United States v. Matthews

• Decision Date: 06 August 1888
• Citation: 35 F. 890
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. MATTHEWS.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

35 F. 890

UNITED STATES v. MATTHEWS.

United States Circuit Court, D. Maryland.

August 6, 1888

HARLAN Justice, (orally.) The defendant, a substitute clerk in the post-office at Baltimore, was indicted in the district court for the offense of having secreted, embezzled, and destroyed a letter containing United States notes of the value of seven dollars which was addressed to Henry Waidner, Baltimore, Md., and 'was intended to be conveyed by mail;' said letter having come into his possession in his capacity as such clerk, and 'had not then and there been delivered to the person to whom the same was addressed. ' He was also indicted, in the same court, for the offense of having feloniously stolen and taken said bank-notes, the property of one William B. Smith, out of the said letter, which, having been mailed in the Baltimore post-office, 'was then and there intended to be conveyed by mail from the said post-office to the said Henry Waidner, at Baltimore. ' The first indictment is based upon that part of section 5467 of the Revised Statutes which provides that 'any person employed in any department of the postal service who shall secrete, embezzle, or destroy any letter, packet, bag, or mail of letters intrusted to him, or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any mail carrier, mail messenger, route agent, letter carrier, or other person employed in any department of the postal service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post-office or branch post-office established by authority of the postmaster general, and which shall contain any note, bond, draft check, warrant, revenue stamp, postage stamp, stamped envelope, postal-card, money order, certificate of stock, or other pecuniary obligation or security of the government, or of any officer or fiscal agent thereof, of any description whatever; any bank-note, * * * shall be punished,' etc. Upon that indictment, the defendant was found guilty, with a recommendation of mercy to the court, and sentenced to be imprisoned, at hard labor, for two years, in the penitentiary. The second indictment was based upon the latter part of the same section, providing that 'any such person who shall steal or take any of the things aforesaid out of any letter, packet, bag, or mail of letters which shall have come into his possession, either in the regular course of his official duties or in any other manner whatever, and provided the same shall not have been delivered to the party to whom it is directed, shall be punished,' etc. Upon the latter indictment the defendant was acquitted. A motion for a new trial under the first indictment having been overruled, that case has been brought here upon writ of error. It has been fully heard upon the questions of law presented by a bill of exceptions, embodying all the instructions to the jury which were asked and refused or granted, as well as the facts which the evidence tended to establish.

It appears-- using substantially the words of the bill of exceptions-- that the accused was a substitute clerk in the city division of the Baltimore post-office. It was his duty in connection with other persons, to back letters with the date of their being received in the post-office, and to cancel stamps on letters. In his division were three tables parallel with each other, namely, the dumping, backing, and canceling tables. The course of business was to empty all mail pouches, together with the letters for the city of Baltimore collected from the street-boxes and the various receptacles at the post-office, upon the dumping table, from which they were transferred to the backing or canceling table, as the nature of the letter required, to be backed or canceled by the defendant and those with whom he was working. The letters were then collected and taken to the files of the carriers for distribution. For a few months prior to the defendant's appointment, complaints were received at the postal inspector's office at Washington of the loss of letters in the Baltimore office. The inspector, having come to Baltimore for the purpose of investigating such losses, saw the defendant, February 3, 1887, take a letter from the mail he was backing, and put it in his pocket. Why he was not immediately arrested does not appear; but it was then determined to test him by decoy letters. Accordingly, February 7, 1887, five letters of that character, with the stamps canceled, and with the consent of the post-master, were given to David Cowan, Jr., a postal clerk in the Baltimore office, having charge of the corps of employes in which the accused worked, and being the person in authority in the post-office during the hours when the defendant was at work. Cowan was instructed to put these decoy letters among a mail of letters which would come to the defendant's hands on the backing table, when the latter should be there working. In accordance with these instructions, Cowan took the letters inside the post-office, and put them on the dumping table among the letters of a mail which had just been dumped on the table from the mail-pouches in regular course of business, and then transferred all the letters from the dumping table to the backing table, where the accused was working alone. The latter backed all the letters, including the decoy letters. They were then collected and taken to the carriers' files, where the decoy letters were intercepted by Cowan, as previously instructed by the inspectors, and carried to the inspectors waiting on the outside. The decoy letters were examined and found to be intact. On the following day three of the decoy letters-- one of which was addressed to Henry Waidner, a resident of Baltimore-- were prepared in the same way as those thus described, and given to Cowan, by whom they were in the same manner placed among a mail of letters which he had just dumped on the dumping table, and which were then all transferred to the backing table, where the defendant was working. The latter was seen to put one of the decoy letters into his pocket, and to go below in the basement. When the letters were taken to the carriers' files, the one addressed to Waidner was found to be missing. The others were intercepted by Cowan at the carriers' files, as instructed, and taken to the inspectors waiting on the outside. The bill exceptions is silent as to whether Waidner was aware of the use of his name, and as to whether he authorized the inspector or Cowan to receive the letter addressed to him. All of the decoy letters, if they had not been intercepted by Cowan, as the inspectors had instructed they should be, before they reached the carriers, would, in the usual course, have been delivered to the persons to whom they were addressed. The accused was...