periods of snow, in the endeavour to keep the roads open. In places the
snow would be found lying thirty or forty feet deep, and the road
trustees were obliged to spend large sums of money in clearing it away.
Hundreds of the military were called out in certain places to assist,
and snow-ploughs were set to work in order to force a passage.
The inconvenience to the country caused by such interruptions is well
described in the _Annual Register_ of the 15th February 1795: "My letter
of two days ago is still here; for, though I have made an effort twice,
I have been obliged to return, not having reached half the first stage.
Two mails are due from London, three from Glasgow, and four from
Edinburgh. Neither the last guard that went hence for Glasgow on
Thursday, nor he that went on Wednesday, have since been heard of; this
country was never so completely blocked up in the memory of the oldest
person, or that they ever heard of. I understand the road is ten feet
deep with snow from this to Hamilton. I have had it cut through once,
but this third fall makes an attempt impossible. Heaven only knows when
the road will be open, nothing but a thaw can do it--it is now an
intense frost."
But the guards and coachmen were put upon their mettle on other
occasions than when snow made further progress impossible.
The following incident, showing the courage and devotion to duty of a
mail guard and coachman, is related by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., in
his account of the floods which devastated the province of Moray in
August 1829. Referring to the state of things in the town of Banff, Sir
Thomas proceeds: "The mail-coach had found it impracticable to proceed
south in the morning by its usual route, and had gone round by the
Bridge of Alva. It was therefore supposed that the mail for Inverness,
which reaches Banff in the afternoon, would take the same road. But what
was the astonishment of the assembled population when the coach
appeared, within a few minutes of the usual time, at the further end of
the Bridge of Banff. The people who were standing there urged both the
guard and coachman not to attempt to pass where their danger was so
certain. On hearing this the passengers left the coach; but the guard
and coachman, scouting the idea of danger in the very streets of Banff,
disregarded the advice they received, and drove straight along the
bridge. As they turned the corner of the butcher-market, signals were
made, and loud cries were uttered from the nearest houses to warn them
of the danger of advancing; yet still they kept urging the horses
onwards. But no sooner had they reached the place where the wall had
burst, than coach and horses were at once borne away together by the
raging current, and the vehicle was dashed violently against the corner
of Gillan's Inn. The whole four horses immediately disappeared, but
rose and plunged again, and dashed and struggled hard for their lives.
Loud were the shrieks of those who witnessed this spectacle. A boat came
almost instantaneously to the spot, but as the rowers pushed up to try
to disengage the horses, the poor animals, as they alternately reached
the surface, made desperate exertions to get into the boat, so that
extreme caution was necessary in approaching them. They did succeed in
liberating one of them, which immediately swam along the streets, amidst
the cheering of the population; but the other three sank to rise no
more. By this time the coach, with the coachman and guard, had been
thrown on the pavement, where the depth of water was less; and there the
guard was seen clinging to the top, and the coachman hanging by his
hands to a lamp-post, with his toes occasionally touching the box. In
this perilous state they remained till another boat came and relieved
them, when the guard and the mails were landed in safety. Great
indignation was displayed against the obstinacy which had produced this
accident. But much is to be said in defence of the servants of the Royal
Mail, who are expected to persevere in their endeavours to forward the
public post in defiance of risk, though in this case their zeal was
unfortunately proved to have been mistaken."[3]
Although, as already stated, robberies were frequent from the
mail-coaches, and the guard carried formidable weapons of defence, it
does not appear that the coaches were often openly attacked. At any rate
there do not seem to be many records of such incidents referring to the
later days of the mail-coach service.
An old guard, now retired, but still or quite recently living in
Carlisle, relates that only on one occasion did he require to draw his
arms for actual defence. This happened at a hamlet called Chance Inn, in
the county of Forfar, where the coach had stopped as usual. Both the
inside and outside places were occupied by passengers, and no additional
travellers could be taken. A number of sailors, however, who were
proceeding to join their ship at a seaport, wished to get upon the
coach; and though they were told that they could not travel by this
means, they plainly showed by their looks and demeanour that they were
determined to do so. One of them was overheard to say that, when the
proper moment arrived, they would make short work of the guard, who, as
it happened, was a youngish man. The passengers too were alarmed at the
appearances, and appealed to the guard to keep a sharp eye upon the
sailors. Under these conditions the guard directed the coachman, the
moment the word was given, to put the horses to a gallop, so as to leave
the seamen behind and avoid attack. The start was signalled as arranged,
the guard sprang into his place and faced round to the sailors, one of
whom was now in the act of preparing to throw a huge stone at his head
with both hands. Instantly the guard drew one of his pistols and covered
the ringleader, who thereupon dropped on his knees imploring pardon,
while his companions, previously so aggressive, scampered off in all
directions like a set of scared rabbits.
