Chapter 4

One of the changes that time and circumstances have brought into the postal service is this, that the country post-offices have passed 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 classes of persons. The innkeepers were not very assiduous 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 assisted 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.

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

Paisley, 1790 to 1800, L33 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 circumstances 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 passed 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-fashioned 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 document 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 circumvent the Post Office in this matter. Sometimes a series of words in the print of a newspaper were pricked 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 L1500 were incurred, though only L10 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 1/2 down,--in which latter case they reached their destination one day sooner than by the northern route.

[Illustrations: 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 1/2 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 assisted by his wife, and for this service the Post Office allowed her from L10 to L12 a year. Their duties seem to have been carried out in an easy-going, deliberate fashion. 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-fashioned 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:--

"The Stamp office at Edinburgh in Mr. William Law, Jeweller, his hands, off the Parliament close, down the market stairs, opposite to the Excise office."

Here is another old-fashioned address, in which one must admit the spirit of filial regard with which it is inspired:--

"These for his honoured Mother, Mrs. Hester Stryp, widow, dwelling in Petticoat Lane, over against the Five Inkhorns, without Bishopgate, in London."

Yet one more specimen, referring to the year 1702:--

"For Mr. Archibald Dunbarr of Thunderstoune, to be left at Capt. Dunbar's writing chamber at the Iron Revell, third storie below the cross, north end of the close at Edinburgh."

Under the circumstances of the time it was necessary thus to define at length where letters should be delivered; and the same circumstances were no doubt the _raison-d'etre_ of the corps of caddies in Edinburgh, whose business it was to execute commissions of all sorts, and in whom the paramount qualification was to know everybody in the town, and where everybody lived.

All this is changed in our degenerate days, and it is now possible for any one to find any other person with the simple key of street and number.

The irregular way in which towns grew up in former times is brought out in an anecdote about Kilmarnock. Early in the present century the streets of that town were narrow, winding, and intricate. An English commercial traveller, having completed some business there, mounted his horse, and set out for another town. He was making for the outskirts of Kilmarnock, and reflecting upon its apparent size and importance, when he suddenly found himself back at the cross. In the surprise of the moment he was heard to exclaim that surely his "sable eminence" must have had a hand in the building of it, for it was a town very easily got into, but there was no getting out of it.

A duty that the changed circumstances of the times now renders unnecessary was formerly imposed upon postmasters, of which there is hardly a recollection remaining among the officials carrying on the work of the post to-day. The duty is mentioned in an order of May 1824, to the following effect: "An old instruction was renewed in 1812, that all postmasters should transmit to me (the Secretary), for the information of His Majesty's Postmaster-General, an immediate account of all remarkable occurrences within their districts, that the same may be communicated, if necessary, to His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. This has not been invariably attended to, and I am commanded by His Lordship to say, that henceforward it will be expected of every Deputy." This gathering of news from all quarters is now adequately provided for by the _Daily Press_, and no incident of any importance occurs which is not immediately distributed through that channel, or flashed by the telegraph, to every corner of the kingdom.

A custom, which would now be looked upon as a curiosity, and the origin of which would have to be sought for in the remote past, was in operation in the larger towns of the kingdom until about the year 1859. The custom was that of ringing the town for letters to be despatched; certain of the postmen being authorised to go over apportioned districts, after the ordinary collections of letters from the receiving offices had been made, to gather in late letters for the mail. Until the year above mentioned the arrangement was thus carried out in Dublin. The letter-box at the chief office, and those at the receiving offices, closed two hours before the despatch of the night mail. Half an hour after this closing eleven postmen started to scour the town, collecting on their way letters and newspapers. Each man carried a locked leather wallet, into which, through an opening, letters and other articles were placed, the postmen receiving a fee of a penny on every letter, and a halfpenny on every newspaper. This was a personal fee to the men over and above the ordinary postage. To warn the public of the postman's approach each man carried a large bell, which he rang vigorously as he went his rounds. These men, besides taking up letters for the public, called also at the receiving offices for any letters left for them upon which the special fee had been paid, and the "ringers" had to reach the chief office one hour before the despatch of the night mail. This custom seems to have yielded considerable emolument to the men concerned, for when it was abolished compensation was given for the loss of fees, the annual payments ranging from L10 8s., to L36 8s. Increased posting facilities, and the infusion of greater activity into the performance of post-office work, were no doubt the things which "rang the parting knell" of these useful servants of the period.

