The Daily Dispatch: may 18, 1861., [Electronic resource]

---

---

Great Outrage.

--All the freight, each separate box and package, brought to this city last night from Washington and the North by Adams' Express Company, had been, by officers of the Federal Government, smashed, broken, or torn open in Washington. The loads, as they were removed from the wagon, presented the appearance of having gone through a railroad disaster. Band-boxes had their tops and bottoms beaten in; trunks, whose tops and sides had been wrested off; chests, with their sides split open and their center is scattered about. We saw one large case directed to W. P. Williamson, Norfolk, Va., whose every side had been split open, apparently, with an axe, the removal of the screws that held it together not having been at all thought of. A considerable quantity of freight was, we learn, detained by the examiners to undergo a closer inspection, or to be stopped. No freights by Adams' Express will hereafter be permitted to come South of Washington. The disordered condition of the freights was corrected as much as practicable by the accommodating agent in this city.--Alexandria Gazette, 17th.