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In the small house halfway up the next block, Sade has troubling news. She has committed the serious infraction of opening the mail for another person. It seems that there’s a person in town named Reverend Vincent Cook, and when she recieved the letter by mistake, she opened it.
Vic is nonchallant about it. It seems that he has done the same thing. How serious of a crime is it to tamper with other people’s mail? Russell enters to tell about people he knows of who went to jail for the deed. Not very comforting for Sade.
Sade tells what the letter said, but Vic tries to ease her guilty conscience. Should she relay the contents of the letter to the Reverend? Why not just hand him the letter and apologize for the mix up? Russelll keeps getting melodramatic over the legal consequences. The situation finds Sade asking Vic a silly question, and true to form he has a silly answer for her.
PS: What is it about the taboo with tampering with the US Mail? Of course, nobody wants their privacy invaded, and when we’re expecting an important letter, we want to be sure to get it. Before bank transfers went electronic, most cash and other valuables had no other way to get to you except for the mail. That’s why bandits of the wild West robbed the mail trains, to get all that gold the folks back East were sending to their folks out West. For a time, the US Marines rode the rails as guards to make sure the mail went through. Even as late as the 1960’s it wasn’t uncommon to mail cash payment through the mail, but it was beginning to be advised against. Because of the safety of mailing cash, heavy fines were put on mail tampering.
I think that even at the time of this episode, for Sade, her infraction is tantamount to tearing the tags off of mattresses and pillows. Pretty harmless. Just give the Reverend his letter with an apology. I’m sure there’ll be no harm done, and forgiveness all around.
