Her Majesty's Mails

Had Hogarth's pencil transmitted to posterity the tout ensemble of a London procession of mail-coaches, or of one of them at the door of the customary halting-place (what Herring has done for the old Brighton coach the "Age," with its fine stud of blood-horses, and a real baronet for driver), the subject could not but have occasioned marked curiosity and pleasure. No doubt he would have given a distinguished place to the guard of the mail. The mail-guard was no ordinary character, being generally d'accord with those who thought or expressed this opinion. Regarded as quite a public character, commissions of great importance were oftentimes intrusted to him. The country banker, for example, would trust him with untold wealth. Though he was paid only a nominal sum by the Post-Office authorities for his official services, he was yet enabled to make his position and place a lucrative one, by the help of the regular perquisites and other accidental windfalls which we need not further specify. Gathering en route scraps of local gossip and district intelligence, he was often "private," and sometimes "special," correspondent to scores of different people. The Muddleton Gazette, perhaps the only newspaper on his line of road, was submissively dependent upon him. More of him anon: here we would only add that he had special duties on special occasions. The mail-coach was looked for most anxiously in times of great excitement. During the trial of Queen Caroline, says Miss Martineau, "all along the line of mails, crowds stood waiting in the burning sunshine for news of the trial, which was shouted out to them as the coach passed."[68] Again, at the different stages in the history of the Reform Bill, the mail-roads were sprinkled over for miles with people who were on the qui vive for any news from London, and the coachman and guards on the top of the coaches shouted out the tidings.[69] When the Ministry resigned, many of the guards distributed handbills which they had brought from London, stating the facts.