ORIGIN OF THE MAIL COACH SERVICE.
The greatest improvement in the English mail service, during the
eighteenth century, was the introduction of mail coaches. This was
brought about by the energy and perseverance of JOHN PALMER, ESQ. Like
most of those who introduce great improvements, he was an "outsider,"
one unacquainted by business habits and associations, with the postal
service.
At that time (about 1783) stage coaches, with passengers, traversed
the country over all the principal roads, and ran from five to seven
miles an hour. The mails, however, had _never_ had any better
conveyance than that of a horse or a gig, managed by a man or boy. The
whole mail service was on a most irregular footing; mail robberies
were frequent, and the speed did not average over three and a half
miles an hour.
Mr. Palmer's plan was, to have the mails transferred to the stage
coaches, that the swiftest conveyance which the country afforded
should carry the mails. For so obvious an improvement, we would
suppose that there would be little or no opposition. Parliamentary
Committees were appointed, Post Masters General reported, and all the
officials were against it! Statesmen took it up; the proposition was
debated in Parliament; and, after many years of persevering labor, Mr.
Palmer saw his plan adopted.
But opposition did not end here. There were more reports against it,
and those who opposed at first from ignorance, and a belief that no
improvement would result, now kept up their opposition from a dread of
being thought false prophets. But there were those who appreciated the
improvement, and Mr. Palmer got a pension from Government of three
thousand pounds a year for life, and afterwards a grant of fifty
thousand pounds, for the benefit his improvement in the mail service
had been to the revenue of the country.
We have, from a well known post-office reformer,[B] a nice piece of
sarcasm for the special benefit of those who _oppose_ great
improvements, and then deny their value after they have been adopted
and proved.
[B] Rowland Hill, Esq.
A report from the English Post Master General says: "From a comparison
of the gross produce of inland postage: for four months, and from
every other comparison they have been able to make, they were
perfectly satisfied that the revenue has been very considerably
decreased by the plan of mail coaches."
This report gives the opinions of the Lords of the Treasury, and
enlarges on the innumerable inconveniences which the change had
occasioned. The great post-office reformer, forty years after this,
makes the following comment:--
"Heavy must be the responsibility on those who thus persisted in folly
and mischief; and wonderful is it that Mr. Palmer should have been
able to beguile the Government and the legislature into sanctioning
his mad career! Who was the statesman, unworthy of the name, that thus
gave the rein to audacity; that thus became, in his besotted
ignorance, the tool of presumption? Who stood god-father to the vile
abortion, and insisted on the admission of the hideous and deformed
monster into the sacred precincts of Lombard Street, the seat of
perfection? His name--alas! that the lynx should be guided by the
mole! that Samson should be seduced by Delilah! Palimirus allured by a
dream!--his name was WILLIAM PITT."