User:Ww2censor/Mail robbery

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1881 painting of French Mail coach at Nice by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
1881 painting of French Mail coach at Nice by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

A Mail robbery is the robbery of mail usually when it is in the custody, or control, of the delivering authority, which in most countries is the postal service. Less well known are mail robberies of mail already delivered but this is possible where delivery letter boxes are located outside the house, or at the property line, where they are easily accessed as in the USA.

The objective is to acquire items of value. In the mail service this most oftens means the registered mail that can contain, cash, cheques, jewellery, precious stones, gold and silver or other negotiable instruments. Mail robberies have, for example, taken place from; mail coaches, trains, postal carriers, post offices, mail vans and pillar boxes.[1]

Contents

[edit] History

A print showing a British mail coach decorated in the black and scarlet Post Office livery near Newmarket, Suffolk in 1827. The guard can be seen standing at the rear.
A print showing a British mail coach decorated in the black and scarlet Post Office livery near Newmarket, Suffolk in 1827. The guard can be seen standing at the rear.

[edit] United Kingdom

During the late eighteenth century in the Kingdom of Great Britain attacks on postboys were so common the Post Office advised customers sending banknotes "to cut all such Notes and Draughts in Half in the following Form, to send them at two different Times, and to wait for the return of the Post, till the receipt of one Half is acknowledged before the other is sent".

Post boys travelled slowly taking forty-eight hours to transport a letter from Bath to London. In 1782 John Palmer, an owner of theatres in Bath & Bristol, suggested his plan for the night mail coach. The aim was to carry passengers and mail at faster speeds than the passenger service by day over the same route. Armed guards would provide protection and speed gained from lightweight coaches, more reliable post house services and experienced contractors providing fresh horses. Palmer himself travelled around the country timing routes and checking distances. On 29th July 1784 the Bath Chronicle stated that "the letters for London or for any place between or beyond to be put into the Bath Post Office every evening before 6 o'clock, and into the Bristol Post Office before 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and they will be delivered in London the next day".

Few believed this possible but the 'first night' run of 2 August 1784 proved to be a complete success. During 1785 Palmer travelled 5,000 miles in four months and eleven mail coach routes were soon established. SG1258 shows the original Bath Mail coach. Mail coaches quickly gained a reputation for reliability & punctuality. As carriers of the Royal Mail they took precedence over other forms of transport.

The Patent Mail coach designed by John Beseant had one very important innovation over the standard coaches of the time, a safety axle box. The standard method of fitting a wheel was with a linch pin which, even with regular greasing, would often shear off without warning. The safety axle was designed so that a metal plate prevented the wheel from coming off, while a groove on the axle arm allowed oil to trickle down on the bearing and metal plate.

Coaches were owned by the Post Office and rented out to contractors who provided coachmen & fresh teams of horses along the route. The Mail Guard, unlike the coachman, was employed by the Post Office and was responsible for the safe keeping of the mail. He was issued with a blunderbuss, a brace of pistols and a military style red coat and cockaded hat. The mail was the Guard's first responsibility and after some accidents, or because of flood or snow, he would carry the mail on foot.

Above is from this web page 1984: Bicentenary of the First Mail Coach Run, Bath and Bristol to London GUILD OF MODEL WHEELWRIGHTS Post and Mail Coaches

[edit] United States of America

United States Overland Mail stagecoach being attacked by American Indians c1865
United States Overland Mail stagecoach being attacked by American Indians c1865

In 1799 the Congress of the United States passed a law authorizing the death penalty for mail robbery.

In 1881 Post Office Inspectors interview Billy the Kid in connection with a mail robbery in Santa Fe, NM.[2]

In 1916 Postal Inspectors solve last known stagecoach robbery[3]

NPM Rail Robberies [4]

[edit] Mail coach robberies

Disused Royal Mail Travelling Post Office Sorting van
Disused Royal Mail Travelling Post Office Sorting van

The newspaper account of a robbery, during the early 1800s, were of the Stirling–Edinburgh mail coach reports that three men took £10,000 cash while it was stopped at Kirkliston though one of the robbers was caught.[5] In the United States during the gold rush of the 1850s and 1860s, Wells Fargo was carrying both mail and gold in the strongboxes on their mail coaches. Many holdups took place by individual robbers and entire gangs. The Butterfield Overland Mail route was eventually taken over by Wells Fargo who build up their own detective and police force to combat robbery of their mail coaches. Black Bart a notorious mail coach robber is documented[6] as having robbed at least twenty-six Wells Fargo stage coaches from which he is alleged to have also stolen the mail. A reward of $800 was offered on a poster for just two robberies in 1877 and 1878[7] though he robbed more. He was tracked down by James B. Hume, Wells Fargo's chief detective who brought the plague of robberies under control, and convicted of one robbery to which he admitted for which he was sentenced to six years in San Quentin prison that started on November 21, 1883. Black Bart was released in 1888.

[edit] Mail train robberies

Perhaps the most famous mail train robbery took place in 1963 in England. Great Train Robbery (1963)

[edit] Post box robbery

Mail that has been deposited in post boxes have been subject of attempted robbery by thieves.[8]

[edit] Postal facility theft

In 2006 a 19-year Royal Mail employee, Roy Johnson, was caught in a trap laid for him when customers complained of money missing from their letters that had been handled in the Oldham mail centre, Manchester where Johnson worked as a night manager. Over a two-year period he rifled through mail bags searching for travellers' cheques and foreign currency netting him GB£70,000 that he used to make down-payments of a Jaguar and a Mercedes car and paid for home improvements in cash.[9]

[edit] Identity theft

In recent years mail robbery has sparked identity theft fears because thieves have broken into mailboxes [10] and with personnal information may be able to ruin a person's good credit or even assume their identity.[11]

[edit] Movies

[edit] The Great Train Robbery (1903)

The Great Train Robbery (1903 film) [1]

[edit] Robbery (1967)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ US Postal Inspection Service: Mail Theft (retreived 2007-08020)
  2. ^ USPS Postal Inspectors Statistical Charts Table: FY 2001 Imperatives, Operational Goals, Objectives, Targets and Results (retrieved 15 July 2007)
  3. ^ U.S. Postal Inspectors Chronology (retrieved 2 March 2007)
  4. ^ National Postal Museum Robberies (retrieved 15 July 2007)
  5. ^ Broadside entitled "Robbery of the Mail Coach". National Library of Scotland (2004). Retrieved on 31 October 2006.
  6. ^ Rice, James (December 1920). Remarkable Career of Black Bart. The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  7. ^ Nevin, David (1974). The Expressman. New York: Time-Life Books, pp. 212–215. 
  8. ^ Pahrump Valley Times Letter box break-in effort fails (retrieved 2 March 2007)
  9. ^ Manchester Evening News Boss in £70,000 mail theft (retrieved 15 July 2007)
  10. ^ KVBC Las Vegas Mail robbery sparks identity theft fears (February 2006) (retrieved 18 June 2006)
  11. ^ Federal Trade Commission: About Identity Theft (retrieved 2007-08-20)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links