaking open her letters!

This announcement at once excited the liveliest feelings of curiosity and solicitude in the mind of almost every one present, and each one, conscious of innocence, indulged in conjectures as to who that somebody else might be, whom the accusing Angel (?) was to fix upon as the culprit.

All their conjectures fell wide of the mark. After looking about for a moment, the lady pointed out the last man whom any one in the office would have suspected of such an offence—one of the oldest and most reliable of their number.

"That is the person," said she, indicating him by a slight nod of the head; "and if he persists in making so free with my letters, I will certainly have him arrested. Why my letters should always be selected for this purpose, I cannot imagine; but if any more of them are touched, he will wish he had let them alone."

This direct charge, and these threats, produced a greater commotion among his fellow clerks, than in the mind of the gentleman accused. Waiting for a moment after she had spoken, he broke the breathless silence that followed her words, by saying calmly,—"Mrs.——, I believe?"

"That is my name, sir."

"Have you concluded your remarks, madam?"

"I have, sir, for the present."

"Then, madam, I will take the liberty to inform you that your husband is the person on whom you ought to expend your indignation. He has, at different times, taken several of your letters from the office, opened and read them, and after resealing, returned them to the letter box, having made certain discoveries in those letters, to which he forced me to listen, as furnishing sufficient ground for his course, and justifying former suspicions! He earnestly requested me never to disclose who had opened the letters, and I should have continued to observe secrecy, had not your accusation forced me to this disclosure in self-defence. If you wish to have my statement corroborated, I think I can produce a reliable witness."

The lady did not reply to this proposition, but made a precipitate retreat, leaving the clerk master of the field, and was never afterwards seen at that post-office.

In the summer of 1854, among the complaints of missing letters made at the New York post-office, was one referring to a letter written by a young lawyer of that city, directed as was claimed, to a party in Newark, N. J. Enclosed was the sum of twenty-five dollars in bank-notes.

The writer of the letter was annoyed by the circumstance, to an unusual degree, and caused a severe notice of censure upon the Post-Office Department, to be inserted in one of the leading New York journals. A formal certificate was also drawn up, duly sworn to, and forwarded to Washington.

It read as follows:—

The complainant was visited by the Special Agent, and the bare suggestion that the failure might have been owing to some error in the address of the letter, was received with much indignation. He didn't do business in that way, and the post-office and its clerks couldn't cover up their carelessness or dishonesty, by any such inventions.

The reader ought to have been present in the post master's room, some few months subsequently, when this infallible (?) individual called, in response to a notice that his letter had been returned from the Dead Letter Office!

Secretary.—"Good morning, Mr. C——."

C.—"Good morning, sir. I have received a notice to call here for a letter."

Secretary.—"Yes, sir, that is the one referred to, (placing the unlucky missive before him). Is that address in your hand-writing?"

C.—"Why,—y-e-s, it's mine sure—I couldn't dispute that."

Secretary.—"It seems to be directed to Newburg, N. Y., instead of to Newark, N. J."

C.—"I have nothing to say. I could have sworn that the address was correct."

Secretary.—"You did so swear, I believe. Mistakes will happen, but I think the least you can do, will be to retract the article you published censuring us, for what you were yourself to blame."

The amazed limb of the law made no further reply, but left the office gazing intently on the letter, and in his bewilderment getting the wrong door, as he had originally got the wrong address upon the letter.

No such correction was ever made, however, and like hundreds of similar faults, for which others are alone responsible, the charge yet stands against the Post-Office Department, and those in its employ.

Some years since, a letter containing drafts and other remittances to a considerable amount, was deposited in the New York office, to be transmitted by mail, having been directed (as was supposed) to a large firm in Philadelphia. This letter would pass through the hands of a clerk, whose duty it was to separate all those deposited in the letter box, and arrange them according to their respective destinations. He discovered that it was directed to New York, yet though he had heard of the firm to which it was addressed, he thought it might have been so directed for some particular purpose, and accordingly placed it in the "alphabet," for delivery to the proper claimant. On the day after this, Mr. D., of the firm of D. & A., well known brokers in Wall Street, called at the office and stated that his clerk had deposited such a letter to be mailed in time to go to Philadelphia the same day, but that he had been advised that it had not been received.

The clerk in attendance was somewhat perplexed by this statement, but suggested the probability that his clerk, in the hurry of business, had directed it wrong.

Mr. D. replied that this could not be, for he saw all his letters before they were confided to the charge of his clerk, and as the one in question had not been received, it must have been mailed incorrectly through the ignorance or carelessness of the clerk assigned to that duty; and indeed went so far as to intimate that it might have been detained purposely. This insulting remark induced the post-office clerk to express his perfect indifference concerning such a groundless conjecture, and to state, as his opinion, that the charge of ignorance, carelessness, or sinister design, would eventually be found to rest on the shoulders of Mr. D. or his clerks.

