Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/427

 COMMEBFOKD V. THOMPSON. 419 �systematio deception and often deliberate ewindling praeticed by the promoters of these and kindred enterprises, and hia efforts to purge his department of ail complicity in their doings challenges the approval of public opinion. �At the same time courts are bound to administer the law as they find it, and are often powerless to remedy evils, the existence of which ia fuUy admitted. The toleration or in- hibition of lotteries is a matter exclusively within the control of the several states, and congress oan do no more than to deny them the use of the national mails for the propagation of their sehemes. �But while there is, undoubtedly, power to prescribe what shall or what shall not be carried by post, (ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727-732,) the mails are, prima fade, intended for the service of every person desiring to use them; and a monopoly of this species of commerce is secured to the post- office department. Eev. St. § 3982. It is, then, scarcely necessary to say that the offieers of the department are the agents of the public in the performance of this service, and that no postmaster, whether acting under the instructions of the postmaster general or not, can lawfuUy refuse to deliver letters addressed to his office, unless special authority for so doing is found in some act of congress. Indeed, the unlawful detention of letters by a postmaster is denounced by sections 8890 and 3891, and a violation of his duty to deliver mail matter is made punishable by fine and imprisonment. �Authority for the detention of the complainant's letters by the defendant in this case is claimed to exist under the fol- lowing section of the Eevised Statutes : �"Section 3894. No letter or circular concerning lotteries, Bo-called gift concerts, or other similar enterprises offering prizes, or concerning sehemes devised and intended to deceive and defraud the public for the purpose of obtaining money under false pretences, shall be carried in the mail. Any per- son who shall knowingly deposit or send anything to be con- veyed by mail in violation of this section shall be punishable by a fine of not more than $500, nor less than $100, with Costa of proseeution." ��� �