The apparatus by which in the present day bags of letters are dropped
from and taken up by the travelling post-office while the trains are
running at high speed had its prototype in the days of the mail-coaches.
In the one case as in the other the object was to get rid of stoppages,
and so to save time. In the coaching days the apparatus was of a most
primitive kind, consisting of a pointed stick rather less than four feet
long, whose sharpened end was put in behind the string around the neck
of the mail-bag, and on the end of the stick the bag was held up to be
clutched by the mail guard as the coach went hurriedly by. We are
indebted to the sub-postmaster of Liberton, a village a few miles out of
Edinburgh, for a description of the arrangement. He describes how the
guards, some fifty years ago, would playfully deal with the youngsters
who worked the "apparatus," by not only seizing the bag but also the
stick, and causing the young people to run long distances after the
coach in order to recover it. The fun was all very well, says the
sub-postmaster, in the genial nights of summer; "but when the cold
nights of winter came round, it was our turn to play a trick upon the
guard, when both he and the driver were numbed with cold and fast
asleep, and the four horses going at full speed. It was not easy to
arouse the guard to take the bag; and just fancy the rare gift of
Christian charity that caused us youngsters to run and roar after the
fast-running mail-coach to get quit of the bag. It used to be a weary
business waiting the mail-coach coming along from the south when the
roads were stormed up with snow or otherwise delayed. It required some
tact to hold up the bag, as the glare of the lamps prevented us from
seeing the guard as he came up with his red coat and blowing a long tin
horn."
Some curious notions were prevalent of the effect of travelling by
mail-coach--the rate being about eight or ten miles an hour. Lord
Campbell was frequently warned against the danger of journeying this
way, and instances were cited to him of passengers dying of apoplexy
induced by the rapidity with which the vehicles travelled. In 1791
the Postmaster-General gave directions that the public should be warned
against sending any cash by post, partly, as he stated, "from the
prejudice it does to the coin by the friction it occasions from the
great expedition with which it is conveyed." After all, speed is merely
a relative thing.
[Illustration: MODERN MAIL "APPARATUS" FOR EXCHANGE OF MAIL-BAGS:
SETTING THE POUCH--EARLY MORNING.]
Although, as previously stated, open attacks were not often made upon
the coaches, robberies of the bags conveyed by them were quite
common--chiefly at night--and we may assume that they were made possible
through the carelessness of the guards. It would be a long story to go
fully into this matter. Let a couple of instances suffice. On the last
day of February 1810, in the evening, a mail-coach at Barnet was robbed
of sixteen bags for provincial towns by the wrenching off the lock while
the horses were changing. And on the 19th November of the same year
seven bags for London were stolen from the coach at Bedford about nine
o'clock in the evening.
The authorities had a good deal of trouble with the mail guards and
coachmen, and the records of the period are full of warnings against
their irregularities. Now they are admonished for stopping at ale-houses
to drink; now the guards are threatened for sleeping upon duty. Then
they are cautioned against conveying fish, poultry, etc., on their own
account. A guard is fined L5 for suffering a man to ride on the roof of
the coach; a driver is fined L5 for losing time; another driver, for
intoxication and impertinence to passengers, is fined L10 and costs. The
guards are entreated to be attentive to their arms, to see that they are
clean, well loaded, and hung handy; they are forbidden to blow their
horns when passing through the streets during the hours of divine
service on Sundays; they are enjoined to keep a watch upon French
prisoners of war attempting to break their parole; and to sum up, an
Inspector despairingly writes that "half his time is employed in
receiving and answering letters of complaint from passengers respecting
the improper conduct and impertinent language of guards." A story is
told of a passenger who, being drenched inside a coach by water coming
through an opening in the roof, complained of the fact to the guard, but
the only answer he got was, "Ay, mony a ane has complained o' that
hole," and the guard quietly passed on to other duties.
Railway travellers are familiar with an official at the principal
through stations whose duty it seems to be to ring a bell and loudly
call out "Take your seats!" the moment hungry passengers enter the
refreshment-rooms. How far his zeal engenders dyspepsia and heart
disease it is impossible to say.
In the mail-coach days similar pressure was put upon passengers; for
every effort was made to hurry forward the mails. In a family letter
written by Mendelssohn in 1829, he describes a mail-coach journey from
Glasgow to Liverpool. Among other things he mentions that the changing
of horses was done in about forty seconds. This was not the language of
mere hyperbole, for where the stoppage was one for the purpose of
changing horses only the official time allowed was one minute.
It is perhaps a pity that we have not fuller records of the scenes
enacted at the stopping-places; they would doubtless afford us some
amusement. There is the old story of the knowing passenger who,
unobserved, placed all the silver spoons in the coffee-pot in order to
cool the coffee and delay the coach, while the other passengers, already
in their places, were being searched.
