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who coloured the bag contrived to conjure them out of it unopened and so stole them.
Had the letters remained in this office they must have been found. The probabilities of Mr. Siria's stealing may be left out of the question; and besides the extreme unlikelihood that the Coolie took them, it is singular that never under any circumstances, have registered letters disappeared in this way before. Such a case is indeed unique.
It has sometimes happened that errors have been made in the list of retired letters, so that an Officer advised of the forwarding of four found only three, or formed five! But on enquiry, such errors have always been found to be clerical, the letters themselves being invariably all right. Their disappearance altogether is a thing unheard of, at least in the history of this office.
Had the Manila Office taken a dignified position in the matter however, and said plainly from the first that the Registered letters were not received (a circumstance to which any other office would instantly have called attention) in...