The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

Lack of interest in the mails did not, however, stand in the way of their turning the post to account in favour of their visitors; for in another official report the following observation is made on the subject of franking: "The Post-office is not of the consequence or recommendation to an inn which it used to be before the restriction in franking took place; and a traveller, now finding that my host at the public office is deprived of that privilege, moves over to the Red Lyon." When mail-coaches came to be put upon the road, the necessity for having postmasters other than innkeepers forced itself upon the authorities, so that there should be an independent check upon the contractors, and a better regulation of the arrival and departure of the mails, with less chance of excuse for delays; and thus a change was brought about in the status of country postmasters. But postmasters in the old days do not seem to have been uniformly happy in their posts. The following from a surveyor's report of December 1792, relating to the postmaster of Wetherby, in Yorkshire, shows this, and no doubt describes the case accurately. The Wetherby office had been made more important by some rearrangement of posts, with the result which the surveyor thus pathetically brings under notice: "The Postmaster-General's humanity, I humbly apprehend, would be very much affected if they knew exactly the situation of this poor deputy. He has now experienced the difference between his former snug duty and the very great fatigue of a large centre office, and labour throughout almost the whole of every night since the 10th October 1791. Also the very heavy expenses incurred thereby for assistance, coal, candles, paper, wax, &c., without any addition to his salary. To add to his distresses--for he is not rich" (who ever heard of a rich postmaster?)--"he has been so closely pressed from the Bye-letter Office for his balance due there as to have been compelled to borrow money to discharge them, at the very time that he could not obtain any account from the General Office, nor warrants for payment of as large sums due to him."