Her Majesty's Mails

The public required little attention, and got but little. Being prior to the time of postage-stamps, and we may almost add of money-orders, not to speak of savings' bank business, few applications were ever made to the officers--consisting of a postmaster, his wife, and another clerk--for anything but stray scraps of information relative to the despatch of mails. The communication with the public was anything but close, being conducted in this town--and, in fact, in all others of our acquaintance--through a trap-door in a wooden pane in the office-window. Near to it was a huge slit, being a passage to a basket, into which letters and newspapers were promiscuously thrown. The principal labour incident to the old style of postage was in regulating the amount to be paid on the different letters. Those posted in the town for the town itself were delivered for a penny; twopence was charged into the country places surrounding; letters for the metropolis cost a shilling; and Scotch letters eightpence-halfpenny at least, the odd halfpenny being the charge as a toll for the letter crossing the Tweed. The delivery of the letters in the town took place at any time during the day, according to the arrival of the mails, and it was effected by a single letter-carrier.[160] Private boxes for the principal merchants in the town, and private bags for the country gentlemen, were almost indispensable to those who cared for the proper despatch and security of their correspondence.