Enormous post-office robbery in Vienna.
The United States Mail translates from a German paper the following account of a recent discovery of a post-office robbery in Vienna, Austria, which developed the astounding fact that a clerk in that office had, in the course of two or three years, been able to secrete and appropriate, undetected over sixty-two thousand letters — probably over a hundred thousand. We have been brought officially in contact with mail robbers, the extent of whose operations was by no means inconsiderable, but by the side of their trans-Atlantic confrere these gentry must hide their diminished heads, and acknowledge themselves but the merest tyros and bunglers in the are of letter stealing.A colossal post office robbery has been detected, which has been going on for several years. The name of the guilty party is Kalab. His duty in the Vienna post-office was the assorting of out-going letters for which purpose he had two tables at his disposition, one of which tables was provided with a drawer, serving as a till, above which was an aperture for the admission of money. Through this aperture he dropped such letters as he thought proper to purloin, removing them at a convenient opportunity to his home, for the double purpose of rifling them of their valuable contents and taking off the postage stamps which he resold — and the sum realized by him from this latter source alone is said to have exceeded 10,000 florins — about $5,000.
For a long time past complaints had been made of the non arrival of letters posted in the Vienna office, but the postmaster, with genuine Austrian official insolence, habitually treated the reclaiming as calumniators and revolutionists. The detection of the culprit was brought about by the circumstance of a young man calling to request the with drawl of a letter mailed by him a few minutes previously, but which had already been appropriated by Kalab, whose suspicious conduct and embarrassment on the occasion caused an inquiry and search to be made, which resulted in the discovery of his crime. A short time afterwards a large number of persons in different parts of Europe were surprised by the receipt of letters from Vienna, some dated so far back as 1860, bearing on the envelope a small printed notice, ‘"Purloined and restored."’ These letters were those which were found in Kalab's possession.
At the commencement of his operations Kalab was accustomed to burn the stolen letters in he stove, but his landlord complaining of the inconvenience caused by the smoke, he was obliged to discontinue the practice and preserve the evidence of his crime. It is presumed that he purloined not less than one hundred thousand letters, of which sixty-two thousand seven hundred and twenty were found in his possession.
For several days a commission of thirteen persons were engaged in the Vienna Post-officer from early morning until late at night in counting, sorting, and preparing a list of the stolen letters, which were contained in eight large bags. Such of them as had been opened were rescaled and forwarded to their addresses. Kalab had accumulated an extensive collection of photographs, abstracted from letters passing through his hands, and in his room were found a number of cigar boxes containing postage stamps of all denominations, which he had removed after wetting the inside of the envelopes, by means of certain tools ingeniously contrived so as to leave no trace of the operation. The stamps he then are fully dried pressed and gummed taking them in small quantities to the office, and re-selling them to the public disposing of about twenty-five or thirty florins worth per day.
The arrest of Kalab caused great excitement among the citizens of Vienna, and much indignation is expressed by those to whom his rascality has caused so much inconvenience and loss. The German language is fertile in epithets, and he has received the soubriquet of brief-master, or ‘"letter weasel."’ His trial has not yet taken place.
In Austria every functionary of the Government is held to be ex official infallible, and whoever should venture to throw a doubt upon the rectitude of an imperial employee, would be considered a maltrice slanderer. But for this fact, says the paper from which we translate, this gigantic robbery would not have been carried on so long undetected.
