A Hundred Years by Post Part 2

In the one case as in the other the object was to get rid of stoppages, and so to save time. In the coaching days the apparatus was of a most primitive kind, consisting of a pointed stick rather less than four feet long, whose sharpened end was put in behind the string around the neck of the mail-bag, and on the end of the stick the bag was held up to be clutched by the mail guard as the coach went hurriedly by. We are indebted to the sub-postmaster of Liberton, a village a few miles out of Edinburgh, for a description of the arrangement. He describes how the guards, some fifty years ago, would playfully deal with the youngsters who worked the "apparatus," by not only seizing the bag but also the stick, and causing the young people to run long distances after the coach in order to recover it. The fun was all very well, says the sub-postmaster, in the genial nights of summer; "but when the cold nights of winter came round, it was our turn to play a trick upon the guard, when both he and the driver were numbed with cold and fast asleep, and the four horses going at full speed. It was not easy to arouse the guard to take the bag; and just fancy the rare gift of Christian charity that caused us youngsters to run and roar after the fast-running mail-coach to get quit of the bag. It used to be a weary business waiting the mail-coach coming along from the south when the roads were stormed up with snow or otherwise delayed. It required some tact to hold up the bag, as the glare of the lamps prevented us from seeing the guard as he came up with his red coat and blowing a long tin horn."

Some curious notions were prevalent of the effect of travelling by mail-coach--the rate being about eight or ten miles an hour. Lord Campbell was frequently warned against the danger of journeying this way, and instances were cited to him of pa.s.sengers dying of apoplexy induced by the rapidity with which the vehicles travelled. In 1791 the Postmaster-General gave directions that the public should be warned against sending any cash by post, partly, as he stated, "from the prejudice it does to the coin by the friction it occasions from the great expedition with which it is conveyed." After all, speed is merely a relative thing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN MAIL "APPARATUS" FOR EXCHANGE OF MAIL-BAGS: SETTING THE POUCH--EARLY MORNING.]

Although, as previously stated, open attacks were not often made upon the coaches, robberies of the bags conveyed by them were quite common--chiefly at night--and we may a.s.sume that they were made possible through the carelessness of the guards. It would be a long story to go fully into this matter. Let a couple of instances suffice. On the last day of February 1810, in the evening, a mail-coach at Barnet was robbed of sixteen bags for provincial towns by the wrenching off the lock while the horses were changing. And on the 19th November of the same year seven bags for London were stolen from the coach at Bedford about nine o'clock in the evening.

The authorities had a good deal of trouble with the mail guards and coachmen, and the records of the period are full of warnings against their irregularities. Now they are admonished for stopping at ale-houses to drink; now the guards are threatened for sleeping upon duty. Then they are cautioned against conveying fish, poultry, etc., on their own account. A guard is fined 5 for suffering a man to ride on the roof of the coach; a driver is fined 5 for losing time; another driver, for intoxication and impertinence to pa.s.sengers, is fined 10 and costs. The guards are entreated to be attentive to their arms, to see that they are clean, well loaded, and hung handy; they are forbidden to blow their horns when pa.s.sing through the streets during the hours of divine service on Sundays; they are enjoined to keep a watch upon French prisoners of war attempting to break their parole; and to sum up, an Inspector despairingly writes that "half his time is employed in receiving and answering letters of complaint from pa.s.sengers respecting the improper conduct and impertinent language of guards." A story is told of a pa.s.senger who, being drenched inside a coach by water coming through an opening in the roof, complained of the fact to the guard, but the only answer he got was, "Ay, mony a ane has complained o' that hole," and the guard quietly pa.s.sed on to other duties.

Railway travellers are familiar with an official at the princ.i.p.al through stations whose duty it seems to be to ring a bell and loudly call out "Take your seats!" the moment hungry pa.s.sengers enter the refreshment-rooms. How far his zeal engenders dyspepsia and heart disease it is impossible to say.

In the mail-coach days similar pressure was put upon pa.s.sengers; for every effort was made to hurry forward the mails. In a family letter written by Mendelssohn in 1829, he describes a mail-coach journey from Glasgow to Liverpool. Among other things he mentions that the changing of horses was done in about forty seconds. This was not the language of mere hyperbole, for where the stoppage was one for the purpose of changing horses only the official time allowed was one minute.

