Her Majesty's Mails

From arguing on the general principles involved, they then descend to combat the working arrangements of the theatre-manager with even less success. Mr. Palmer complains that the post is slow, and states that it ought to outstrip all other conveyances. Mr. Hodgson "could not see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England. Personal conveyances, I apprehend, should be much more, and particularly with people travelling on business." Then followed Mr. Draper, another official, who objected to the coaches as travelling too fast. "The post," he said, "cannot travel with the expedition of stage-coaches, on account of the business necessary to be done in each town through which it passes, and without which correspondence would be thrown into the utmost confusion." Mr. Palmer had proposed that the coaches should remain fifteen minutes in each town through which they passed, to give time to transact the necessary business of sorting the letters. Mr. Draper said that half an hour was not enough, as was well enough known to persons at all conversant with Post-Office business. Living in this age of railways and steam, we have just reason to smile at such objections. Then, as to the appointment of mail-guards, Mr. Palmer might, but Mr. Hodgson could, see no security, though he could see endless trouble, expense, and annoyance in such a provision. "The man would doubtless have to be waited for at every alehouse the coach passed."