Chainmail

“ Upholding the morality of the mail, a fortiori I upheld its rights; as a matter of duty, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege of imperial precedency, and astonished weak minds by the feudal powers which I hinted to be lurking constructively in the charters of this proud establishment. Once I remember being on the box of the Holyhead mail, between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some "Tallyho" or "Highflyer," all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity of form and colour in this plebeian wretch! ”

“ The sorting of mails would be performed at every station instead of at a few. Incoming country mails would be taken from the bags at the railway termini, and the same bags refilled with outgoing country mails, thus avoiding needless carriage to the Post Office and back. No bags at all would be used for local mails, the steel carriers themselves answering that purpose.
At every tube terminal a post-office clerk would be stationed, so that the mails would never for an instant be out of post-office control. ”

“ The word “mail,” properly applied to this form of chain-armour, is also used of armour generally, whether plate or chain, and is also transferred to the horny defensive coverings of animals, such as the tortoise, crab, &c. (see Arms and Armour) . (2) (O. Eng. mál, speech; probably the same as O. Saxon mahal, assembly; in meaning connected with O. Norse mále, stipulation) , a Scots law term meaning rent, tax. “Mails and duties” are the rents, whether in kind or money, of an estate. In English the word only survives in “blackmail” (q.v.) ”

“ Some people, indeed, recognising the absurdity of calling a decrepit old man a “postboy,” preferred to give him the title of “mailman,” by which name a postal servant who got drunk and delayed the Bath mail in 1770 is styled in a contemporary newspaper, which says, “The mail did not arrive so soon by several hours as usual on Monday, owing to the mailman getting a little intoxicated on his way between Newbury and Marlborough and falling from his horse into a hedge, where he was found asleep by means of his dog.” ”

“ Mails never can be carried either with regularity or certainty in vessels, the chief object and dependence of which is to carry merchandize. The time which such vessels would require to procure, take in, and discharge cargoes, would render punctuality and regularity, two things indispensably necessary in all mail communications, quite impracticable. Any attempt to resort to such a system, more especially in a quarter where steamers would have so many places to call at as these will have in the West Indies, would throw every thing into inextricable confusion. ”

“ In all mail communications, such as those which are about to be considered, the point to be kept steadily in view, and one which is absolutely indispensable, is to connect and to bring the return mails and the outward together, in such a manner as that every intermediate place shall have the full benefit of both, without trenching upon the general interests, or occasioning any unnecessary detention or delay. This great and essential point is more particularly necessary to be attended to in the conveyance of mails by sea to distant parts, especially if conveyed by steam. ”

“ And, if any person shall take any letter or packet, not containing any article of value, nor evidence thereof, out of a post-office, or shall open any letter, or packet, which shall have been in a post-office, or in custody of a mail carrier, before it shall have been delivered to the person to whom it is directed, with a design to obstruct the correspondence, to pry into another's business or secrets ”

“ When there are good grounds for believing that letters are opened and read from motives of curiosity, complaint should be made in writing to the Chief Clerk of the Post-Office Department, Washington. A secret plan for the certain detection of prying delinquents has recently been devised.
[Pg 416]
Two or more letters directed to different persons, cannot be sent by mail in one envelope or packet, without subjecting the sender to a fine of ten dollars. This does not apply to any letter or packet directed to a foreign country. ”

“ Packages began to arrive with insufficient postage, and the crippled girl's pocket money vanished with alarming rapidity. The letter carrier always delivered the daily budget of mail to the little maid under the trees when the weather permitted of her being at her post, and it chanced that for a fortnight after the answers to her endless chain began pouring in, she received her own mail, so no one but Allee knew her secret, and there was no one but Allee to help her out with her heavy postage bills. ”

“ Outside the Post-office department it is probably not apprehended to what extent care is actually bestowed upon letters and packets—when, in course of transit through the post, their covers are damaged or addresses mutilated—in order to secure their further safe transmission; many envelopes and wrappers being of such flimsy material that, coming into contact with hard bundles of letters in the mail-bags, they run great risk of being thus injured. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am persuaded that letters would rarely be intercepted in their transmission by post, if every person concerned in mailing or carrying them, could be impressed with the idea that each package enclosing valuables, may be but a bait seeking to detect whoever may be dishonest enough to molest it, and to become a swift witness for his conviction and punishment. ”

“ In our larger cities, and indeed throughout the country, there are thousands of persons engaged in the transaction of business, who if called upon would testify that in the course of their employment of the mails, involving in the aggregate the collection and disbursement of millions of dollars, no part of their correspondence, valuable or otherwise, had failed or had ever been delayed through any fault of the Post-Office Department. ”

“ No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the mysterious. The connexion of the mail with the state and the executive government—a connexion obvious, but yet not strictly defined—gave to the whole mail establishment an official grandeur which did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. ”

