Ten Years Among the Mail Bags Part 50

P.O. No 9 Albany Street Boston State of Ma.s.s for Michael Ryan tailor and if he do not live here i expect that the Person who will live here will forward this letter to him if they chance to know where he live.

Mister John Shane Syracuse No 152 Salina Street your parents are here, and state New York city North America.

William Doger Syracuse Corner of James and Warren street undago county state of new york--america-- care for John Burk or Jeremiah Burk paid or Else where

The American Girl who wants a place, 329 Sixth Avenue, up two flights of Stairs, Back Room.

Thadeus M. Guerai Esqr.

son of Pat Guerai, Late Manager of the Devon estate, County Limerick Ireland, and husband of Sarah Coburn Harding; Niece of Major Harding of Harding Grove, County Limerick Ireland-- Care of B. Dougla.s.s & Co.

Charlestown S.C.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

ORIGIN OF THE MAIL COACH SERVICE.

The greatest improvement in the English mail service, during the eighteenth century, was the introduction of mail coaches. This was brought about by the energy and perseverance of JOHN PALMER, ESQ. Like most of those who introduce great improvements, he was an "outsider,"

one unacquainted by business habits and a.s.sociations, with the postal service.

At that time (about 1783) stage coaches, with pa.s.sengers, traversed the country over all the princ.i.p.al roads, and ran from five to seven miles an hour. The mails, however, had _never_ had any better conveyance than that of a horse or a gig, managed by a man or boy. The whole mail service was on a most irregular footing; mail robberies were frequent, and the speed did not average over three and a half miles an hour.

Mr. Palmer's plan was, to have the mails transferred to the stage coaches, that the swiftest conveyance which the country afforded should carry the mails. For so obvious an improvement, we would suppose that there would be little or no opposition. Parliamentary Committees were appointed, Post Masters General reported, and all the officials were against it! Statesmen took it up; the proposition was debated in Parliament; and, after many years of persevering labor, Mr.

Palmer saw his plan adopted.

But opposition did not end here. There were more reports against it, and those who opposed at first from ignorance, and a belief that no improvement would result, now kept up their opposition from a dread of being thought false prophets. But there were those who appreciated the improvement, and Mr. Palmer got a pension from Government of three thousand pounds a year for life, and afterwards a grant of fifty thousand pounds, for the benefit his improvement in the mail service had been to the revenue of the country.

We have, from a well known post-office reformer,[B] a nice piece of sarcasm for the special benefit of those who _oppose_ great improvements, and then deny their value after they have been adopted and proved.

[B] Rowland Hill, Esq.

A report from the English Post Master General says: "From a comparison of the gross produce of inland postage: for four months, and from every other comparison they have been able to make, they were perfectly satisfied that the revenue has been very considerably decreased by the plan of mail coaches."

This report gives the opinions of the Lords of the Treasury, and enlarges on the innumerable inconveniences which the change had occasioned. The great post-office reformer, forty years after this, makes the following comment:--

"Heavy must be the responsibility on those who thus persisted in folly and mischief; and wonderful is it that Mr. Palmer should have been able to beguile the Government and the legislature into sanctioning his mad career! Who was the statesman, unworthy of the name, that thus gave the rein to audacity; that thus became, in his besotted ignorance, the tool of presumption? Who stood G.o.d-father to the vile abortion, and insisted on the admission of the hideous and deformed monster into the sacred precincts of Lombard Street, the seat of perfection? His name--alas! that the lynx should be guided by the mole! that Samson should be seduced by Delilah! Palimirus allured by a dream!--his name was WILLIAM PITT."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

EVASION OF THE POST-OFFICE LAWS.

Before the adoption of the present rates of postage, much ingenuity was displayed in making newspapers the vehicles of such information as should legitimately have been conveyed by letters. Various devices were employed to effect this object.

As the law strictly prohibited writing upon papers, requiring that such newspapers should be charged with letter postage, the problem was, to convey information by their means without infringing the letter of the law.

