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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
129
The
Travelling
Post-office
apparatus
is
said
to
have
been
originally
suggested
by
Mr
Ramsay
of
the
General
Post-office;
but
his
machinery
was
not
very
satisfactory
when
brought
into
practice.
The
idea
was,
however,
improved
upon
by
Mr
Dicker,
who
was
able
to
bring
it
into
working
condition;
and
for
his
services
in
this
matter
he
was
awarded
a
sum
of
L500
by
the
Lords
of
the
Treasury,
and
the
Postmaster-General
conferred
upon
him
an
appointment
as
Supervisor
of
mail-bag
apparatus.
Some
further
improvements
were
carried
out
by
Mr
Pearson
Hill,
as,
for
example,
the
double
arm,
so
that
two
pouches
might
be
discharged
at
once
from
the
same
carriage-door.
The
apparatus
first
came
to
be
used
about
thirty
years
ago,
and
there
are
now
in
the
United
Kingdom
some
250
points
or
stations
at
which
this
magical
game
of
give
and
take
is
carried
on
daily,
and
in
many
cases
several
times
a
day.
At
certain
places
not
merely
one
or
two
pouches
are
discharged
at
a
time,
but
a
running
fire
is
sometimes
kept
up
to
the
extent
of
nine
discharges
of
pouches.
By
the
limited
mail
proceeding
to
the
North,
nine
pouches
are
discharged
at
Oxenholme
from
the
three
Post-office
carriages,
the
method
followed
being
this:--Two
pouches
are
suspended
from
the
arms
at
each
carriage-door,
and
upon
these
being
discharged,
three
of
the
arms
are
immediately
reloaded,
when
the
pouches
are
caught
by
a
second
set
of
roadside
nets,
distant
only
about
600
yards
from
the
first.
It
is
necessary
that
great
care
should
be
taken
in
adjusting
the
nets,
arms,
and
roadside
standards
to
their
proper
positions
in
relation
to
one
another,
for
any
departure
from
such
adjustment
sometimes
leads
to
accident.
The
pouches
occasionally
are
sent
bounding
over
hedges,
over
the
carriages,
or
under
the
carriage-wheels,
where
they
and
their
contents
get
cut
to
pieces.
Pouches
have
been
found
at
the
end
of
a
journey
on
the
carriage-roof,
or
hanging
on
to
a
buffer.
In
November
last,
a
pouch
containing
several
mail-bags
was
discharged
from
the
Midland
Travelling
Post-office
at
Cudworth,
near
Barnsley;
but
something
going
wrong,
the
pouch
got
cut
up,
and
the
contents
were
strewn
along
the
line
as
far
as
Normanton.
Some
of
these
were
found
to
be
cheques,
a
silver
watch,
a
set
of
artificial
teeth,
&c.
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