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THE ROYAL MAIL
[Illustration: MAIL-COACH ACCIDENT NEAR ELVANFOOT, LANARKSHIRE.]
THE ROYAL MAIL
ITS CURIOSITIES AND ROMANCE
BY
JAMES WILSON HYDE
SUPERINTENDENT IN THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE,
EDINBURGH
THIRD EDITION
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO.
MDCCCLXXXIX.
_All Rights reserved._
NOTE.--It is of melancholy interest that Mr Fawcett's death occurred
within a month from the date on which he accepted the following
Dedication, and before the issue of the Work.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
HENRY FAWCETT, M. P.
HER MAJESTY'S POSTMASTER-GENERAL,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE, BY PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
The second edition of 'The Royal Mail' having been sold out some
eighteen months ago, and being still in demand, the Author has arranged
for the publication of a further edition. Some additional particulars of
an interesting kind have been incorporated in the work; and these,
together with a number of fresh illustrations, should render 'The Royal
Mail' still more attractive than hitherto.
The modern statistics have not been brought down to date; and it will be
understood that these, and other matters (such as the circulation of
letters), which are subject to change, remain in the work as set forth
in the first edition.
EDINBURGH, _February 1889_.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The favour with which 'The Royal Mail' has been received by the public,
as evinced by the rapid sale of the first issue, has induced the Author
to arrange for the publication of a second edition. This edition has
been revised and slightly enlarged; the new matter consisting of two
additional illustrations, contributions to the chapters on "Mail
Packets," "How Letters are Lost," and "Singular Coincidences," and a
fresh chapter on the subject of Postmasters.
The Author ventures to hope that the generous appreciation which has
been accorded to the first edition may be extended to the work in its
revised form.
EDINBURGH, _June 1885_.
INTRODUCTION.
Of all institutions of modern times, there is, perhaps, none so
pre-eminently a people's institution as is the Post-office. Not only
does it carry letters and newspapers everywhere, both within and without
the kingdom, but it is the transmitter of messages by telegraph, a vast
banker for the savings of the working classes, an insurer of lives, a
carrier of parcels, and a distributor of various kinds of Government
licences. Its services are claimed exclusively or mainly by no one
class; the rich, the poor, the educated, and the illiterate, and indeed,
the young as well as the old,--all have dealings with the Post-office.
Yet it may seem strange that an institution which is familiar by its
operations to all classes alike, should be so little known by its
internal management and organisation. A few persons, no doubt, have been
privileged to see the interior working of some important Post-office,
but it is the bare truth to say that _the people_ know nothing of what
goes on within the doors of that ubiquitous establishment. When it is
remembered that the metropolitan offices of London, Edinburgh, and
Dublin have to maintain touch with every petty office and every one of
their servants scattered throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland; that
discipline has to be exercised everywhere; that a system of accounting
must necessarily be maintained, reaching to the remotest corners; and
that the whole threads have to be gathered up and made answerable to the
great head, which is London,--some vague idea may be formed of what must
come within the view of whoever pretends to a knowledge of Post-office
work. But intimately connected with that which was the original work of
the Post-office, and is still the main work--the conveyance of
letters--there is the subject of circulation, the simple yet complex
scheme under which letters flow from each individual centre to every
other part of the country. Circulation as a system is the outcome of
planning, devising, and scheming by many heads during a long series of
years--its object, of course, being to bring letters to their
destinations in the shortest possible time. So intricate and delicate is
the fabric, that by interference an unskilled hand could not fail to
produce an effect upon the structure analogous to that which would
certainly follow any rude treatment applied to a house built of cards.
These various subjects, especially when they have become settled into
the routine state, might be considered as affording a poor soil for the
growth of anything of interest--that is, of curious interest--apart from
that which duty calls upon a man to find in his proper work. Yet the
Post-office is not without its veins of humour, though the metal to be
extracted may perhaps be scanty as compared with the vast extent of the
mine from which it has to be taken.
The compiler of the following pages has held an appointment in the
Post-office for a period of twenty-five years--the best, perhaps, of his
life; and during that term it has been his practice to note and collect
facts connected with the Department whenever they appeared of a curious,
interesting, or amusing character. While making use of such notes in
connection with this work, he has had recourse to the Post-office
Annual Reports, to old official documents, to books on various subjects,
and to newspapers, all of which have been laid under contribution to
furnish material for these pages.