It is perhaps a pity that we have not fuller records of the scenes enacted at the stopping-places; they would doubtless afford us some amus.e.m.e.nt. There is the old story of the knowing pa.s.senger who, un.o.bserved, placed all the silver spoons in the coffee-pot in order to cool the coffee and delay the coach, while the other pa.s.sengers, already in their places, were being searched.

There is another story which may be worth repeating. A hungry pa.s.senger had just commenced to taste the quality of a stewed fowl when he was peremptorily ordered by the guard to take his place. Unwilling to lose either his meal or his pa.s.sage, he hastily rolled the fowl in his handkerchief, and mounted the coach. But the landlord, unused to such liberties, was soon after him with the ravished dish. The coach was already on the move, and the only revenge left to the landlord was to call out jeeringly to the pa.s.senger, "Won't you have the gravy, sir?"

The other pa.s.sengers had a laugh at the expense of their companion; but we know that a hungry man is a tenacious man, and a man with a full stomach can afford to laugh. At any rate the proverb says, "Who laughs last laughs best."

The differences arising between pa.s.sengers and the landlords at the stopping-places were sometimes, however, of a much more prosaic and solemn character. Charles Lamb has given us such a scene. "I was travelling," he says, "in a stage-coach with three male Quakers, b.u.t.toned up in the straitest nonconformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their money and formally tendered it--so much for tea--I, in humble situation, tendering mine, for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in.

The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously p.r.o.nounced, became after a time inaudible, and now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence by inquiring of his next neighbour, 'Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House?' and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feelings as far as Exeter."

A Frenchman was once a traveller by mail-coach, who, although he knew the English language fairly well, was not familiar with the finer shades of meaning attached to set expressions when applied in particular situations. An Englishman, who was his companion inside the coach, had occasion to direct his attention to some object in the pa.s.sing landscape, and requested him to "look out." This the Frenchman promptly did, putting his head and shoulders out of the window, and the view obtained proved highly pleasing to the stranger. A stage further on in the journey, when the coach was approaching a narrow part of the road bordered and overhung by dense foliage, the driver, as was his custom, called out to the company, "Look out!" to which the Frenchman again quickly responded by thrusting head and shoulders out of the window; but this time with the result that his hat was brushed off, and his face badly scratched from contact with the neighbouring branches. This curious contradiction in the use of the very same words enraged the Frenchman, who said hard things of our language; for he had discovered that when told to "look out" he was to look out, and that again when told to "look out" he was to be careful not to look out.

Mackenzie graphically describes the part mail-coaches took in the distribution of news over the country in the early years of the century.

Referring to the news of the battle of Waterloo, he says: "By day and night these coaches rolled along at their pace of seven or eight miles an hour. At all cross roads messengers were waiting to get a newspaper or a word of tidings from the guard. In every little town, as the hour approached for the arrival of the mail, the citizens hovered about their streets waiting restlessly for the expected news. In due time the coach rattled into the market-place, hung with branches, the now familiar token that a great battle had been fought and a victory won. Eager groups gathered. The guard, as he handed out his mail-bags, told of the decisive victory which had crowned and completed our efforts. And then the coachman cracked his whip, the guard's horn gave forth once more its notes of triumph, and the coach rolled away, bearing the thrilling news into other districts."

The writer of the interesting work called _Glasgow, Past and Present_, gives the following realistic account of the arrival of the London mail in Glasgow in war-time:--

"During the time of the French war it was quite exhilarating to observe the arrival of the London mail-coach in Glasgow, when carrying the first intelligence of a great victory, like the battle of the Nile, or the battle of Waterloo. The mail-coach horses were then decorated with laurels, and a red flag floated on the roof of the coach. The guard, dressed in his best scarlet coat and gold ornamented hat, came galloping at a thundering pace along the stones of the Gallowgate, sounding his bugle amidst the echoings of the streets; and when he arrived at the foot of Nelson Street he discharged his blunderbuss in the air. On these occasions a general run was made to the Tontine Coffee-room to hear the great news, and long before the newspapers were delivered the public were advertised by the guard of the particulars of the great victory, which fled from mouth to mouth like wildfire."