The slow and infrequent conveyance of mails by the ordinary post in former times gave rise to the necessity for "Expresses." By this term is meant the despatch of a single letter by man and horse, to be passed on from stage to stage without delay to its destination. In an official instruction of 1824 the speed to be observed was thus described: "It is expected that all Expresses shall be conveyed at the rate of seven miles, at least, within the hour." The charge made was 11d. per mile, arising as follows, viz.:--7 1/2d. per mile for the horse, 2d. per mile for the rider, and 1 1/2d. per mile for the post-horse duty. The postmaster who despatched the Express, and the postmaster who received it for delivery, were each entitled to 2s. 6d. for their trouble.

It will perhaps be convenient to look at the packet service apart from the land service, though progress is as remarkable in the one as in the other. During the wars of the latter half of the last century, the packets, small as they were, were armed packets. But we almost smile in recording the armaments carried. Here is an account of the arms of the _Roebuck_ packet as inventoried in 1791:--

2 Carriage guns. 4 Muskets and bayonets. 4 Brass Blunderbusses. 4 Cutlasses. 4 Pair of Pistols. 3 old Cartouch-boxes.

In our own estuaries and seas the packets were not free from molestation, and were in danger of being taken. In 1779 the Carron Company were running vessels from the Forth to London, and the following notice was issued by them as an inducement to persons travelling between these places:--

"The Carron vessels are fitted out in the most complete manner for defence, at a very considerable expense, and are well provided with small arms. All mariners, recruiting parties, soldiers upon furlow, and all other steerage passengers who have been accustomed to the use of firearms, and who will engage to assist in defending themselves, will be accommodated with their passage to and from London upon satisfying the masters for their provisions, which in no instance shall exceed 10s. 6d. sterling." This was the year in which Paul Jones visited the Firth of Forth, and was spreading terror all round the coasts. The following was the service of the packets in the year 1780. Five packets were employed between Dover and Ostend and Calais, the despatches being made on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Between Harwich and Holland three were employed, the sailings in this case also taking place on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For New York and the West India Service twelve packets were engaged, sailing from Falmouth on the first Wednesday of every month. Four packets performed the duty between Falmouth and Lisbon, sailing every Saturday; and five packets kept up the Irish communication, sailing daily between Holyhead and Dublin. In the year 1798, a mail service seems to have been kept up by packets sailing from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, respecting which the following particulars may be interesting. They are taken from an old letter-book. "The passage-money to the office is 12s. 6d. for whole passengers, and 6s. 6d. for half passengers, either to or from England; 6d. of which is to be paid to the Captain for small beer, which both the whole and half passengers are to be informed of their being entitled to when they embark.

"1s. 6d. is allowed as a perquisite on each whole passenger, 1s. of which to the agent at Cuxhaven for every whole passenger embarking for England, and the other 6d. to the agent at Yarmouth; and in like manner 1s. to the agent at Yarmouth on every whole passenger embarking for the Continent, and 6d. to the agent at Cuxhaven; but no fee whatever is to be taken on half passengers, so that 10s. 6d. must be accounted for to the Revenue on each whole passenger, and 6s. on each half passenger."

Half passengers were servants, young children, or persons in low circumstances.

While touching upon passage-money, it may be noted that in 1811 the fare from Weymouth to Jersey or Guernsey, for cabin passengers, was, to the captain, 15s. 6d. and to the office 10s. 6d.--or L1, 6s. in all.

The mail packets performing the service between England and Ireland in the first quarter of the present century were not much to boast of. According to a survey taken at Holyhead in July 1821, the vessels employed to carry the mails between that port and Dublin were of very small tonnage, as will be seen by the following table:--

Uxbridge, 93 tons. Pelham, 98 " Duke of Montrose, 98 " Chichester, 102 " Union, 104 " Countess of Liverpool, 114 "

The valuation of these crafts, including rigging, furniture, and fitting, ranged from L1600 to L2400.