The work is in no sense a historical work: it deals with the lighter
features of a plain, matter-of-fact department; and though some of the
incidents mentioned may be deemed of trivial account, they will be
found, it is thought, to have at least a curious or amusing side.
The author desires to mention that he has received valuable help from
several of his brother officers, who have supplied him with facts or
anecdotes; and to these, as well as to gentlemen who have lent him books
or given him access to files of old newspapers, he expresses his
grateful acknowledgments. He also tenders his sincere and respectful
thanks to the Postmaster-General for permission granted to make extracts
from official papers.
The Post-office renders an unpretending yet most important service to
commerce and to society; and it will be a source of deep gratification
to the author if what he has written should inspire in the reader a new
and unexpected interest in "the hundred-handed giant who keeps up the
intercourse between the different parts of the country, and wafts a sigh
from Indus to the Pole."
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. OLD ROADS, 1
II. POSTBOYS, 11
III. STAGE AND MAIL COACHES, 24
IV. FOOT-POSTS, 61
V. MAIL-PACKETS, 68
VI. SHIPWRECKED MAILS, 82
VII. AMOUNT OF WORK, 84
VIII. GROWTH OF CERTAIN POST-OFFICES, 95
IX. CLAIMS FOR POST-OFFICE SERVICE, 104
X. THE TRAVELLING POST-OFFICE, 116
XI. SORTERS AND CIRCULATION, 124
XII. PIGEON-POST, 135
XIII. ABUSE OF THE FRANKING PRIVILEGE,
AND OTHER PETTY FRAUDS, 140
XIV. STRANGE ADDRESSES, 153
XV. POST-OFFICE ROBBERIES, 170
XVI. TELEGRAPHIC BLUNDERS, 200
XVII. HOW LETTERS ARE LOST, 204
XVIII. ODD COMPLAINTS, 239
XIX. CURIOUS LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE
POST-OFFICE, 245
XX. SINGULAR COINCIDENCES, 262
XXI. SAVINGS-BANK CURIOSITIES, 269
XXII. REPLIES TO MEDICAL INQUIRIES, 275
XXIII. VARIOUS, 277
XXIV. ABOUT POSTMASTERS, 292
XXV. RED TAPE, 303
ILLUSTRATIONS.
MAIL-COACH ACCIDENT AT ELVANFOOT, _Frontispiece_
CAUTION TO POSTBOYS, _Page_ 19
ROTHBURY AND MORPETH MAIL-DRIVER, " 23
EWENNY BRIDGE OUTRAGE--NOTICE OF, " 37
HOLYHEAD AND CHESTER MAILS SNOWED UP
NEAR DUNSTABLE--26TH DEC. 1836. (_From
an old Print_) " 39
DEVONPORT MAIL-COACH FORCING ITS WAY
THROUGH A SNOWDRIFT NEAR AMESBURY--27TH
DEC. 1836. (_From an old Print_), " 43
NOCTURNAL REFRESHMENT, " 55
ST MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND IN THE COACHING DAYS, " 59
'LADY HOBART' MAIL PACKET, " 76
POSTBOY JACK, " 78
STEAMSHIP 'AMERICA,' " 80
TRAVELLING POST-OFFICE, " 117
DELIVERING ARM, SHOWING HOW THE POUCH IS
SUSPENDED, " 121
CAUTION AGAINST LETTER CARRYING, " 147
STRANGE ADDRESSES, " 158-169
FALSTAFF AS A HIGHWAYMAN, " 172
GRIZEL COCHRANE AND POSTBOY, " 174
SELBY MAIL-BAG, " 182
LETTER-BOX TAKEN POSSESSION OF BY TOMTITS, " 211
THE MULREADY ENVELOPE, " 285
INTERIOR OF AN OLD POST-OFFICE, " 295
THE POSTMISTRESS OF WATFORD, " 299
FORM OF POSTMASTER'S APPOINTMENT, " 301
THE ROYAL MAIL.
CHAPTER I.
OLD ROADS.
