Decoy-Letters
Devices employed for the public good, if predicated on the principles that maintain all men dishonest and are themselves deceptive, both in theory and practice, cannot be considered either honorable or complimentary to our public men. The system, more particularly in its connection with the postal department, originated, we are inclined to think, from some suspicious postmaster or his chief clerk, and thus was established a plan to test the employees, alike unjust and questionable in equity. It is said that these decoy-letters can never injure honest men. Are we to understand from this that men of questionable character and thieving proclivities are employed by the government? Is it customary to appoint rogues to office, and, after appointing them, lay traps for their detection? If this is the fact, then may we well exclaim, with Cowley,—
“Man is to man all kinds of beasts,—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, a rapacious vulture.”
Once establish the decoy system as a general one, extending it to all branches of the government, trade, and commerce, introduce it into stores and factories, and we shall soon have the flag of suspicion waving over that of the Stars and Stripes: we will constitute ourselves a nation of rogues, and become in the eyes of the world a huge “DECOY DUCK,” instead of the proud heretofore emblem of our country, the glorious Eagle!
We care very little about the opinion of Judge Betts, who on one occasion maintained the principle in a very learned speech, which when summed up amounted simply to this, that all men are rogues and require watching,—in fact, in morals as well as honesty they are lame ducks, and a decoy is necessary to watch their actions. The learned judge said,—
“I am persuaded that letters would rarely be intercepted in their transmission by post if every person concerned in mailing or carrying them could be impressed with the idea that each package enclosing valuables may be but a bait seeking to detect whoever may be dishonest enough to molest, and to become a swift witness for his conviction and punishment.”
If this is logic, it lacks one important principle in theory to establish its practical application, and that is, common sense. We consider the decoy system, at least as a national means to detect rogues, beneath the dignity and character of the nation. Reason and philosophy teach us that God never puts evil into our hearts, or stirs it up there by any positive influence. A man is tempted by his own lust, and enticed into sin by the influence, acts, and example of wicked men. “Lead us not into temptation,” is one of those wise and holy lessons which the Saviour of the world instructed his disciples to pray for, so as they might carry it out in their holy mission, strengthened by the Divine blessing resting upon it. Men, however, are not unfrequently placed in situations “as have a tendency,” says Scott, “to give our inward corruptions and the temptations of Satan and his agents peculiar advantage against us.”
Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that a government like ours should assume a Satanic form, and employ agents for the express purpose of leading men into temptation? We consider the “decoy-letter” system exactly a case in point. It may not be uninteresting to some of our readers to give the origin of this ridiculous and equally sinful manner of testing men’s honesty.
As might be supposed, it never could have originated in an enlightened nation, and yet enlightened nations indorse its antiquity of folly. We trace it to China and as far back as the dimness of its history can carry us. It may surprise some to hear the term unenlightened applied to China, the land of classic works, and the richest and most important in all Asia. Philosophers have made the works called “Kings” the basis of their labors in morality and politics. History has always received the attention of the Chinese, and their annals form the most complete series extant in any language. Poetry, the drama, and romantic prose fictions are among the productions of the Chinese literati,—“Literæ inhumaniores” meaning learning rather of an inhuman or barbarous tendency.
The Chinese were in possession of three of the most important inventions or discoveries of modern times long before they were known to the nations of the world, besides which they were the inventors of two remarkable manufactures,—silk and porcelain. The art of printing was practised at least as early as the tenth century; but the use of movable types instead of blocks seems never to have occurred to this ingenious people. The knowledge of gunpowder among them dates at a very early period; but the application of its use to fire-arms they learned from the Europeans. Finally, the peculiar directive properties of the loadstone were applied to purposes of navigation by the Chinese several centuries before they were employed in Europe.
We have given a sketch of the arts and sciences of China, but it would be totally impossible to give the reader any thing like an idea of the character and morals of its inhabitants. When China was first explored by European travellers it was believed to be a nation that had alone found out the true secret of government, where the virtues were developed by the operation of the laws: indeed, judging from what they had read, an almost perfect people was expected to greet their sight. Alas! how is history falsified! Few nations, it is now agreed, have so little honor or feeling, or so much duplicity, cunning, and mendacity. Their affected gravity is as far from wisdom as their ceremonies are from politeness.
The government of China is one of fear; and it has produced the usual effects,—duplicity and meanness. Suspicion is one of their leading features, and thus every man is not only suspected of being a rogue, but in reality every one is a rogue. Expert thieving is considered an art, yet if discovered is punished. The merchants cheat each other by rule: hence it is not strange that the DECOY SYSTEM should have originated in that country.
Laws were enacted to punish those who laid the decoy, as well as those who fell into the trap. These punishments consisted of the bastinado, the pillory, banishment, hard labor, death. These two first are almost constantly in use: indeed, the merchant who is bastinadoed for leading his clerk into crime by the “decoy means,” as well as the clerk himself, looks upon it as a “paternal correction,” and thanks the judge for the care bestowed upon his morals. And yet although this system was practised some three thousand years ago, it is still followed and, of course, still punished.
Even in Jewish history we have instances of this system being pursued. See 1 Kings xiii.
It was also extensively practised in France during the rebellion. Mechanics and others who followed labor for maintenance were subjected to these “decoys,” which presented themselves in various shapes. An old lady residing in this city told the author that her husband found a doubloon on his work-table, placed there by a nobleman in whose house he was fitting up tapestry. Indignant at the insult offered a Frenchman and a citizen, he nailed the coin to the table, from which not without great difficulty the tempter could remove it.
Is it, we ask, consistent with our form of government and the national character of the people that this relic of barbarism, like that of slavery, should be permitted to exist or be practised by its chief officers?
Detectives only should adopt the system to aid them in their search for a criminal, but an agent detective has no right to set a decoy to test the honesty of men upon whom, even before and after his appointment, no suspicion rested. We again pronounce it mean and contemptible.