Her Majesty's Mails

Whishaw, in his work on railways, to have been at that period about nine tons. At that time, the expense of the service was regulated by the weight carried. At present, on the great trunk line of the London and North Western Railway Company, no fewer than eight mail-trains run daily up and down, each conveying railway post-office carriages and post-office employés. Half of these trains are run specially, the number of passengers being limited. The weight of mails running over this ground must have increased fourfold at the least, inasmuch as the number of officers have been augmented in even a greater proportion. Surprising as was the speed at which the first railway post-office travelled, and wonderful as it was thought at the time, one of the mail-trains now runs nearly double the distance between London and Lancaster during the time which used to be taken for that ground alone. The Limited night-mail, travelling between the Euston Square station in London, and Perth in Scotland, accomplishes the distance of 451 miles in eleven hours and a half, or about forty miles an hour including stoppages!