Constant appeals reached headquarters for "an augmentation,"_A Hundred Years by Post: A Jubilee Retrospect

the term then applied to an increase of salary, and in the circumstances

it is not surprising that the post-office work was indifferently done.

Attendance had to be given to the public during the day, and when the

mail passed through a town in the dead hours of night some one had to be

up to despatch or receive the mail. Sometimes the postmaster, when awoke

by the post-boy's horn, would get up and drop the mail-bag by a hook

and line from his bedroom window. An instance of such a proceeding is

given by Williams in his history of Watford, where the destinies of the

post were at the time presided over by a postmistress. "In response,"

says he, "to the thundering knock of the conductor, the old lady left

her couch, and thrusting her head, covered with a wide-bordered

night-cap, out of the bedroom window, let down the mail-bag by a string,

and quickly returned to her bed again." Coming thus nightly to the open

window must have been a risky duty as regards health for a postmistress.

A hundred years ago the chief post-office in London was situated in

Lombard Street. The scene, if we may judge by a print of the period,

would appear to have been one of quietude and waiting for something to

turn up. In 1829 the General Post Office was transferred to St. Martin's

le Grand, and the departure of the evening mails (when mail-coaches were

in full swing) became one of the sights of London.

Living in an age of cheap postage as we do, we look back upon the rates

charged a century ago with something akin to amazement. In the following

table will be seen some of the inland and foreign postage charges which

were current in the period from 1797 to 1815:--

--------------------------------------------------------------

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

|Distance not exceeding in +-------+--------+--------+-------+

|Miles-- | s. d.| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. |

| | | | | |

|15, | 0 3 | 0 6 | 0 9 | 1 0 |

|15 to 30, | 0 4 | 0 8 | 1 0 | 1 4 |

|30 " 60, | 0 5 | 0 10 | 1 3 | 1 8 |

|60 " 100, | 0 6 | 1 0 | 1 6 | 2 0 |

|100 " 150, | 0 7 | 1 2 | 1 9 | 2 4 |

|150 and upwards, | 0 8 | 1 4 | 2 0 | 2 8 |

| | | | | |

|were increased by | 0 1 | 0 2 | 0 3 | 0 4 |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

|Portugal, | 1 0 | 2 0 | 3 0 | 4 0 |

|British Dominions in } | | | | |

|America, } | 1 0 | 2 0 | 3 0 | 4 0 |

| | | | | |

| 1806. | | | | |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

|Gibraltar, | 1 9 | 3 6 | 5 3 | 7 0 |

|Malta, | 2 1 | 4 2 6 3 | 8 4 |

--------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------

| | | | | |

| Britain to-- +-------+-------+-------+-------+

| | s. d.| s. d.| s. d.| s. d.|

| Madeira, | 1 6 | 3 0 | 4 6 | 6 0 |

| South America, } | | | | |

| Portuguese } | 2 5 | 4 10 | 7 3 | 9 8 |

| Possessions, } | | | | |

| | | | | |

| 1815. | | | | |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

| Cape of Good Hope,}| | | | |

| Mauritius, }| 3 6 | 7 0 | 10 6 | 14 0 |

| East Indies, }| | | | |

| | | | | |

---------------------------------------------------------

Over and above these foreign rates, the full inland postage in England

and Scotland, according to the distance the letters had to be conveyed

to the port of despatch, was levied.

Many persons remember how old-fashioned letters were made up--a single

sheet of paper folded first at the top and bottom, then one side slipped

inside the folds of the other, then a wafer or seal applied, and the

address written on the back. That was a _single_ letter. If a cheque,

bank-bill, or other document were enclosed, the letter became a double

letter. Two enclosures made the letter a treble letter. The officers of

the Post Office examined the letters in the interest of the Revenue, the

letters being submitted to the test of a strong light, and the officers,

peeping in at the end, used the feather end of a quill to separate the

folds of the letter for better inspection. Envelopes were not then used.

