The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"Once on the poet's [Coleridge's] visit to the Lake district, he halted at the door of a wayside inn at the moment when the rural postman was delivering a letter to the barmaid of the place. Upon receiving it she turned it over and over in her hand, and then asked the postage of it. The postman demanded a shilling. Sighing deeply, however, the girl handed the letter back, saying she was too poor to pay the required sum. The poet at once offered to pay the postage; and in spite of some resistance on the part of the girl, which he deemed quite natural, did so. The messenger had scarcely left the place when the young barmaid confessed that she had learnt all she was likely to learn from the letter; that she had only been practising a preconceived trick--she and her brother having agreed that a few hieroglyphics on the back of the letter should tell her all she wanted to know, whilst the letter would contain no writing. 'We are so poor,' she added, 'that we have invented this manner of corresponding and franking our letters.'" In asserting its monopoly in the carriage of letters in towns, or wherever the Post-office had established posts, there was always trouble; and so much attention did the matter require, that special officers for the duty were employed, called "Apprehenders of Private Letter-carriers." The penalties were somewhat severe when infringements were discovered, and the action taken straight and prompt, as will be seen by the following, which is a copy of a letter written in 1817 to a person charging him with breaking the law:--