Again--Comparatively but few of the secret modes of detection are exhibited, and he who should consider himself safe in evading what plans are here described, will find to his sorrow that he has made a most dangerous calculation.
As to the second objection above mentioned, namely, the danger of wounding the feelings of innocent parties, the author would observe that fictitious names of persons and places are generally substituted for the real ones; thus avoiding any additional publicity to those concerned in the cases given. And furthermore, he ventures to hope that few of the class to which this objection refers, would refuse to undergo such a trial of their feelings, if by this means a wholesome warning may be given to those who need it.
There are other wrongs and delinquencies connected with our postal system, of a mischievous and immoral tendency, and of crushing effect upon their authors, which, although not in all cases punishable by statute, yet require to be exposed and guarded against. Descriptions of some of the most ingenious of these attempts at fraud, successful and unsuccessful, are also here held up to public view.
It was the author's intention to give two or three chapters of an historical and biographical character,--a condensed history of our post-office system, with some notice of that of other countries, and brief biographical sketches of our Post Masters General. But matter essential to the completeness of the work in hand, as illustrating the varieties of crime in connection with post-offices, has so accumulated, that the chapters referred to could not be introduced without enlarging the volume to unreasonable dimensions; and the author has been compelled to limit his biographies of the Post Masters General to a short chronological notice of each of those officers.
Under the Revolutionary organization, the first Post Master General was Benjamin Franklin. He was experienced in its duties, having been appointed Post Master of Philadelphia in 1737, and Deputy Post Master General of the British Colonies in 1753. He was removed from this office, to punish him for his active sympathies with the colonists; and one of the first acts of their separate organization was to place him at the head of their Post-Office Department. It is a singular coincidence that this eminent philosopher, who cradled our postal system in its infancy, also, by first bringing the electric fluid within the power of man, led the way for the electric telegraph, the other great medium for transmitting intelligence.