These high rates of postage gave rise to frequent attempts to defraud

the Revenue, and many plans were adopted to circumvent the Post Office

in this matter. Sometimes a series of words in the print of a newspaper

were pricked with a pin, and thus conveyed a message to the person for

whom the newspaper was intended. Sometimes milk was used as an invisible

ink upon a newspaper, the receiver reading the message sent by holding

the paper to the fire. At other times soldiers took the letters of their

friends, and sent them under franks written by their officers. Letters

were conveyed by public carriers, against the statute, sometimes tied up

in brown paper, to disguise them as parcels. The carriers seem to have

been conspicuous offenders, for one of them was convicted at Warwick in

1794, when penalties amounting to L1500 were incurred, though only L10

and costs were actually exacted. The Post Office maintained a staff of

men called "Apprehenders of Letter Carriers," whose business it was to

hunt down persons illegally carrying letters.

Nor must we omit to mention how far short of perfection were the means

afforded for cross-post communication between one town and another.

While along the main lines of road radiating from London there might be

a fairly good service according to the ideas of the times, the

cross-country connections were bad and inadequate. Here are one or two

instances:--

In 1792 there was no direct post between Thrapstone and Wellingborough,

though they lay only nine miles apart. Letters could circulate between

these towns by way of Stilton, Newark, Nottingham, and Northampton,

performing a circuit of 148 miles, or they could be sent by way of

London, 74 up and 68 1/2 down,--in which latter case they reached their

destination one day sooner than by the northern route.

[Illustrations: Diagrams--ROUNDABOUT COMMUNICATIONS]

Again, from Ipswich to Bury St. Edmunds, two important towns of about

11,000 and 7000 inhabitants respectively, and distant from each other

only twenty-two miles, there was no direct post. Letters had to be

forwarded either through Norwich and Newmarket, or by way of London, the

distance to be covered in the one case being 105 miles, and in the other

143 1/2 miles. According to a time-table of the period, a letter posted at

Ipswich for Bury St. Edmunds on Monday would be despatched to Norwich at

5.30 A.M. on Tuesday. Reaching this place six hours thereafter, it would

be forwarded thence at 4 P.M. to Newmarket, where it was due at 11 P.M.

At Newmarket it would lie all night and the greater part of next day,

and would only arrive at Bury at 5.40 P.M. on Wednesday. Thus three days

were consumed in the journey of a letter from Ipswich to Bury by the

nearest postal route, and nothing was to be gained by adopting the

alternative route _via_ London.

In 1781 the postal staff in Edinburgh was composed of twenty-three

persons, of whom six were letter-carriers. The indoor staff of the

Glasgow Post Office in 1789 consisted of the postmaster and one clerk,

and as ten years later there were only four postmen employed, the

outdoor force in 1789 was probably only four men.

Liverpool, in the year 1792, when its population stood at something like

60,000, had only three postmen, whose wages were 7s. a week each. One of

the men, however, was assisted by his wife, and for this service the

Post Office allowed her from L10 to L12 a year. Their duties seem to

have been carried out in an easy-going, deliberate fashion. The men

arranged the letters for distribution in the early morning, then they

partook of breakfast, and started on their rounds about 9 A.M.,

completing their delivery about the middle of the afternoon. It would

thus seem that a hundred years ago there was but one delivery daily in

Liverpool.

During the same period there were only three letter-carriers employed at

Manchester, four at Bristol, and three or four at Birmingham. In our own

times the number of postmen serving these large towns may be counted by

the hundreds, or, I might almost say, thousands.

The delivery of letters in former times was necessarily a slow affair,

for two reasons, namely:--that prepayment was not compulsory, and the

senders of letters thoughtfully left the receivers to pay for them, when

the postmen would often be kept waiting for the money. And secondly,

streets were not named and numbered systematically as they now are, and

concise addresses were impossible.

It is no doubt the case that order and method in laying out the streets

and in regulating generally the buildings of towns are things of quite

modern growth. In old-fashioned towns we find the streets running at all

angles to one another, and describing all sorts of curves, without any

regard whatever to general harmony. And will it be believed that the

numbering of the houses in streets is comparatively a modern

arrangement! Walter Thornbury tells us in his _Haunted London_ that

"names were first put on doors in 1760 (some years before the street

signs were removed). In 1764 houses were first numbered, the numbering

commencing in New Burleigh Street, and Lincoln's-Inn-Fields being the

second place numbered." While in our own time the addresses of letters

are generally brief and direct, it is not to be wondered at that, under

the conditions above stated, the superscriptions were often such as now

seem to us curious. Here is one given in a printed notice issued at

Edinburgh in 1714:--

"The Stamp office at Edinburgh

in Mr. William Law, Jeweller,

his hands, off the Parliament close,

down the market stairs, opposite

to the Excise office."