The mail-guards, and also the coachmen, were a race of men by themselves, modelled and fas.h.i.+oned by the circ.u.mstances of their employment--in fact, receiving character, like all other sets of people, from their peculiar environment. There are now very few of them remaining, and these very old men. These officers of the Post Office mixed with all sorts of people, learned a great deal from the pa.s.sengers, and were full of romance and anecdote. We remember one guard whose conversation and accounts of funny things were so continuous that his hearers were kept in a constant state of ecstasy whenever he was set agoing. His fund of story seemed inexhaustible, and we can imagine how hilariously would pa.s.s away the hours on the outside of a mail-coach with such a companion. The guard of whom we are speaking was a north countryman, possessed of a stalwart frame and iron const.i.tution, a man with whom a highwayman would rather avoid getting into grips. He used to tell of an occasion on which the driver, being drunk, fell from his box, and the horses bolted. He himself was seated in his place at the rear of the coach. The state of things was serious. He however scrambled over the top of the coach, let himself down between the wheelers, stole along the pole of the coach, recovered the reins, and saved the mail from wreck and the pa.s.sengers from impending death. For this he received a special letter of thanks from the Postmaster-General.

It was the custom of this guard, as no doubt of others of his cla.s.s, to take charge of parcels of value for conveyance between places on his road. On one occasion he had charge of a parcel of 1500 in bank notes, which was in course of transmission to a bank at headquarters. It happened that the driver had been indulging rather freely, and at one of the stopping-places the coachman started off with the coach leaving the guard behind. The latter did not discover this till the coach was out of sight, and realising the responsibility he was under in respect of the money, which for safety he had placed in a holster below one of his pistols, he was in a great fright. There was nothing for it but to start on foot and endeavour to overtake the coach; but this he did not succeed in doing till he had run a whole stage, at the end of which the perspiration was oozing through his scarlet coat. At the completion of the journey he sponged himself all over with whisky, and did not then feel any ill effects from the great strain he had placed himself under, though later in life he believed his heart had suffered damage from the exertions of that memorable day.

Before leaving this branch of our subject it may be well to note that while the mail guards received but nominal pay--ten and sixpence a week--they earned considerable sums in gratuities from pa.s.sengers, and for executing small commissions for the public. In certain cases as much as 300 a year was thus received; and the heavy fines that were inflicted upon them were therefore not so severe as might at first sight seem. Unhappily these men were given to take drink, if not wisely, at any rate too often. The weaknesses of the mail guard are very cleverly portrayed in some verses on the _Mail-Coach Guard_, quoted in Larwood and Hotten's work on the _History of Signboards_; and while these frailties are the burden of the song, it will be observed how cleverly the names of inns or alehouses are introduced into the song:--

"At each inn on the road I a welcome could find; At the Fleece I'd my skin full of ale; The Two Jolly Brewers were just to my mind; At the Dolphin I drank like a whale.

Tom Tun at the Hogshead sold pretty good stuff; They'd capital flip at the Boar; And when at the Angel I'd tippled enough, I went to the Devil for more.

Then I'd always a sweetheart so snug at the Car; At the Rose I'd a lily so white; Few planets could equal sweet Nan at the Star; No eyes ever twinkled so bright.

I've had many a hug at the sign of the Bear; In the Sun courted morning and noon; And when night put an end to my happiness there, I'd a sweet little girl in the Moon.

To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu, Of wedlock to set up the Sign; Hand-in-Hand the Good-Woman I look for in you, And the Horns I hope ne'er will be mine.

Once guard to the mail, I'm now guard to the fair, But though my commission's laid down, Yet while the King's Arms I'm permitted to bear, Like a Lion I'll fight for the Crown."

A good loyal subject to the last.

One of the changes that time and circ.u.mstances have brought into the postal service is this, that the country post-offices have pa.s.sed out of the hands of innkeepers, and into those of more desirable persons. In former times, and down to the period of the mail-coaches, the post-offices in many of the provincial towns were established at the inn of the place. In those days the conveyance of the mails being to a large extent by horse, it was convenient to have the office established where the relays of horses were maintained; and the term "postmaster" then applied in a double sense--to the person intrusted with the receipt and despatch of letters, and with the providing of horses to convey the mails. The two duties are now no longer combined, and the word "postmaster" has consequently become applicable to two totally different cla.s.ses of persons. The innkeepers were not very a.s.siduous in matters pertaining to the post, and the duty of receiving and despatching letters, being frequently left to waiters and chambermaids, was very badly done. Often there was no separate room provided for the transaction of post-office business, and visitors at the inn and others had opportunities for scrutinising the correspondence that ought not to have existed. The postmaster was a.s.sisted by his ostler, as chief adviser in the postal work, which, however, was neglected; the worst horses, instead of the best, were hired out for the mails; and for riders the service was graced with the dregs of the stable-yard. At the same time the innkeepers were alive to their own interests, for they sometimes attracted travellers to their houses by granting them franks for the free transmission of their letters. The salaries of the postmasters were not cast in a liberal mould, and what they did receive was subject to the charge of providing candles, wax, string, etc., necessary for making up the mails.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAIL-COACH GUARD.]