There is another story which may be worth repeating. A hungry passenger
had just commenced to taste the quality of a stewed fowl when he was
peremptorily ordered by the guard to take his place. Unwilling to lose
either his meal or his passage, he hastily rolled the fowl in his
handkerchief, and mounted the coach. But the landlord, unused to such
liberties, was soon after him with the ravished dish. The coach was
already on the move, and the only revenge left to the landlord was to
call out jeeringly to the passenger, "Won't you have the gravy, sir?"
The other passengers had a laugh at the expense of their companion; but
we know that a hungry man is a tenacious man, and a man with a full
stomach can afford to laugh. At any rate the proverb says, "Who laughs
last laughs best."
The differences arising between passengers and the landlords at the
stopping-places were sometimes, however, of a much more prosaic and
solemn character. Charles Lamb has given us such a scene. "I was
travelling," he says, "in a stage-coach with three male Quakers,
buttoned up in the straitest nonconformity of their sect. We stopped to
bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was
set before us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my
way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my
companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was
resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild
arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated
mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard
came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their
money and formally tendered it--so much for tea--I, in humble situation,
tendering mine, for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in
her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did
myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first,
with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than
follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in.
The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not
very indistinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became after a time
inaudible, and now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a
while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope
that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for
the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my surprise, not a syllable
was dropped on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At length
the eldest of them broke silence by inquiring of his next neighbour,
'Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House?' and the question
operated as a soporific on my moral feelings as far as Exeter."
A Frenchman was once a traveller by mail-coach, who, although he knew
the English language fairly well, was not familiar with the finer shades
of meaning attached to set expressions when applied in particular
situations. An Englishman, who was his companion inside the coach, had
occasion to direct his attention to some object in the passing
landscape, and requested him to "look out." This the Frenchman promptly
did, putting his head and shoulders out of the window, and the view
obtained proved highly pleasing to the stranger. A stage further on in
the journey, when the coach was approaching a narrow part of the road
bordered and overhung by dense foliage, the driver, as was his custom,
called out to the company, "Look out!" to which the Frenchman again
quickly responded by thrusting head and shoulders out of the window;
but this time with the result that his hat was brushed off, and his face
badly scratched from contact with the neighbouring branches. This
curious contradiction in the use of the very same words enraged the
Frenchman, who said hard things of our language; for he had discovered
that when told to "look out" he was to look out, and that again when
told to "look out" he was to be careful not to look out.
Mackenzie graphically describes the part mail-coaches took in the
distribution of news over the country in the early years of the century.
Referring to the news of the battle of Waterloo, he says: "By day and
night these coaches rolled along at their pace of seven or eight miles
an hour. At all cross roads messengers were waiting to get a newspaper
or a word of tidings from the guard. In every little town, as the hour
approached for the arrival of the mail, the citizens hovered about their
streets waiting restlessly for the expected news. In due time the coach
rattled into the market-place, hung with branches, the now familiar
token that a great battle had been fought and a victory won. Eager
groups gathered. The guard, as he handed out his mail-bags, told of the
decisive victory which had crowned and completed our efforts. And then
the coachman cracked his whip, the guard's horn gave forth once more its
notes of triumph, and the coach rolled away, bearing the thrilling news
into other districts."
The writer of the interesting work called _Glasgow, Past and Present_,
gives the following realistic account of the arrival of the London mail
in Glasgow in war-time:--
"During the time of the French war it was quite exhilarating to observe
the arrival of the London mail-coach in Glasgow, when carrying the first
intelligence of a great victory, like the battle of the Nile, or the
battle of Waterloo. The mail-coach horses were then decorated with
laurels, and a red flag floated on the roof of the coach. The guard,
dressed in his best scarlet coat and gold ornamented hat, came galloping
at a thundering pace along the stones of the Gallowgate, sounding his
bugle amidst the echoings of the streets; and when he arrived at the
foot of Nelson Street he discharged his blunderbuss in the air. On these
occasions a general run was made to the Tontine Coffee-room to hear the
great news, and long before the newspapers were delivered the public
were advertised by the guard of the particulars of the great victory,
which fled from mouth to mouth like wildfire."
The mail-guards, and also the coachmen, were a race of men by
themselves, modelled and fashioned by the circumstances of their
employment--in fact, receiving character, like all other sets of people,
from their peculiar environment. There are now very few of them
remaining, and these very old men. These officers of the Post Office
mixed with all sorts of people, learned a great deal from the
passengers, and were full of romance and anecdote. We remember one guard
whose conversation and accounts of funny things were so continuous that
his hearers were kept in a constant state of ecstasy whenever he was
set agoing. His fund of story seemed inexhaustible, and we can imagine
how hilariously would pass away the hours on the outside of a mail-coach
with such a companion. The guard of whom we are speaking was a north
countryman, possessed of a stalwart frame and iron constitution, a man
with whom a highwayman would rather avoid getting into grips. He used to
tell of an occasion on which the driver, being drunk, fell from his box,
and the horses bolted. He himself was seated in his place at the rear of
the coach. The state of things was serious. He however scrambled over
the top of the coach, let himself down between the wheelers, stole along
the pole of the coach, recovered the reins, and saved the mail from
wreck and the passengers from impending death. For this he received a
special letter of thanks from the Postmaster-General.