Here is another old-fashioned address, in which one must admit the

spirit of filial regard with which it is inspired:--

"These for his honoured Mother,

Mrs. Hester Stryp, widow,

dwelling in Petticoat Lane, over

against the Five Inkhorns,

without Bishopgate,

in London."

Yet one more specimen, referring to the year 1702:--

"For

Mr. Archibald Dunbarr

of Thunderstoune, to be

left at Capt. Dunbar's

writing chamber at the

Iron Revell, third storie

below the cross, north end

of the close at Edinburgh."

Under the circumstances of the time it was necessary thus to define at

length where letters should be delivered; and the same circumstances

were no doubt the _raison-d'etre_ of the corps of caddies in Edinburgh,

whose business it was to execute commissions of all sorts, and in whom

the paramount qualification was to know everybody in the town, and where

everybody lived.

All this is changed in our degenerate days, and it is now possible for

any one to find any other person with the simple key of street and

number.

The irregular way in which towns grew up in former times is brought out

in an anecdote about Kilmarnock. Early in the present century the

streets of that town were narrow, winding, and intricate. An English

commercial traveller, having completed some business there, mounted his

horse, and set out for another town. He was making for the outskirts of

Kilmarnock, and reflecting upon its apparent size and importance, when

he suddenly found himself back at the cross. In the surprise of the

moment he was heard to exclaim that surely his "sable eminence" must

have had a hand in the building of it, for it was a town very easily got

into, but there was no getting out of it.

A duty that the changed circumstances of the times now renders

unnecessary was formerly imposed upon postmasters, of which there is

hardly a recollection remaining among the officials carrying on the work

of the post to-day. The duty is mentioned in an order of May 1824, to

the following effect: "An old instruction was renewed in 1812, that all

postmasters should transmit to me (the Secretary), for the information

of His Majesty's Postmaster-General, an immediate account of all

remarkable occurrences within their districts, that the same may be

communicated, if necessary, to His Majesty's principal Secretaries of

State. This has not been invariably attended to, and I am commanded by

His Lordship to say, that henceforward it will be expected of every

Deputy." This gathering of news from all quarters is now adequately

provided for by the _Daily Press_, and no incident of any importance

occurs which is not immediately distributed through that channel, or

flashed by the telegraph, to every corner of the kingdom.

A custom, which would now be looked upon as a curiosity, and the origin

of which would have to be sought for in the remote past, was in

operation in the larger towns of the kingdom until about the year 1859.

The custom was that of ringing the town for letters to be despatched;

certain of the postmen being authorised to go over apportioned

districts, after the ordinary collections of letters from the receiving

offices had been made, to gather in late letters for the mail. Until the

year above mentioned the arrangement was thus carried out in Dublin. The

letter-box at the chief office, and those at the receiving offices,

closed two hours before the despatch of the night mail. Half an hour

after this closing eleven postmen started to scour the town, collecting

on their way letters and newspapers. Each man carried a locked leather

wallet, into which, through an opening, letters and other articles were

placed, the postmen receiving a fee of a penny on every letter, and a

halfpenny on every newspaper. This was a personal fee to the men over

and above the ordinary postage. To warn the public of the postman's

approach each man carried a large bell, which he rang vigorously as he

went his rounds. These men, besides taking up letters for the public,

called also at the receiving offices for any letters left for them upon

which the special fee had been paid, and the "ringers" had to reach the

chief office one hour before the despatch of the night mail. This custom

seems to have yielded considerable emolument to the men concerned, for

when it was abolished compensation was given for the loss of fees, the

annual payments ranging from L10 8s., to L36 8s. Increased posting

facilities, and the infusion of greater activity into the performance of

post-office work, were no doubt the things which "rang the parting

knell" of these useful servants of the period.

[Illustration: THE BELLMAN COLLECTING LETTERS FOR DESPATCH.]

