Her Majesty's Mails

FOOTNOTES: [26] There were many exceptions, of course. Numbers of innkeepers were also the postmasters of the period. Taylor, the water-poet, travelling from London into Scotland in the early part of the century, has described one of these men, in his Penniless Pilgrimage, as a model Boniface. [27] "The Grand Concern of England explained in several Proposals to Parliament."--Harl. MSS. 1673. [28] Chamberlayne's Present History of Great Britain. 1673. [29] Private coaches were started in London at the time when the stage- or hackney-coaches were introduced, and Mr. Pepys secured one of the first. Mightily proud was he of it, as any reader of his Diary will have learnt to his great amusement. [30] There are few traces in this country, at any time, of public letter-writers. This is somewhat remarkable, inasmuch as then, and still in some of the southern states of Europe, the profession of public letter-writer has long been an institution. In England it has never flourished. Some years ago there might have been seen at Wapping, Shadwell, and other localities in London where sailors resorted, announcements in small shop-windows to the effect that letters were written there "to all parts of the world." In one shop a placard was exhibited intimating that a "large assortment of letters on all sorts of subjects" were kept on hand. There were never many, and now very few, traces of the custom. [31] Chambers' Domestic Annals. [32] Lord Macaulay. Vol. i. p. 388. [33] No less interesting are the particulars of one year's postal revenue and expenditure, extracted from the old account-books of the department, by the present Receiver and Accountant-General of the Post-Office. The date given is within a year or two of that referred to in the text, viz. 1686-7. The net produce of the year was a little over 76,000l., and the following is a few of the most important and most suggestive items:--