XV.

CASES OF LOSS OR ABSTRACTION.

1. All cases of alleged loss of mails or letters, or of abstraction
of money or articles of value from letters should be promptly and
thoroughly investigated.

2. The circumstances attending those cases are so various that it is
difficult to lay down any specific rule as to the mode in which the
investigation should be conducted.

This must be left to the judgment of the Inspector. The following
course, however, may be taken in ordinary cases.

3. The printed form of questions should be filled up by the applicant
in each case. If the applicant cannot supply all the particulars
required, they should be obtained from such other parties as may be
able to furnish them.

4. A "Tracer" should be filled up, and sent to the office at which the
letter was posted.

5. The particulars of the cases should be at once entered in the book
for the record of applications for lost letters.

6. The papers connected with each case should be enclosed in a printed
"Missing Letter Envelope." This should be docketed, the date on which,
and the name of the office to which the Tracer was despatched entered
thereon, and placed in a pigeon hole appropriated to Missing Letter
cases "awaiting answers."

7. A prompt return of the Tracer must in all cases be insisted on. On
no account should its unnecessary detention at any office be
permitted.

8. If on return of the Tracer it is shown that no loss has occurred,
the applicant should be so informed, a memorandum to that effect
written on the envelope in which the papers are enclosed, the papers
put away amongst cases of application for letters which have been
found, and the entry of the case in the record of applications for
Lost Letters scored out with a blue pencil.

9. If it is found that a loss has actually taken place, the names of
all the offices through which the letter passed, or should have
passed, should be carefully recorded in the book of record of
applications for missing letters. These offices should then be
carefully indexed and a minute examination made with the object of
ascertaining whether any of the offices through which the letter
passed, or should have passed, appears with unusual frequency in other
cases of loss, and whether in such event there is any reason either
from the resemblance in the character of the losses or the
circumstances attending them to suspect that the losses may be
attributable to the same office.