The present generation, who are accustomed to see the streets of our
cities paved with wood or stone, or otherwise so laid out as to provide
a hard and even surface suited to the locomotion of wheeled vehicles, or
who by business or pleasure have been led to journey over the principal
highways intersecting the kingdom in every direction, can form no idea
of the state of the roads in this country during the earlier years of
the Post-office--or even in times comparatively recent--unless their
reading has led them to the perusal of accounts written by travellers of
the periods we now refer to. The highways of the present day, radiating
from London and the other large centres of industry, and extending their
arms to every corner of the land, are wellnigh perfect in their kind,
and present a picture of careful and efficient maintenance. Whether we
look, for example, at the great north road leading from London, the
Carlisle to Glasgow road, or the Highland road passing through Dunkeld,
we find the roads have certain features in common: a broad hard roadway
for vehicles; a neatly kept footpath where required; limits strictly
defined by trim hedges, stone walls, or palings; and means provided for
carrying off surface-water. The picture will, of course, vary as the
traveller proceeds, flat country alternating with undulating country,
and wood or moorland with cultivated fields; but the chief
characteristics remain the same, constituting the roads as worthy of the
age we live in.
How the people managed to get from place to place before the Post-office
had a history, or indeed for long after the birth of that institution,
it is hard to conceive. Then, the roads were little better than tracks
worn out of the surface of the virgin land,--proceeding in some cases in
a manner approaching to a right line, over hills, down valleys, through
forests, and the like; in others following the natural features of the
country, but giving evidence that they had never been systematically
made, being rather the outcome of a mere habit of travel, just as
sheep-tracks are produced on a mountain-side. Such roads in winter
weather, or in rainy seasons, became terrible to the traveller: yet the
only repairs that were vouchsafed consisted in filling up some of the
larger holes with rude stones; and when this method of keeping up
repairs no longer availed, another track was formed by bringing under
foot a fresh strip of the adjoining land (generally unenclosed), and
thus creating a wholly new road in place of the old one. Smiles, in his
'Lives of the Engineers,' thus describes certain of the English roads:
"In some of the older settled districts of England, the old roads are
still to be traced in the hollow ways or lanes, which are met with, in
some places, eight and ten feet deep. Horse-tracks in summer and
rivulets in winter, the earth became gradually worn into these deep
furrows, many of which in Wilts, Somerset, and Devon, represent the
tracks of roads as old as, if not older than, the Conquest." And again:
"Similar roads existed until recently in the immediate neighbourhood of
Birmingham, long the centre of considerable traffic. The sandy soil was
sawn through, as it were, by generation after generation of human feet,
and by pack-horses, helped by the rains, until in some places the tracks
were as much as from twelve to fourteen yards deep." In the year 1690,
Chancellor Cowper, who was then a barrister on circuit, thus wrote to
his wife: "The Sussex ways are bad and ruinous beyond imagination. I vow
'tis melancholy consideration that mankind will inhabit such a heap of
dirt for a poor livelihood. The country is a sink of about fourteen
miles broad, which receives all the water that falls from two long
ranges of hills on both sides of it, and not being furnished with
convenient draining, is kept moist and soft by the water till the middle
of a dry summer, which is only able to make it tolerable to ride for a
short time."
In Scotland, about the same time, the roads were no better. The first
four miles out of Edinburgh, on the road towards London, were described
in the Privy Council Record of 1680 to have been in so wretched a state
that passengers were in danger of their lives, "either by their coaches
overturning, their horse falling, their carts breaking, their loads
casting and horse stumbling, the poor people with the burdens on their
backs sorely grieved and discouraged; moreover, strangers do often
exclaim thereat." Nor does there appear to have been any considerable
improvement in the state of the roads in the northern kingdom for long
afterwards, as we find that in 1750, according to Lang's 'Historical
Summary of the Post-office in Scotland,' "the channel of the river Gala,
which ran for some distance parallel with the road, was, when not
flooded, the track chosen as the most level and the easiest to travel
in." The common carrier from Edinburgh to Selkirk, a distance of
thirty-eight miles, required a fortnight for the journey, going and
returning; and the stage-coach from Edinburgh to Glasgow took a day and
a half for the journey. A Yorkshire squire, Thomas Kirke, who travelled
in Scotland in 1679, gave a better account of the roads; but his opinion
may have been merely relative, for travelling showmen to this day prefer
the roads in the south of Scotland to those in the north of England, on
account of their greater hardness; and this derives, no doubt, from the
more adamantine material used in the repair of the Scotch roads. This
traveller wrote: "The highways in Scotland are tolerably good, which is
the greatest comfort a traveller meets with amongst them. The Scotch
gentry generally travel from one friend's house to another; so seldom
require a change-house (inn). Their way is to hire a horse and a man for
twopence a mile; they ride on the horse thirty or forty miles a-day, and
the man who is his guide foots it beside him, and carries his luggage to
boot." Another visitor to Scotland in 1702, named Morer, thus describes
the roads: "The truth is, the roads will hardly allow these
conveniences" (meaning stage-coaches, which did not as yet exist in
Scotland), "which is the reason that the gentry, men and women, choose
rather to use their horses. However, their great men often travel with
coach-and-six, but with so little caution, that, besides their other
attendance, they have a lusty running footman on each side of the coach,
to manage and keep it up in rough places."[1] It might be supposed that
the roads leading from Windsor, where one of the royal residences was,
would have been kept in a tolerable state, so as to secure the Sovereign
some comfort in travelling. But their condition seems to have been no
better than that of roads elsewhere. An account of a journey made in
1703 by Prince George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne, from
Windsor to Petworth, runs as follows:--"The length of way was only forty
miles, but fourteen hours were consumed in traversing it; while almost
every mile was signalised by the overturn of a carriage, or its
temporary swamping in the mire. Even the royal chariot would have fared
no better than the rest had it not been for the relays of peasants who
poised and kept it erect by strength of arm, and shouldered it forward
the last nine miles, in which tedious operation six good hours were
consumed."
