The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

This placed them, however, in no better position, for the arrival at Aberdeen was so late at night, that the letters could only be dealt with next day. It was not easy to accommodate all parties, and there was a good deal of trouble over this matter. The Edinburgh newspapers required an interval, after the arrival of the London mail, for the printing of their journals and preparing them for the North despatch. The Aberdeen people thought that an interval of three hours was sufficient for all purposes, and urged that the North mail should start at 9 A.M. In one of their memorials they write thus:--"They think that the institution of posts was, in the first place, to facilitate commerce by the conveyance of letters with the quickest possible despatch from one end of the kingdom to the other, and, in the next place, to raise a revenue for Government; and they cannot conceive that either of those ends will be promoted by the letters of two-thirds of the kingdom of Scotland lying dormant for many hours at Edinburgh." In another of the petitions from the people of Aberdeen, they strangely introduce their loyalty as a lever in pressing their claims:--"Were we of this city," say they, "to lay claim to any peculiar merit, it might perhaps be that of a sincere attachment to order and good government, which places us, in this respect at least, equal to the most dignified city in Britain." From a Post-office point of view, the memorialists appeared to be under some mistake as to the gain to be derived from the change desired, for there was something connected with the return mails which did not fall in with the plan, and the surveyor made some opposition to it. In one of his reports he makes this curious observation:--"I am persuaded that some of them, as now appears to be the case, may be very well pleased to get free from the obligation of answering their letters in course--and particularly in money matters"!