hunt for the thimble that has already served as a seal,- for the wax is cooling and no time must be lost,- grasps the first that comes to hand, too absorbed in the main issue to give a

Mr. Mahoney, Jr.

thought to what

would pass as an insignificant subsidiary trifle. No rascal is sharp enough to guard every point, a general fact that illustrates over and over again, in the experience of man, the seminal truth, that in a mercenary and physical, as well as in a high and spiritual sense, there is neither wisdom nor profit outside of the limits of absolute

integrity and unflinching uprightness. The detective laid aside the papers with a light heart, knowing that at last he was complete master of the situation. Below Camden on the infested route the post-office was kept in a store at two points only, and in one of those no thimbles were sold. The clue pointed unerringly to Raven's Nest as the spot where alone the requisite conditions to account for the imprint on the violated seal were to be found. Thither the officer accordingly went; and the moment his eye rested on Michael Mahoney, Jr., he recognized the heaven-branded features of a thief.

Returning to Sioux City, he telegraphed to another agent who had a large number of the cases growing out of the robberies, to come on at once. The two men took stations, one on each side of Raven's Nest, and in thirty hours they arrested the youthful criminal, who in the interval stole four decoy-letters, and paid a portion of the contents to one of the officers who was testing him.

Mr. Furay collected from the thief and his relatives the full amount stolen from the mails during the entire continuance of the depredations, restoring the money to the rightful owners dollar for dollar. Young Mahoney made a written confession, supplemented by three or four codicils relating to items which, to use his own language, "at first did not to me occur." He was tried the following February, and sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of three years.

Within fifteen days from the time when the doors of the prison closed upon the son, the villanous old father, acting perhaps on the theory that no two shots ever strike in exactly the same place, began also to rob the mails. In due time, Mr. Furay again appeared on the scene and took the old reprobate away a prisoner. When the trial came on, a material witness for the prosecution happened to be absent, the lack of whose testimony proved fatal to the case, for, after hanging a day and a night, the jury brought in a verdict of acquittal.

Taking in Strangers.

ANY misguided men expend in contriving devices for defrauding the public, sufficient labor and ingenuity to win an honorable support, or often affluence, if directed to proper ends. For the most part the returns are irregular and precarious, while every step forward increases the perils that beset the path of the operator. Comfort and peace are forgotten in the wild whirl that hurries him on to new fields and fresh ventures. However smoothly the stream may glide at the outset, it rushes onward resistlessly to the rocks and rapids that no mortal can pass in safety. Incredible as it may seem that rational beings should voluntarily renounce the sympathies of the good, to enter upon a reckless crusade against society, not a few even of the highly gifted, driven on by some strangely perverse influence, have deliberately entered the ways of crime only to encounter the inevitable penalties of

BYYILLIAM PARKER MED.

disappointment, disgrace, and ruin. Life is passed in a perpetual but vain struggle to escape the necessary consequences of evil actions.

"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

The thief doth fear each bush an officer."

Even the dread walls of the prison have in some cases been welcomed as preferable to the tortures of uncertainty.

On the 16th of June, 1874, Isaac Myers, special agent of the post-office department, happened to be in Washington, Washington County, Pennsylvania, on official business, when his attention was called to a communication just received from Mrs. Mary A. Whetham, Kirklington Hall, Southwell, Notts, England, dated June 3, and inclosing two letters addressed to herself, and purporting to have been written by "Winter Hamilton, M. D." The first was dated Canal Fulton, Ohio, February 18, 1874, and gave what was intended to be a romantic and touching account of the death of a distant relative of hers, Edmund Whetham, whom, though a stranger, the benevolent doctor took to his home and tenderly nursed during his last sickness. On learning that his hours were numbered, the young Englishman called for a lawyer and made his will, bequeathing to Mrs. Whetham two thousand acres of land in Texas on condition that she paid the bill of Dr. Hamilton, otherwise the estate was to go to him. He forwards an account of two hundred dollars, or forty pounds, for medical attendance, board, and funeral expenses. He also suggests that if she will accompany her draft with a promise to repay any outlay he may incur, he will send an agent to Texas to examine the lands. The cost will not exceed twenty-five pounds, and may put her in possession of an immense fortune. The letter closes with a pious appeal to the heart and pocket of his correspond

"I feel that I did my duty to your friend; I have now done my duty to you. I shall feel obliged at receiving your decision at your very earliest convenience."

May 18, 1874, "Winter Hamilton, M. D.," addresses a second letter to Mrs. Whetham, having meanwhile transferred his

residence from Canal Fulton, Ohio, to Washington, Pennsylvania. After a brief reference to his former communication, he writes that a foreign letter having been forwarded inadvertently from his late home to the dead-letter office, he infers it must have been from her, as he has no other correspondent abroad, and inquires whether she has decided to accept the legacy. This caution is added by way of postscript: "Copy my address very carefully, we have so many Washingtons in America."

Mrs. Whetham took no notice of the first effusion, though satisfied that the writer was trying to obtain money under false pretenses. On receipt of the second, she felt it to be a duty to others, less wary than herself, to communicate the facts to the authorities, in order that steps might be taken to punish the swindler. She accordingly inclosed both to the "superintendent of police, Washington, Washington County, Pennsylvania," with the information that she had no such relative as the person described by Dr. Hamilton. She further explained that the Rev. F. Mills, to whose care the letters were addressed, was rector at Hocherton, two miles distant, and that she was patron of the living. Hence she inferred that the doctor had studied a "clergy list" of England, which gives an account of all livings with their patrons. She informs the "superintendent of police" that the letters are forwarded to him for the public benefit, remarking, with the prudence characteristic of the woman of business, that she will hold herself "in no way responsible for any steps taken."

As "Winter Hamilton, M. D.," was clearly using the mails for purposes of fraud in violation of section three hundred and one of the code, Mr. Myers determined to hunt down the rascal. He examined the registers of hotels and boarding-houses, going back over a long period, without finding the name. No one could remember such an individual. If he ever lived at Washington, he left on disappearing no trace of his existence or identity.

Not to be bluffed in the chase by the faintness of the trail,