The slow and infrequent conveyance of mails by the ordinary post in

former times gave rise to the necessity for "Expresses." By this term is

meant the despatch of a single letter by man and horse, to be passed on

from stage to stage without delay to its destination. In an official

instruction of 1824 the speed to be observed was thus described: "It is

expected that all Expresses shall be conveyed at the rate of seven

miles, at least, within the hour." The charge made was 11d. per mile,

arising as follows, viz.:--7 1/2d. per mile for the horse, 2d. per mile for

the rider, and 1 1/2d. per mile for the post-horse duty. The postmaster who

despatched the Express, and the postmaster who received it for delivery,

were each entitled to 2s. 6d. for their trouble.

It will perhaps be convenient to look at the packet service apart from

the land service, though progress is as remarkable in the one as in the

other. During the wars of the latter half of the last century, the

packets, small as they were, were armed packets. But we almost smile in

recording the armaments carried. Here is an account of the arms of the

_Roebuck_ packet as inventoried in 1791:--

2 Carriage guns.

4 Muskets and bayonets.

4 Brass Blunderbusses.

4 Cutlasses.

4 Pair of Pistols.

3 old Cartouch-boxes.

In our own estuaries and seas the packets were not free from

molestation, and were in danger of being taken. In 1779 the Carron

Company were running vessels from the Forth to London, and the following

notice was issued by them as an inducement to persons travelling between

these places:--

"The Carron vessels are fitted out in the most complete manner for

defence, at a very considerable expense, and are well provided with

small arms. All mariners, recruiting parties, soldiers upon furlow, and

all other steerage passengers who have been accustomed to the use of

firearms, and who will engage to assist in defending themselves, will be

accommodated with their passage to and from London upon satisfying the

masters for their provisions, which in no instance shall exceed 10s. 6d.

sterling." This was the year in which Paul Jones visited the Firth of

Forth, and was spreading terror all round the coasts. The following was

the service of the packets in the year 1780. Five packets were employed

between Dover and Ostend and Calais, the despatches being made on

Wednesdays and Saturdays. Between Harwich and Holland three were

employed, the sailings in this case also taking place on Wednesdays and

Saturdays. For New York and the West India Service twelve packets were

engaged, sailing from Falmouth on the first Wednesday of every month.

Four packets performed the duty between Falmouth and Lisbon, sailing

every Saturday; and five packets kept up the Irish communication,

sailing daily between Holyhead and Dublin. In the year 1798, a mail

service seems to have been kept up by packets sailing from Yarmouth to

Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, respecting which the following

particulars may be interesting. They are taken from an old letter-book.

"The passage-money to the office is 12s. 6d. for whole passengers, and

6s. 6d. for half passengers, either to or from England; 6d. of which is

to be paid to the Captain for small beer, which both the whole and half

passengers are to be informed of their being entitled to when they

embark.

"1s. 6d. is allowed as a perquisite on each whole passenger, 1s. of

which to the agent at Cuxhaven for every whole passenger embarking for

England, and the other 6d. to the agent at Yarmouth; and in like manner

1s. to the agent at Yarmouth on every whole passenger embarking for the

Continent, and 6d. to the agent at Cuxhaven; but no fee whatever is to

be taken on half passengers, so that 10s. 6d. must be accounted for to

the Revenue on each whole passenger, and 6s. on each half passenger."

Half passengers were servants, young children, or persons in low

circumstances.

While touching upon passage-money, it may be noted that in 1811 the fare

from Weymouth to Jersey or Guernsey, for cabin passengers, was, to the

captain, 15s. 6d. and to the office 10s. 6d.--or L1, 6s. in all.

The mail packets performing the service between England and Ireland in

the first quarter of the present century were not much to boast of.

According to a survey taken at Holyhead in July 1821, the vessels

employed to carry the mails between that port and Dublin were of very

small tonnage, as will be seen by the following table:--

Uxbridge, 93 tons.

Pelham, 98 "

Duke of Montrose, 98 "

Chichester, 102 "

Union, 104 "

Countess of Liverpool, 114 "

The valuation of these crafts, including rigging, furniture, and

fitting, ranged from L1600 to L2400.

