ns of the city. They
receive from the general office all letters and papers for delivery in
their sections, and to them the carriers bring all the matter collected
from the lamp-boxes. There is no delivery from them except through the
carriers. They dispatch to the general office, at stated times
throughout the day, all matter deposited in their boxes or collected from
the lamp-boxes by the carriers.

A recent writer thus relates some of the gossip connected with the
office:

"People who come to the Post-office and make complaints of being robbed,
when they discover that they were mistaken never call and make
reparation, or relieve the department of the charge made against its
employes. A merchant, much excited, complained that a letter sent to him
'by a most responsible house,' containing $500, had not been received.
This charge was fortified by showing a letter from the postmaster who
mailed the missing letter, certifying that it was forwarded, and
contained the $500. Detectives were at once set to work to unravel the
iniquity, but all efforts proved unavailing. Finally the Post-office
authorities, after weeks of hard work, called on the complaining merchant
and asked if he had heard anything about the missing money. 'Oh,'
replied the gentleman, with great vivacity, 'that's all right; by mistake
that letter was thrown into the safe, and remained unopened nearly four
weeks. Funny, wasn't it?' Not even an apology was made for charging the
Post-office with purloining the money, or for giving its officers so much
unnecessary trouble.

"Charges of dishonesty against the Post-office are made where nobody but
'extraordinary circumstances' are to blame. A letter containing two
$1000 bills in it was delivered by the carrier, who, according to custom
(ignorant of its contents, of course), at the house of its owner, shoved
it into the hallway, under the door. The letter was missing. Complaint
was made at the Post-office; evidence was produced that the money had
been forwarded. The detectives were set to work to trace out the
robbery. The poor carrier, and the clerks in the office who handled the
letter were placed under surveillance. The clerks where the letter was
mailed were 'shadowed.' Every dollar they expended after the probable
robbery was secretly inquired into, to see if any of them had been at any
given time, after the letter was lost, unusually 'flush;' but all signs
failed. After a long time the fl