The following are examples of the salaries of postmasters about a hundred years ago:--

Paisley, 1790 to 1800, 33 Dundee, 1800, 50 Arbroath, 1763 to 1794, 20 Aberdeen, 1763 to 1793, about 90 Glasgow, 1789 140 and Clerk 30

Constant appeals reached headquarters for "an augmentation," which was the term then applied to an increase of salary, and in the circ.u.mstances it is not surprising that the post-office work was indifferently done.

Attendance had to be given to the public during the day, and when the mail pa.s.sed through a town in the dead hours of night some one had to be up to despatch or receive the mail. Sometimes the postmaster, when awoke by the post-boy's horn, would get up and drop the mail-bag by a hook and line from his bedroom window. An instance of such a proceeding is given by Williams in his history of Watford, where the destinies of the post were at the time presided over by a postmistress. "In response,"

says he, "to the thundering knock of the conductor, the old lady left her couch, and thrusting her head, covered with a wide-bordered night-cap, out of the bedroom window, let down the mail-bag by a string, and quickly returned to her bed again." Coming thus nightly to the open window must have been a risky duty as regards health for a postmistress.

A hundred years ago the chief post-office in London was situated in Lombard Street. The scene, if we may judge by a print of the period, would appear to have been one of quietude and waiting for something to turn up. In 1829 the General Post Office was transferred to St. Martin's le Grand, and the departure of the evening mails (when mail-coaches were in full swing) became one of the sights of London.

Living in an age of cheap postage as we do, we look back upon the rates charged a century ago with something akin to amazement. In the following table will be seen some of the inland and foreign postage charges which were current in the period from 1797 to 1815:--

-------------------------------------------------------------- Single Double Treble 1 oz. ENGLAND, 1797. Letter Letter Letter Distance not exceeding in +-------+--------+--------+-------+ Miles-- s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. 15, 0 3 0 6 0 9 1 0 15 to 30, 0 4 0 8 1 0 1 4 30 " 60, 0 5 0 10 1 3 1 8 60 " 100, 0 6 1 0 1 6 2 0 100 " 150, 0 7 1 2 1 9 2 4 150 and upwards, 0 8 1 4 2 0 2 8 For Scotland these rates were increased by 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 FOREIGN. From any part in Great Britain to any part in-- Portugal, 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 British Dominions in } America, } 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 1806. From any part in Great Britain to-- Gibraltar, 1 9 3 6 5 3 7 0 Malta, 2 1 4 2 6 3 8 4 --------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------- 1808. Single Double Treble 1 oz. Letter. Letter. Letter. From any part in Great Britain to-- +-------+-------+-------+-------+ s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. Madeira, 1 6 3 0 4 6 6 0 South America, } Portuguese } 2 5 4 10 7 3 9 8 Possessions, } 1815. From any part in Great Britain to-- Cape of Good Hope,} Mauritius, } 3 6 7 0 10 6 14 0 East Indies, } ---------------------------------------------------------

Over and above these foreign rates, the full inland postage in England and Scotland, according to the distance the letters had to be conveyed to the port of despatch, was levied.

Many persons remember how old-fas.h.i.+oned letters were made up--a single sheet of paper folded first at the top and bottom, then one side slipped inside the folds of the other, then a wafer or seal applied, and the address written on the back. That was a _single_ letter. If a cheque, bank-bill, or other doc.u.ment were enclosed, the letter became a double letter. Two enclosures made the letter a treble letter. The officers of the Post Office examined the letters in the interest of the Revenue, the letters being submitted to the test of a strong light, and the officers, peeping in at the end, used the feather end of a quill to separate the folds of the letter for better inspection. Envelopes were not then used.

