Watch Your Letter-Boxes
In many of our large post-offices postmasters have baskets placed inside for the reception of letters. These are invariably too small, and it not unfrequently occurs that the aperture through which letters pass gets choked up, the basket being full to its mouth. Any person could from the outside take a handful of letters without any one being aware of it. Honest men, however, making the discovery, notify the clerks of the situation of the letters, but not until it is very natural to suppose some letters may have been stolen. This will account in some measure for the mysterious disappearance of letters which have caused many an innocent person to be suspected and the business operations of an office justly censured. These baskets, instead of being wide and shallow, are deep and narrow. If properly constructed and arranged, there would be no necessity for clerks shouting out, “Swamp on the baskets.” This is very much like locking the stable-door after the horse has been stolen.
We would suggest, therefore, that when dropping a letter, newspaper, &c. into a letter-box, always to see that the packet falls into the basket or box, and does not stick in its passage.