Ten Years Among the Mail Bags Part 28

The Seed Mania--_Strong_ Inducements--Barnes' Notes--"First rate Notice"--Farmer Johnson--Wethersfield outdone--Joab missing.

"Gift Enterprise"--List of Prizes--The Trap well baited--Evading the Police--The _Scrub_ Race.

An incalculable amount of talent is perverted to dishonest purposes, thereby becoming a gift worse than useless to its possessors, and a fruitful source of evil to the community. Such misemployed ability is like the "staff of life," turned by a magic worse than Egyptian, into the serpent of death. And the brilliancy which surrounds the successful development of some deep-laid plan of knavery--the admiration which it involuntarily excites, in the mind even of those who abhor the deed, and condemn the cunning designer, render such misdirected powers doubly dangerous, by exciting in the weak-minded and evil-disposed a desire to emulate such wonderful achievements, and to become notorious, if they cannot make themselves famous.

It cannot be denied that a considerable degree of talent is requisite to insure success, even in a course of knavery; and by success I mean nothing more than that longer or shorter career, which ends, if not always in detection, certainly in disappointment and misery. Success, then, in this connection, signifies putting off the evil day--a day which is as sure to come as any other day. Time is an enemy which no rogue can ever outrun.

Even such pitiful success as this is not within the grasp of small abilities. The possessors of such moderate endowments will find it emphatically true, that Honesty is the best policy for them, however brilliant and seductive a dishonest course may be.

When Shakspeare wrote, "Put money in thy purse," he probably did not intend to exhort any one to pocket another's money, but to confine himself to that which he actually possessed. But, judging by the number and variety of the ingenious frauds which are practised upon the community, the saying in question seems to have been adopted in its most unscrupulous sense as a principle, by sundry personages, more remarkable for smartness than for honesty. Not a few of these characters have selected the mails as the means of facilitating their designs upon the pockets of the public at large.

"But this sort of thing is becoming too prevalent," as a worthy magistrate was in the habit of remarking, when about to sentence some pick-pocket or disturber of the peace; and if the devices of the cla.s.s of villains referred to continue to increase as they have done for years past, semi-annual sessions of the legislative branch of Government will scarcely suffice for the enactment of penalties to meet the increasing exigencies of the case.

There is no end to the gross swindles of this description now perpetrated or attempted, and requiring the utmost care and watchfulness on the part of the public to avoid being deceived by them. No cla.s.s nor condition in society is exempt from these wiles; the most intelligent and shrewd being victimized quite as often as the credulous and inexperienced.

Lawyers, clergymen, editors, farmers, and even post masters, have all in turn been swindled by means of facilities afforded by the post-office system, the frauds ranging in magnitude and importance, from imaginary papers of onion seed, to "calls" for ministerial aid in the momentous work of converting "a world lying in wickedness!"

It is with a view to put those who may peruse these pages on their guard, that a few rare specimens of the tricks of these "Jeremy Diddlers" are here exposed, most of which have come to light within a few months of this present writing.

The first that we will describe, was perpetrated quite successfully upon the legal fraternity, and some of the most distinguished members of that highly useful profession in the different States, will no doubt readily recognise the truthfulness of the picture, as it is held up to their gaze. This "dodge" may properly be ent.i.tled

YOUNG AMERICA PRACTISING _AT_ THE BAR.

In January of the present year, the post master of Brooklyn, N. Y., called my attention to the fact that large numbers of letters were arriving at that office to the address of "William H. Jolliet," and that from some information he had received, he was led to believe that the correspondence was in some way connected with a systematic scheme of fraud.

Arrangements were accordingly made to watch the person who was in the habit of inquiring for the "Jolliet" letters, and the next time he called, which was in the evening, he was followed as far as the Fulton ferry, detained just as he was about to enter the ferry-boat, and questioned in reference to the letters.

The person thus interrogated was an exceedingly intelligent boy, about fifteen years of age, plainly but neatly dressed, and of prepossessing manners, particularly for one so young. When asked what he intended to do with the letters he had just taken from the post-office, he manifested great self-possession, and apparently antic.i.p.ating trouble, without allowing an opportunity for a second question, he hurriedly asked,

"Why, what about this business? I have been thinking there might be something wrong about Jolliet's letters. I am a student in a respectable law-office in New York, and would not like to be involved in any trouble of this sort. I can tell you, sir, all I know about these letters."

As his explanation will hereafter appear in full, suffice it here to say, that he threw the entire responsibility upon a stranger whom he accidentally met in the Harlem cars. The story was told with much apparent frankness, and a gentleman pa.s.sing along who knew the lad, and confirmed his statement as to his connection with a prominent law-office in New York, he was allowed to go at large, under a promise that at an appointed hour on the following day, he would call on the Brooklyn post master, explain the matter more fully, and put him in possession of facts which would enable the officers to arrest Jolliet, if that was thought best.

The appointed time arrived, but the young man did not. A rather voluminous package of papers, however, was sent as a subst.i.tute. These papers are so well worded, and so formally drawn up, that I will here introduce two of them _verbatim._ The reader will bear in mind that they are the production of a boy only fifteen years of age:--

New York, January 26, 1855, 12, M.

