The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

CHAPTER XV. POST-OFFICE ROBBERIES. If records are not now forthcoming of all the robberies which have been committed upon the Post-office from the earliest times, we may be assured that an institution such as it is, maintaining agencies all over the country, and having to keep up communications between those agencies, would be exposed at all times and at all points to the risk of robbery, whether by the dashing boldness of the highwayman, or the less pretentious doings of the town house-breaker. To us who live in an age when the public roads are generally safe to travellers, it is difficult to realise the dangers that lurked in the highways at no more remote a period than last century; nor can we well realise a state of things under which mail-coaches in this our quiet England had to be protected by guards armed to the teeth. We have it handed down, however, as a historical fact, that when, in 1720, Belsize House, Hampstead, was opened as a place of public resort, the programme announcing its attractions contained the following item:--"And for the security of its guests, there are twelve stout fellows completely armed, to patrol betwixt London and Belsize, to prevent the insults of highwaymen or footpads which may infest the road." Yet that statement does not give the whole truth, for the road between these two places became so much more dangerous, that after a time "the patrol had to be increased from twelve to thirty stout fellows completely armed, independently of two tall grenadiers who mounted guard over the gate of the mansion."