“ With but few exceptions, the mails in which the missing letters and money packages should have been conveyed to New York, would have come from the East by the express night trains, over the Boston and New York Railroad. Upon those trains, the mails were in charge of the baggage-masters, the regular mail or "route agents" being confined to the way mail-trains running at different hours of the day. A variety of circumstances, besides their good reputation, conspired to avert suspicion from these baggage-men. ”

“ Other officers, besides, are fixed at different foreign stations to direct the transfers of mails from packet to packet, or from packets to other modes of conveyance. Then, again, in growing numbers, another class of officers travel in charge of mails, such as the Indian and Australian, and on all the North American packets, who, with a number of sorters, are employed in sorting the mails during the voyage, in order to save time and labour in the despatch and receipt of mails at London and Liverpool respectively. ”

“ Here, the scheme to defraud is established, and the mailing of the check by the bank, incident to an essential part of the scheme, is established. There remains only the question whether Pereira 'caused' the mailing. That question is easily answered. Where one does an act with knowledge that the use of the mails will follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such use can reasonably be foreseen, even though not actually intended, then he 'causes' the mails to be used. ”

“ The roads upon which the mails are carried by parties, under contract with the government, belong either to the States, or to individuals, or to corporations, and are declared post-roads only to protect the carriers from being interfered with, and the mails from being delayed in their transportation, and the postal service from frauds. The government has no other control over them. It has no proprietary interest in them or along them to bestow upon any one. ”

“ Of the eight great lines of packet communication, only one pays its expenses and yields a profit. If the letters sent abroad were charged with the whole cost of the packets, the foreign agencies, and other incidental expenses, not only would all the sea-postage be swallowed up, but the mails would entail a loss of nearly four hundred thousand pounds a year. "We want," said a leading weekly commercial paper lately, "increased facilities for communication with our West Indian Colonies;" ”

“ I’ll bet a cookie that it was slipped into the mail bag by someone who was fooling around with the other mail. Now this Avalon has probably hot-footed it to the man back of all this to tell him that the law is already on the trail of the missing checks. They know that you can fool very little with Uncle Sam’s mail system. It’s one of the safest and best protected things in the world,” declared Phil.
“Well, we can do nothing more tonight, except to notify the constable to keep an eye on Avalon, and pick him up on suspicion for questioning when the inspector gets here. ”

“ Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. ”

“ They continued, however, to prosecute their enterprise; and the celerity and regularity with which their steam packets made their passages soon began to attract the attention of the public. The merchants began to complain loudly of the inefficiency of the transmission of the Mails by sailing packets; and it was at last intimated, from an official quarter, to the Managers of the Peninsular steamers, that if they had any plan or proposals to submit for an improvement of the Peninsular Mail Service, the Government was then prepared to receive and consider the same. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He leaned over the bar and called to Owen: “Hey, you! One minute, there, young fellow!”
“Want me?” inquired the carrier, stepping back into the barroom.
“Yes. Are you quite sure that this here registered package ain’t been tampered with?”
“I’m quite sure that it hasn’t while it’s been in my hands, and I think you’ll find that the post office isn’t to blame,” replied Owen. “The government is mighty careful in the handling of its registered mail.
“But, of course, if you’re suspicious,” he added, “you can come around and see the superintendent and ask for an investigation. ”

“ Uncle Sam’s men in gray are supposed to be mere automatons when it comes to delivering mail. One of the rules of the department is to the effect that carriers must not indulge in any unnecessary conversation while covering their routes; and, of course, they are not supposed to ask any questions or betray any curiosity concerning the letters they carry.
Owen Sheridan was well up on the rules and regulations, but he vowed, as he stepped out of the office to cover his route, that he was going to find out the significance of that letter before another hour had passed. ”

“ Well, a bit of news has come saying that, among the Himalaya Mountains, the men who carry the mails on horseback are sealed to their saddles, in such a way that while they can ride easily enough they cannot get down from their seats; and, what is more, the mail-packages are sealed to the men! Once started on the route, the seals are not allowed to be broken, except by the postmaster at the next station, and, if they happen to get broken otherwise than by accident, the carrier is severely punished. ”

“ However unimportant the contents of a letter may be, the violation of its secrecy while it is in charge of the Post-Office Department, or even after having left its custody, becomes an offence of serious magnitude in the eye of the law; and as the quantity and importance of mail matter is continually increasing, it has been found necessary to adopt means for its security, which were not required in the earlier history of the Post-Office. ”

“ At Lombard Street there was need of all the credit which his gallantry had earned; for troubles were gathering thickly round the administrators of the sea service, and in the City the voice of discontent was loud and menacing. The war had now lasted four years. Within that period twelve Packets had been captured, having on board—for 68there was not always a ship ready to embark the mail—no less than eighteen mails. On several occasions original letters and duplicates made for safety had both been lost. The inconvenience was immense, and the merchants grew restive under it. ”