Post Master, Brooklyn, L. I.

Dear Sir:

Being detained by important court business from attending to my promise given to you yesterday to be at your office, I am obliged to write to you. I enclose a statement of facts which I think sufficient to get a warrant. It is sworn to by me before a Commissioner of Deeds of New York, authorized to take acknowledgments for the State.

I saw Mr. Jolliet yesterday evening. He does not suspect anything.

I told him that the mails had not arrived when I was over to Brooklyn, yesterday; and, in course of the conversation, he told me _he would take a sleigh ride to Snediker's on Sat.u.r.day_.

Therefore, it is important you should _get a warrant, and take him upon that day_. He also told me he would have a white sleigh, a white robe, and a cream-colored pair of horses. You can easily know him. I will be over, if no accident intervenes, to-morrow, say about 11 or 12 o'clock. I tracked him to the Manhattan bar-room in Broadway, but could not find out his residence, as he stayed too late. I think he is connected with a gang of rascals who have made this kind of rascality their special business.

I am acquainted with the District Attorney in this city, and have thought of getting him to bring the case before the grand jury, and get a bench warrant out in New York against Jolliet, in case you should think it advisable.

Meanwhile, I will remain still about the matter until I hear from you again.

Yours, very truly.

Annexed is the statement of facts alluded to above:--

_Statement of Facts_. A.

During the month of November or December, 1854, I became acquainted with a man whom I knew by the name of William H.

Jolliet. He seemed to be about 25 or 30 years of age, and, by his dialect, of English parentage; he was genteelly dressed, and seemed to be a gentleman by his talk and manners. He came to know me from often seeing me on the cars of the New York and Harlem Rail Road, and often talking to me. I am in the habit of doing copying, &c., for pay, and therefore was willing to do anything in that way, under the usual circ.u.mstances--that is, for pay.

He asked me one day if I was a man of business. I told him I was.

He then asked me if I could make a copy of a note he had in his pocket, and show it to him the next time I should meet him, and not to say anything about it to anybody. I told him I would. He gave it to me, and it was something as follows--that is, substantially:--

Brooklyn, L. I., Jan. 6, 1855.

Sir:

I have received a package of papers for you from Liverpool, England, with six shillings charges thereon--on receipt of which amount the parcel will be sent to you by such conveyance as you may direct.

Yours, respectfully,

WILLIAM H. JOLLIET.

I met him one or two days afterwards, and gave him his original, and my copy. He said it was very well done, but looked too much like a law-hand, and asked me if I couldn't write more of a mercantile-looking hand. I told him I supposed I could. He then gave me my copy, and told me to buy some paper, and make as many copies as I could, and direct them one to each of the names he gave me on a list, and mail them. I told him I would. This was on a Sat.u.r.day evening; and on Sunday afternoon I wrote about a hundred copies of them, and directed them and sent them. I met him on Monday, and he asked me if I had done it. I told him I had; he then asked for the list of names he had given me, and I handed it to him. He asked if I knew the names I had directed the letters to. I told him I did not, although I did well, my suspicions about him having been aroused by his request for secrecy.

On that Sunday on which I wrote the notes, I made up my mind to play traitor to him, by sending the notes as directed, and keeping all answers which he should get (he having told me to call for them at the Brooklyn Post Office), and then delivering them, with my evidence, to officer B----, in New York, whom I know well by reputation as a good officer, and an American in fact and principle. This was foiled by my disclosures to the Post Master of Brooklyn, on Thursday.

At the time he asked me to make the copies of the note, he gave me a five-dollar gold piece, to defray expenses. I have kept a copy of the list he gave me, and also of another which he had given me, and which I returned in the same way. I have mailed about 200 letters in all. At the time he ordered me to make the copies of the letter and mail them, he requested me to make a letter and direct it to him at Brooklyn, and mail along with the others. I did so, but I asked him what this was for, and he said he wanted to know how long it would take for a letter to go from New York to Brooklyn. But I did not believe him, and this formed part of the causes for my suspicions. I afterwards received the letter, I think it was Tuesday, and gave it to him. At the time of my first mailing the letters, I dropped, by carelessness, a list of the names of persons to whom they were directed, along with them.

Could this list be got, it would tell us a great deal about the transaction, and then we could have a complete list of all the persons addressed. It was dropped in one of the three new boxes on the south-west corner of the New York Post-Office.

I have seen him since he first spoke to me about this affair, five or six times, (once on Friday, Sat.u.r.day, Monday, and Tuesday, and twice on Wednesday, I believe.) He lives in Harlem, I think. I don't know anything further of interest, and close with the ardent wish, that a King's county officer will get the credit of catching one of the greatest scoundrels that ever lived, thereby ridding the community of him.

G. H. B.

City of Brooklyn,

County of Kings, ss,

G. H. B----, of the city of New York, student at law above named, being duly sworn, doth depose and say that he has read the foregoing statement, and knows the contents thereof, and that the same is true of his own knowledge.

G. H. B.

Sworn before me this 26th January, 1855.

B. T. B----, Comr. of Deeds.