MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A LETTER.

Evening Post, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 1 July 1879, Page 2

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A LETTER.

* , On Saturday, 30th May, Mr. Wardell, Resident Magistrate of Wairarapa, posted a letter at the Featherston Post Office, addressed to the Union Bank, Wellington. The letter contained two £5 notes and two Government cheques, amounting together'to about £75. Mr Wardell heard nothing more of the matter until some days afterwards, when he found that his bad not been placed to bis credit "in the bank. He put an advertisement, in the Etbning Post, announcing the loss of the letter, and describing its contents, and then the post office authorities wrote to him, stating that Mr. Gann&way, one of the clerks in the office, had found one of the cheques. It appears that the letter reached Wellington on the day on which it was pasted at Featherston, and was placed in the private box of the Union .Bank soon after its arrival. The messenger of the bank cleared tbe box in the erening- of the same day, but the letter in question was net among those which he took to the bank. As Mr. Gannaway was going to his duties on Monday morning, Ist July, he found a Government cheque for £30 1) ing on the ground in the passage leading from Grey-street to the Post and Telegraph Offices. He immediately took it to Mr. Butts, the Chief Postmaster, and stated the circumstances under which it had come into his p issession, and Mr. Butts advised him to send it to the Treasury. It was thought by both gentlemen that the chrquo had been dropped by some person who bad occasion to go through the passage, Jjut of course they had no suspicion tbat it had been taken out of a letter. Mr. GanDAway placed the cheque in his desk, with the intention of sending it to the Treasury when he had leisure to write explaining how he got it; but he forgot to do so, and thought no more of tbe matter until he saw Mr. Wardell's advertisement in the Post. As we have already stated, there were two Government cheques in the letter, but neither of them were 'presented at the bank. How the letter got out '.of the Post Office is at present unknown, but the theory is that the messenger in clearing the bank's private box accidentally dropped the letter, and tbat somebody who was in the private box lobby afterwards picked it up, opened it, took out the notes and threw away the cheques in order tbat they might not lead t to his detection. The matter has been in the ¦hands of the police for some time, but at (present they have no idem who the thief is.

The freedom of Berlin haping been presented ia a gold snuff-box to a Prussian officer, a French writer said there was ample room in -the snuff-box lor all the freedom there was in Berlin. A certain resident of North Adams, Mass., recently buried his wife, a woman of unusual size, and a few day 3 after the sad event a ¦elghbor attempted a little in the consolatory line by remarking, " Well, Mr. , you hay» met with a heavy loss." " Yes, replied tha mourner, with a sigh, " she weighed 'mest 400 "pounds."