Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1872 — A Mystery In the Providence Post-office Explained. [ARTICLE]

A Mystery In the Providence Post-office Explained.

A certain hardware firm in Providence expected a renrittarue which'"Tailed to come to hand. - Complaint was made to •the post-office,as there was positive proof | that the. letter containing the remittance j .had been mailed in due form. Search was made, but to no effect, and the postmaster at Boston, in whose offiqe the letter had been mailed, was convinced tijaJ a theft had been perpct'rated'aomewhere-en route. lie sent out special agents and detectives, : but to gri pinqmse. A year elapsed aud a-i I new agent' was appointed, and on his first' visit to Providence was asked to make J diligent inquiry to diseover.sopie clew to j Abe lost-letter. The agent transacted,hits.,other business and went to call upon the . hardware nter. hants to inquire "if they hud heard anything ;of the lost letter. They had not,' and while discussing its

singular disappearance, a severe rain and windstorm came up, and when he left to go to the-depot the agent gladly accepted the loan of an old overcoat found hanging in a closet in the hardware store, and an umbrella; a porter accompanied him to the depot to bring back .the borrowed articles. Taking off the overcoat at the depot, the agent’s hand felt something in the pocket, and knowing it was a spare coat, belonging to the hardware store and its employes in general, and to no one in particular, he put his hand in and drew out several unopened letters, and among tliem ihe one BO long sought. Returniug at once to the hardware merchants to whom the letters were addressed, the mystery was at last explained. One of the firm recollected receiving the mail about the time he had expected the important letter, and that when he wished to read his letters he could find none of them. He also remembered that he had at that time worn that very overcoat.—Cor. Washington Capital.