Against this turning of the tables, that gentleman indignantly protested, and the post master, who overheard the altercation, appeared vexed and displeased at the supposed delinquency of his clerk. A general search was commenced in the office, in order, if possible, to settle the disputed point. In the course of this investigation, the "pigeon-hole" designed for letters corresponding with such a name as that of the Philadelphia firm, was examined, and the letter in question was found, directed "New York," instead of "Philadelphia."

Upon this being known, Mr. D. made many apologies, begged to be exonerated from all intention to charge criminality upon any one, took his letter and retired, much disconcerted and chagrined.

He went to his office and poured out sundry vials of wrath upon the head of his luckless clerk, to whom he attributed the atrocious blunder which had been committed. The affair, however, did not end here.

On the following day a letter was deposited in the post-office, at about one o'clock, in time for the Philadelphia mail, directed precisely as before! viz. addressed to the Philadelphia firm, but directed "New York," and happened to fall under the eye of the clerk who had been cognisant of the error of the day previous. This second instance of gross inadvertence, or something worse, on the part of somebody, was rather too much for the equanimity of the post master, who at once sent for Mr. D., and showed him the letter, which seemed as if it was under the influence of some mischievous enchanter. As the words "New York," in the superscription, stared D. in the face, he in turn became enraged, and was about to leave the office with the fell design of discharging his clerk instanter. The post master then requested him, before he left, to sit down and alter the direction of the letter from "New York" to "Philadelphia," which he did. The letter was mailed accordingly, and duly received.

A few days afterwards, the post-office clerk met Mr. D., and said to him, "I suppose you have turned off your clerk for his mismanagement in relation to the letter about which so much trouble was made in our office."

"Ah!" replied he, "I believe I shall have to confess that I was the only one to blame in the matter. My clerk was perfectly innocent. On returning home with the letter, I laid it down with the intention of having the mistake in the direction rectified, but having something else to call off my attention just then, it was mixed with the letters for city delivery, and was taken to the office with them by my clerk."

Thus all this trouble and vexation was caused by the carelessness of a man who was accustomed to system and accuracy in the transaction of his business; and the above related facts may lead even persons of this description not to be too confident of their own freedom from error, when any mistake like that just mentioned occurs.

I can give no better summary of the whole subject under consideration, than that which is found in some remarks made by Robert H. Morris, Esq., on the occasion of his retirement from the office of post master of New York, in May, 1849, at a dinner prepared for the occasion.

During the evening Mr. Morris said.

"Gentlemen, please fill your glasses for a toast. As I intend to toast a man you may not know, I deem it necessary, before mentioning his name, to tell you what sort of a man he is.

"He rises at 4 o'clock in the morning and works assiduously during the whole day, until 7 o'clock in the evening—goes wearied to bed, to rise again at 4 o'clock, and again to work assiduously.

"If the gentlemen of the press—and there are some among us—incorrectly direct their newspapers for subscribers, it is the fault of the man I intend to toast, if the papers do not reach those to whom they should have been addressed.

"If a publishing clerk omits to address a newspaper to a subscriber, it is the fault of the man I intend to toast that the subscriber does not get his paper.

"If a man writes a letter and seals it, and neglects to put any address upon it, it is the fault of the man I will toast, if the letter does not reach the person for whom it was intended.

"If an officer of a bank addresses a letter to Boston instead of New Orleans, it is the fault of the man I shall presently toast, if the letter is not received at New Orleans.

"If a merchant's clerk puts a letter in his over-coat, and leaves that coat at his boarding-house, with the letter in his pocket, the man I will toast is to blame because the letter has not reached its destination.

"If a merchant shuts up a letter he has written, between the leaves of his ledger, and locks that ledger in his safe, the man I will toast has caused the non-reception of that letter.

"If a poor debtor has no money to pay his dunning creditor, and writes a letter that he encloses fifty dollars, but encloses no money, having none to enclose, the man I will toast has stolen the money.

"If a good, warm-hearted, true friend, receives a letter from a dear (?) but poor friend, asking the loan of five dollars; and, desiring to be considered a good, warm-hearted, true friend, and at the same time to save his five dollars, writes a letter saying 'dear friend, I enclose to you the five dollars,' but only wafers into the letter a small corner of the bill,—the man I will toast has stolen the five dollars out of the letter, and in pulling it out, tore the bill.

"If a rail-road-bridge is torn down or the draw left open, and the locomotive is not able to jump the gap, but drops into the river with the mail, the man I will toast has caused the failure of the mail.

"This, gentlemen, is the stranger to you, whom I will toast. I give you, gentlemen—A Post-Office Clerk!"