[1] In the north of Scotland a similar account was given of the
roads there about the year 1730. The writer of 'Letters from a
Gentleman in the North of Scotland' stated that "the Highlands
are but little known even to the inhabitants of the low country
of Scotland, for they have ever dreaded the difficulties and
dangers of travelling among the mountains; and when some
extraordinary occasion has obliged any one of them to such a
progress, he has, generally speaking, made his testament before
he set out, as though he were entering upon a long and dangerous
sea-voyage, wherein it was very doubtful if he should ever
return."
Yet later still, and in close proximity to London, a royal party had a
most unsatisfactory journey, owing to the miserable state of the roads.
It happened that in 1727 George II. and Queen Caroline were proceeding
from the palace at Kew to that at St James's, when they had to spend a
whole night upon the way; and between Hammersmith and Fulham they were
overturned, the royal occupants of the coach being landed in a quagmire.
A year or two after this, Lord Hervey wrote that "the road between this
place [Kensington] and London is grown so infamously bad, that we live
here in the same solitude as we would do if cast on a rock in the middle
of the ocean; and all the Londoners tell us that there is between them
and us an impassable gulf of mud."
No part of the country could boast of a satisfactory condition of the
roads, these being everywhere in the same neglected and wretched state,
and travellers who had the misfortune to use them have recorded their
ideas on the subject in no gentle terms. Arthur Young, who travelled
much in the middle of last century, thus alludes to a road in Essex: "Of
all the cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages
of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head
at Tilbury. It is for near twelve miles so narrow that a mouse cannot
pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his waggon to assist me
to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge. To add to all the infamous
circumstances which concur to plague a traveller, I must not forget the
eternally meeting with chalk-waggons, themselves frequently stuck fast,
till a collection of them are in the same situation, and twenty or
thirty horses may be tacked to each to draw them out one by one." In a
somewhat similar way he describes the road from Bury to Sudbury in
Suffolk. Here, he says, "I was forced to move as slow in it as in any
unmended lane in Wales. For ponds of liquid dirt, and a scattering of
loose flints just sufficient to lame every horse that moves near them,
with the addition of cutting vile grips across the road under the
pretence of letting the water off, but without effect, altogether render
at least twelve out of these sixteen miles as infamous a turnpike as
ever was beheld." In one of his journeys, Young proceeded to the north
by the great north road, thence making branch trips to the various
agricultural districts. Of many of these roads he gives a sorry account.
Thus: "To Wakefield, indifferent; through the town of Wakefield so bad
that it ought to be indicted. To Castle Howard, infamous; I was near
being swallowed up in a slough. From Newton to Stokesley in Cleveland,
execrably bad. You are obliged to cross the moors they call Black
Hambledon, over which the road runs in narrow hollows that admit a
south-country chaise with such difficulty, that I reckon this part of
the journey made at the hazard of my neck. The going down into Cleveland
is beyond all description terrible; for you go through such steep,
rough, narrow, rocky precipices, that I would sincerely advise any
friend to go a hundred miles to escape it. The name of this path is very
judicious, _Scarthneck_--that is, _Scare-Nick_, or frighten the devil.
