The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

Mr Anthony Trollope has left us, in the account of his life, a capital specimen of the frivolous and groundless complaints with which the Post-office has frequently to deal. His account is as follows:--"A gentleman in county Cavan had complained most bitterly of the injury done to him by some arrangement of the Post-office. The nature of his grievance has no present significance; but it was so unendurable that he had written many letters, couched in the strongest language. He was most irate, and indulged himself in that scorn which is so easy to an angry mind. The place was not in my district; but I was borrowed, being young and strong, that I might remember the edge of his personal wrath. It was mid-winter, and I drove up to his house, a squire's country seat, in the middle of a snowstorm, just as it was becoming dark. I was on an open jaunting-car, and was on my way from one little town to another, the cause of his complaint having reference to some mail-conveyance between the two. I was certainly very cold, and very wet, and very uncomfortable when I entered his house. I was admitted by a butler, but the gentleman himself hurried into the hall. I at once began to explain my business. 'God bless me!' he said, 'you are wet through.