The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

The same surveyor complained bitterly, with respect to the postboys, "that the gentry doe give much money to the riders, whereby they be very subject to get in liquor, which stops the males." Indeed the temptation of the ale-house was no doubt another factor in the slow journeying of the postboys, as it was the source of much trouble in the days of mail-coaches. Mr Palmer, through whose initiative and perseverance mail-coaches were subsequently established throughout the country, thus described the post as it existed in 1783:-- "The post, at present, instead of being the swiftest, is almost the slowest, conveyance in the country; and though, from the great improvement in our roads, other carriers have proportionably mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever. It is likewise very unsafe, as the frequent robberies of it testify; and to avoid a loss of this nature, people generally cut bank bills, or bills at sight, in two, and send the bills by different posts. The mails are generally intrusted to some idle boy, without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself or escape from a robber, is much more likely to be in league with him." Including stoppages, this mode of travelling was, up to 1783, at the rate of about three to four miles an hour. We are again indebted to Mr Chambers for the following statement of careless blunders made by postboys in connection with the Edinburgh mails:--"As indicating the simplicity of the institution in those days, may be noticed a mistake of February 1720, when, instead of the mail which should have come in yesterday (Sunday), we had our own mail of Thursday last returned--the presumption being, that the mail for Edinburgh had been in like manner sent back from some unknown point in the road to London. And this mistake happened once more in December 1728, the bag despatched on a Saturday night being returned the second Sunday morning after; 'tis reckoned this mistake happened about half-way on the road." We hardly agree, however, that these mistakes were owing to the simplicity of the institution, but rather to the routine nature of the work; for it is the fact that blunders equally flagrant have occurred in the Post-office in recent times, even under elaborate checks, which, if rightly applied, would have rendered the mistakes impossible.