It was the custom of this guard, as no doubt of others of his class, to
take charge of parcels of value for conveyance between places on his
road. On one occasion he had charge of a parcel of L1500 in bank notes,
which was in course of transmission to a bank at headquarters. It
happened that the driver had been indulging rather freely, and at one of
the stopping-places the coachman started off with the coach leaving the
guard behind. The latter did not discover this till the coach was out of
sight, and realising the responsibility he was under in respect of the
money, which for safety he had placed in a holster below one of his
pistols, he was in a great fright. There was nothing for it but to start
on foot and endeavour to overtake the coach; but this he did not succeed
in doing till he had run a whole stage, at the end of which the
perspiration was oozing through his scarlet coat. At the completion of
the journey he sponged himself all over with whisky, and did not then
feel any ill effects from the great strain he had placed himself under,
though later in life he believed his heart had suffered damage from the
exertions of that memorable day.
Before leaving this branch of our subject it may be well to note that
while the mail guards received but nominal pay--ten and sixpence a
week--they earned considerable sums in gratuities from passengers, and
for executing small commissions for the public. In certain cases as much
as L300 a year was thus received; and the heavy fines that were
inflicted upon them were therefore not so severe as might at first sight
seem. Unhappily these men were given to take drink, if not wisely, at
any rate too often. The weaknesses of the mail guard are very cleverly
portrayed in some verses on the _Mail-Coach Guard_, quoted in Larwood
and Hotten's work on the _History of Signboards_; and while these
frailties are the burden of the song, it will be observed how cleverly
the names of inns or alehouses are introduced into the song:--
"At each inn on the road I a welcome could find;
At the Fleece I'd my skin full of ale;
The Two Jolly Brewers were just to my mind;
At the Dolphin I drank like a whale.
Tom Tun at the Hogshead sold pretty good stuff;
They'd capital flip at the Boar;
And when at the Angel I'd tippled enough,
I went to the Devil for more.
Then I'd always a sweetheart so snug at the Car;
At the Rose I'd a lily so white;
Few planets could equal sweet Nan at the Star;
No eyes ever twinkled so bright.
I've had many a hug at the sign of the Bear;
In the Sun courted morning and noon;
And when night put an end to my happiness there,
I'd a sweet little girl in the Moon.
To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu,
Of wedlock to set up the Sign;
Hand-in-Hand the Good-Woman I look for in you,
And the Horns I hope ne'er will be mine.
Once guard to the mail, I'm now guard to the fair,
But though my commission's laid down,
Yet while the King's Arms I'm permitted to bear,
Like a Lion I'll fight for the Crown."
A good loyal subject to the last.
One of the changes that time and circumstances have brought into the
postal service is this, that the country post-offices have passed out of
the hands of innkeepers, and into those of more desirable persons. In
former times, and down to the period of the mail-coaches, the
post-offices in many of the provincial towns were established at the inn
of the place. In those days the conveyance of the mails being to a large
extent by horse, it was convenient to have the office established where
the relays of horses were maintained; and the term "postmaster" then
applied in a double sense--to the person intrusted with the receipt and
despatch of letters, and with the providing of horses to convey the
mails. The two duties are now no longer combined, and the word
"postmaster" has consequently become applicable to two totally different
classes of persons. The innkeepers were not very assiduous in matters
pertaining to the post, and the duty of receiving and despatching
letters, being frequently left to waiters and chambermaids, was very
badly done. Often there was no separate room provided for the
transaction of post-office business, and visitors at the inn and others
had opportunities for scrutinising the correspondence that ought not to
have existed. The postmaster was assisted by his ostler, as chief
adviser in the postal work, which, however, was neglected; the worst
horses, instead of the best, were hired out for the mails; and for
riders the service was graced with the dregs of the stable-yard. At the
same time the innkeepers were alive to their own interests, for they
sometimes attracted travellers to their houses by granting them franks
for the free transmission of their letters. The salaries of the
postmasters were not cast in a liberal mould, and what they did receive
was subject to the charge of providing candles, wax, string, etc.,
necessary for making up the mails.
[Illustration: THE MAIL-COACH GUARD.]
The following are examples of the salaries of postmasters about a
hundred years ago:--
Paisley, 1790 to 1800, L33
Dundee, 1800, 50
Arbroath, 1763 to 1794, 20
Aberdeen, 1763 to 1793, about 90
Glasgow, 1789 140
and Clerk 30