Sometimes a sentence or a paragraph was selected, some of the letters of which were crossed out in such a manner that the letters left legible conveyed the meaning which the operator intended. By such trans.m.u.ting process, pugnacious editorials were converted into epistles of the mildest and most affectionate description, and public news of an important character not unfrequently contracted into a channel for the conveyance of domestic intelligence.

As the constructions of the law on this subject, by the officers of the Department, became more and more stringent, the most amusing and ingenious inventions to get beyond their reach were resorted to.

For instance, marking an advertis.e.m.e.nt or other notice, with a pen or pencil, having been declared a violation of law, attention was sometimes called to such notices, by cutting round them on three sides, thus making a sort of flap, and doubling it back on the side left uncut. In one case, which now occurs to the author, a notice served in that way, thus producing a hole in the paper, had the strikingly appropriate caption of "A good Opening!"

The vacancy produced in the paper, in such a case, of course attracted the attention of the person who received it, and _that_ advertis.e.m.e.nt was sure to be read, if no other.

Hieroglyphics were sometimes employed for conveying contraband ideas.

The following will answer as a specimen of this cla.s.s of attempted evasions. It was neatly drawn on the margin of a newspaper which came to a Western post-office, from a town in New England.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The meaning will of course he readily understood by the reader--"Children all well!"

Such specimens of the fine arts are seldom attempted under the present low rates of postage, as the saving of two cents would hardly pay for the required time or labor. But there are those even now-a-days, who, for that paltry consideration, are found willing to compromise their consciences, if indeed they have any, by resorting to some of the less laborious methods, in attempting to carry out their prudential designs.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

POST OFFICE PAUL PRYS.

Legislative enactments have been found no less necessary, to defend the sacredness of private correspondence from the prying eye of curiosity, than from the plundering hand of dishonesty.

There are many who would recoil from the thought of robbing a letter of its pecuniary contents, but feel no compunction at violating its secrecy for the sake of indulging an idle or a malicious inquisitiveness, if the commission of the deed can be concealed. This may not be called a common evil, and yet it exists; and it is one against which Acts of Congress have been levelled almost in vain, for there is perhaps hardly any portion of the laws of that body relative to the protection of correspondence, through the mails, about which there is felt so great a degree of security.

This violation of the first principles of decency and propriety, not unfrequently leads to results more disastrous than those which are caused even by robbery itself. The person, too, who indulges himself in this disgraceful practice, cannot be sure that he will always keep clear of more serious misdemeanors. He who pries into letters for one purpose, may be led to pry into them for another. When one has become accustomed to tampering with letter seals, he has broken through a powerful restraint to crime, and has laid himself yet more open to the a.s.saults of temptation.

Sometimes a state of things exists in a neighborhood which clearly shows that some unauthorized person is acquainted with the contents of many of the letters pa.s.sing-through the post-office, before the rightful owners have received them. Secrets of the utmost importance are suddenly blazed abroad, and those of less consequence are used to inflict much annoyance upon the persons whom they concern. Those in charge of the post-office become the objects of suspicion, and the inhabitants of the infected district, if they are unable to obtain positive proof of unlawful meddling with their correspondence, at least show, by their endeavors to prevent their letters from going through the dangerous channel, that they have lost their confidence in the integrity of the post master, or of his a.s.sistants.

For instance,--Farmer Haycroft's daughter had settled the preliminaries of a treaty of the most tender description with a young gentleman of a neighboring city, though without the knowledge and contrary to the wishes of the parental potentates on both sides. Their happiness, it is clear, depended on preserving their secret inviolate.

Should it come to the ears of their "potent, grave, and reverend _Seniors_," a storm of wrath might be expected like that which is seen when two clouds, heavily charged, unite in pouring out their burden of lightning, wind, and rain.

Therefore, in order to avoid such a consummation, interviews were not risked, as being too hazardous, but a correspondence was carried on under fict.i.tious names.