Wednesday morning some tramps came…

chunk 199 · paragraph 812

ama lodge No. 17. Financially and otherwise the order is in a very flourishing condition. There are now fifteen lodges in New Mexico with a total mem- bership of 599. The first lodge was organized in Santa Fe in 1847, and the present Monte- zuma lodge was instituted in 1850. The next annual communication takes place at Las Cruces. Wednesday morning some tramps came into the postoffice and told Postmaster Miller that there was some mail on the ground down near the coal pile. Miller went down and dis- covered the remains of nine registered letters, which he had put in the bag the night before, and the contents of some of them, including a watch and couple of checks. Miller says he made up the mail as usual the night before, put the registered mail in the pouch and took it over to the depot. The night operator, Sloan, says the pouch lay outside the counter on the office floor all night and that he put it on the train in the morning, and the route agent tele- graphed back that the pouch was received all right. How the letters got out of the bag is at ( 3 ) the present writing a mystery. Just how much money there was in the registered letters is not known, but Postmaster Miller says that he had $500 in gold in one of the packages, which he was remitting to Albuquerque on the money order account. This loss will fall on Miller. — Liberal.