It was even so.  The letters for Highfalutin & Co. went to Washington, and Morris went out of the post-office; but the fact that Sue was overmatched hurt him more than the loss of the place.

June 8, 1872, a law was approved making it a penal offense to use the mails for the purpose of defrauding others, whether residing within or outside of the United States.  The postmaster-general was also authorized to forbid the payment of postal money orders to persons engaged in fraudulent lotteries, gift enterprises, and other schemes for swindling the public, and to instruct postmasters to return to the writers, with the word “fraudulent” written or stamped on the outside, all registered letters directed to such persons or firms.  Prior to the enactment of this law, the most wholesale and barefaced operations were conducted by professional cheats, mainly through the facilities afforded by the mails, with almost absolute impunity.  Letters addressed to bogus firms were indeed forwarded from the offices of delivery to the department as “fictitious” and “undeliverable,” and many colluding postmasters were decapitated.  Such petty measures of warfare served merely to annoy the vampires and to whet their diabolical ingenuity for the contrivance of new devices.  Since the law of 1872 went into effect, however, the scoundrels have been compelled to travel a thorny road.  Scores of arrests have been made, and in many cases the criminals have been sentenced to the penitentiary.

It would exceed our limits even to enumerate the devices which have been tried by different swindlers with greater or less success.  Gift enterprises of various kinds are the most common and notorious, constituting a distinct branch of the business; but the pretenses on which human credulity is invited to part with actual cash for imaginary benefits are innumerable.  A few specimens are given as illustrations.

AN OLD GAME REVIVED

On the 18th of September, 1875, a fellow was arrested in West Virginia who sent the victims whom he proposed to bleed letters whereof the following is a copy:—­

“A lady who boarded with me died on last Saturday of apoplexy.  She left a trunk containing the following property:  One very fine ladies’ gold watch and chain, one ladies’ gold necklace, six ladies’ finger rings, earrings, and a great deal of ladies’ clothing.  Among other things was a letter addressed to you.  I suppose you to be a relative of the deceased, and want to send you the trunk.  When Miss Thompson died she left a board bill unpaid amounting to $20.50.  You will please send this amount by return mail, and the trunk will be forwarded to you immediately.”

Instead of remitting the money as modestly requested, the recipient of one of these choice douceurs, a lady residing in the interior of Pennsylvania, sent the letter to the mayor of the town where it was dated and postmarked, who in turn handed it over to special agent T. P. Shallcross; and he in the course of a day or two succeeded in capturing the miscreant.