The failures or delays in making the passage across the Channel are thus

described by Cleland in his _Annals of Glasgow_: "It frequently

happens," says he, "that the mail packet is windbound at the mouth of

the Liffey for several days together"; and we have seen it stated in a

newspaper article that the packets crossing to Ireland by the

Portpatrick route were sometimes delayed a couple of weeks by contrary

winds.

A few years previously an attempt had been made to introduce

steam-packets for the Holyhead and Dublin service; but this improved

service was not at that time adopted. Referring to the year 1816,

Cleland writes: "The success of steamboats on the Clyde induced some

gentlemen in Dublin to order two vessels to be made to ply as packets in

the Channel between Dublin and Holyhead, with a view of ultimately

carrying the mail. The dimensions are as follows:--viz., keel 65 feet,

beam 18 feet, with 9 feet draught of water--have engines of 20

horse-power, and are named the 'Britannia' and 'Hibernia.'" These were

the modest ideas then held as to the power of steam to develop and

expedite the packet service. In the period from 1850-60, when steam had

been adopted upon the Holyhead and Dublin route, one of the first

contract vessels was the _Prince Arthur_, having a gross tonnage of 400,

and whose speed was thirteen or fourteen knots an hour. The latest

addition to this line of packets is the _Ireland_ a magnificent ship of

2095 tons gross, and of 7000 horse-power. Its rate of speed is

twenty-two knots an hour.

As regards the American packet service perhaps greater strides than

these even have been achieved. Prior to 1840 the vessels carrying the

mails across the Atlantic were derisively called "coffin brigs," whose

tonnage was probably about 400. At any rate, as will be seen later on, a

packet in which Harriet Martineau crossed the Atlantic in 1836 was one

of only 417 tons. On the 4th July 1840, a company, which is now the

Cunard Company, started a contract service for the mails to America, the

steamers employed having a tonnage burden of 1154 and indicated

horse-power of 740. Their average speed was 8 1/2 knots. In 1853 the

packets had attained to greater proportions and higher speed, the

average length of passage from Liverpool to New York being twelve days

one hour fourteen minutes. As years rolled on competition and the

exigencies of the times called for still more rapid transit, and at

the present day the several companies performing the American Mail

Service have afloat palatial ships of 7000 to 10,000 tons, bringing

America within a week's touch of Great Britain.

[Illustration: HOLYHEAD AND KINGSTOWN MAIL PACKET "PRINCE ARTHUR"--400

TONS--PERIOD 1850-60.

(_From a painting, the property of the City of Dublin Steam Packet

Company._)]

Going back a little more than a hundred years, it is of interest to see

how irregular were the communications to and from foreign ports by mail

packet. Benjamin Franklin, writing of the period 1757, mentions the

following circumstances connected with a voyage he made from New York to

Europe in that year. The packets were at the disposition of General Lord

Loudon, then in charge of the army in America; and Franklin had to

travel from Philadelphia to New York to join the packet, Lord Loudon

having preceded him to the port of despatch. The General told Franklin

confidentially, that though it had been given out that the packet would

sail on Saturday next, still it would not sail till Monday. He was,

however, advised not to delay longer. "By some accidental hindrance at a

ferry," writes Franklin, "it was Monday noon before I arrived, and I

was much afraid she might have sailed, as the wind was fair; but I was

soon made easy by the information that she was still in the harbour, and

would not leave till the next day. One would imagine that I was now on

the very point of departing for Europe. I thought so; but I was not then

so well acquainted with his Lordship's character, of which indecision

was one of the strongest features. It was about the beginning of April

that I came to New York, and it was near the end of June before we

sailed. There were then two of the packet-boats which had long been in

port, but were detained for the General's letters, which were always to

be ready _to-morrow_. Another packet arrived; she, too, was detained;

and, before we sailed, a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to be

despatched, as having been there longest. Passengers were engaged in

all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and the merchants uneasy

about their letters, and the orders they had given for insurance (it

being war-time) for fall goods; but their anxiety availed nothing; his

Lordship's letters were not ready; and yet, whoever waited on him found

him always at his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs write

abundantly."

Apart from the manifest inconvenience of postal service conducted in the

way described, one cannot wonder that the affairs of the American

Colonies should get into a bad way when conducted under a policy of so

manifest vacillation and indecision.

Constant appeals reached headquarters for "an augmentation," which was