"From Richmond to Darlington, part of the great north road; execrably
broke into holes like an old pavement, sufficient to dislocate one's
bones."
"To Morpeth; a pavement a mile or two out of Newcastle; all the rest
_vile_.
"To Carlisle; cut up by innumerable little paltry one-horse carts."
One more instance from the pen of Young and we leave him. In the course
of one of his journeys, he makes his way into Wales, where he finds his
_bete noire_ in the roads, and freely expresses himself thereupon in his
usual forcible style: "But, my dear sir, what am I to say of the roads
in this country? the turnpikes, as they have the assurance to call them,
and the hardiness to make one pay for? From Chepstow to the half-way
house between Newport and Cardiff they continue mere rocky lanes, full
of hugeous stones as big as one's horse, and abominable holes. The first
six miles from Newport they were so detestable, and without either
direction-posts or milestones, that I could not well persuade myself I
was on the turnpike, but had mistook the road, and therefore asked every
one I met, who answered me, to my astonishment, 'Ya-as.' Whatever
business carries you into this country, avoid it, at least till they
have good roads; if they were good, travelling would be very pleasant."
The necessity for a better class of road cannot but have forced itself
upon the Government of the country from time to time, if not for the
benefit of travellers and to encourage trade, at any rate to secure a
rapid movement of troops in times of disturbance or rebellion; yet we
find the state of streets in the metropolis, and roads in the country,
as in 1750, thus described in Blackie's 'Comprehensive History of
England': "When the only public approaches to Parliament were King
Street and Union Street, these were so wretchedly paved, that when the
King went in state to the House, the ruts had to be filled up with
bundles of fagots to allow the royal coach a safe transit. While the art
of street-paving was thus so imperfect, that of road-making was equally
defective, so that the country visitor to the metropolis, and its
dangers of coach-driving, had generally a sufficient preparative for the
worst during his journey to town. This may easily be understood from the
fact that, so late as 1754, few turnpikes were to be seen after leaving
the vicinity of London, for 200 miles together, although it had been
made felony to pull them down. These roads, indeed, were merely the
produce of compulsory pauper labour, contributed by the different
parishes; and, like all such work, it was performed in a very
perfunctory manner."
The same authority gives a further picture of the state of the highways
some twenty years later, when apparently little improvement had taken
place in their condition: "Notwithstanding the numerous Acts of
Parliament, of which no less than 452 were emitted between the years
1760 and 1764, for the improvement of the principal highways, they still
continued narrow, darkened with trees, and intersected with ruts and
miry swamps, through which the progress of a waggon was a work of
difficulty and danger. One of these--the turnpike road from Preston to
Wigan--is thus described by an angry tourist in 1770, and the picture
seems to have been too generally realised over the whole kingdom: "To
look over a map, and perceive that it is a principal one, not only to
some towns, but even whole counties, one would naturally conclude it to
be at least decent; but let me most seriously caution all travellers who
may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as
they would the devil; for a thousand to one but they break their necks
or their limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with
ruts, which I actually measured, four feet deep, and floating with mud
only from a wet summer; what, therefore, must they be after a winter?
The only mending it receives is the tumbling in some loose stones, which
serve no other purpose but jolting a carriage in the most intolerable
manner. These are not merely opinions, but facts; for I actually passed
three carts broken down in these eighteen miles, of execrable memory."
Obvious as it must be to every mind capable of apprehending ordinary
matters in the present day, that the opening up of the country by the
laying down of good roads would encourage trade, promote social
intercourse, knit together the whole kingdom, and render its government
the more easy and effective; yet it is a fact that the improvement of
the roads in various parts of the country, both in England and Scotland,
was stoutly opposed by the people, even in certain places entailing riot
and bloodshed. So strong were the prejudices against the improved roads,
that the country people would not use them after being made. This bias
may perhaps have partaken largely of that unreasoning conservatism which
is always prone to pronounce that that which _is_ is best, and opposes
change on principle--an example of which is afforded by the conduct of
the driver of the Marlborough coach, who, when the new Bath road was
opened, obstinately refused to travel by it, and stuck to the old
waggon-track. "He was an old man," he said; "his grandfather and father
had driven the aforesaid way before him, and he would continue in the
old track till death." Other grounds of objection were not wanting,
having some show of reason; but these, like the others, were useless in
stemming the tide of improvement which eventually set in, and brought
the roads of the nation into their present admirable state.