These high rates of postage gave rise to frequent attempts to defraud the Revenue, and many plans were adopted to circ.u.mvent the Post Office in this matter. Sometimes a series of words in the print of a newspaper were p.r.i.c.ked with a pin, and thus conveyed a message to the person for whom the newspaper was intended. Sometimes milk was used as an invisible ink upon a newspaper, the receiver reading the message sent by holding the paper to the fire. At other times soldiers took the letters of their friends, and sent them under franks written by their officers. Letters were conveyed by public carriers, against the statute, sometimes tied up in brown paper, to disguise them as parcels. The carriers seem to have been conspicuous offenders, for one of them was convicted at Warwick in 1794, when penalties amounting to 1500 were incurred, though only 10 and costs were actually exacted. The Post Office maintained a staff of men called "Apprehenders of Letter Carriers," whose business it was to hunt down persons illegally carrying letters.

Nor must we omit to mention how far short of perfection were the means afforded for cross-post communication between one town and another.

While along the main lines of road radiating from London there might be a fairly good service according to the ideas of the times, the cross-country connections were bad and inadequate. Here are one or two instances:--

In 1792 there was no direct post between Thrapstone and Wellingborough, though they lay only nine miles apart. Letters could circulate between these towns by way of Stilton, Newark, Nottingham, and Northampton, performing a circuit of 148 miles, or they could be sent by way of London, 74 up and 68 down,--in which latter case they reached their destination one day sooner than by the northern route.

[Ill.u.s.trations: Diagrams--ROUNDABOUT COMMUNICATIONS]

Again, from Ipswich to Bury St. Edmunds, two important towns of about 11,000 and 7000 inhabitants respectively, and distant from each other only twenty-two miles, there was no direct post. Letters had to be forwarded either through Norwich and Newmarket, or by way of London, the distance to be covered in the one case being 105 miles, and in the other 143 miles. According to a time-table of the period, a letter posted at Ipswich for Bury St. Edmunds on Monday would be despatched to Norwich at 5.30 A.M. on Tuesday. Reaching this place six hours thereafter, it would be forwarded thence at 4 P.M. to Newmarket, where it was due at 11 P.M.

At Newmarket it would lie all night and the greater part of next day, and would only arrive at Bury at 5.40 P.M. on Wednesday. Thus three days were consumed in the journey of a letter from Ipswich to Bury by the nearest postal route, and nothing was to be gained by adopting the alternative route _via_ London.

In 1781 the postal staff in Edinburgh was composed of twenty-three persons, of whom six were letter-carriers. The indoor staff of the Glasgow Post Office in 1789 consisted of the postmaster and one clerk, and as ten years later there were only four postmen employed, the outdoor force in 1789 was probably only four men.

Liverpool, in the year 1792, when its population stood at something like 60,000, had only three postmen, whose wages were 7s. a week each. One of the men, however, was a.s.sisted by his wife, and for this service the Post Office allowed her from 10 to 12 a year. Their duties seem to have been carried out in an easy-going, deliberate fas.h.i.+on. The men arranged the letters for distribution in the early morning, then they partook of breakfast, and started on their rounds about 9 A.M., completing their delivery about the middle of the afternoon. It would thus seem that a hundred years ago there was but one delivery daily in Liverpool.

During the same period there were only three letter-carriers employed at Manchester, four at Bristol, and three or four at Birmingham. In our own times the number of postmen serving these large towns may be counted by the hundreds, or, I might almost say, thousands.

The delivery of letters in former times was necessarily a slow affair, for two reasons, namely:--that prepayment was not compulsory, and the senders of letters thoughtfully left the receivers to pay for them, when the postmen would often be kept waiting for the money. And secondly, streets were not named and numbered systematically as they now are, and concise addresses were impossible.

It is no doubt the case that order and method in laying out the streets and in regulating generally the buildings of towns are things of quite modern growth. In old-fas.h.i.+oned towns we find the streets running at all angles to one another, and describing all sorts of curves, without any regard whatever to general harmony. And will it be believed that the numbering of the houses in streets is comparatively a modern arrangement! Walter Thornbury tells us in his _Haunted London_ that "names were first put on doors in 1760 (some years before the street signs were removed). In 1764 houses were first numbered, the numbering commencing in New Burleigh Street, and Lincoln's-Inn-Fields being the second place numbered." While in our own time the addresses of letters are generally brief and direct, it is not to be wondered at that, under the conditions above stated, the superscriptions were often such as now seem to us curious. Here is one given in a printed notice issued at Edinburgh in 1714:--