the Post-office, declared that "the post cannot travel with the same expedition as chaises and diligences do, on account of the business necessary to be done at the office in each town through which it passes;" and he objected to coaches as travelling too fast. Mr. Palmer proposed to allow the guard a quarter of an hour at the different post-towns; but this was not enough in Mr. Draper's opinion, and half an hour would be required in many places. Mr. Palmer's theory of accelerating the mails appeared worthless in the eyes of Mr. Hodgson, because it was founded on an "impossibility," which consisted in supposing "that the Bath mail could be brought to London in 16 or 18 hours."

Mr. Palmer was not well treated by the ministry of the day. He had been indefatigable in promoting general improvements in the management of the Post-office system. In 1797 the mails were, generally speaking, conveyed in one-half the previous time; in many cases in one-third of the previous time; and in some of the cross-posts in one-fourth. Posts were established daily to above 500 places which had before only received them thrice a-week. From 1793 to 1797 the revenue of the department had risen from 391,5087. to 541,8337. Instead, however, of receiving the per centage on the surplus net revenue beyond 240,000l., for which he had stipulated, an annuity of 30007, was settled upon him.

ACCELERATION OF CORRESPONDENCE BY THE RAILWAYS.

The acceleration of the mails since the great lines of railway have been opened has effected as great a change in the despatch of letters as sixty years ago was occasioned by Mr. Palmer's improvements.

The north of England, the whole of Scotland, and the greater part of Ireland, with parts of Wales, are connected with London by means of the Birmingham Railway; and four out of the nine omnibuses or Post-office accelerators which proceed from the General Post-office to the railway stations are loaded with the correspondence for the above-mentioned parts of the country and for Birmingham and intermediate and collateral places; three proceed to the station of the South-Western Railway, with the correspondence for all parts of Hants and the western counties; and the correspondence for Bristol and intermediate and surrounding places, also for South Wales and the south of Ireland, is conveyed in two omnibuses to the station of the Great Western Railway at Paddington. The accelerators in connexion with the Birmingham Railway proceed to the Eustonsquare station, which they reach in about 18 minutes, and are driven into a part of the premises not accessible to the public, each being attended by a mail-guard, seated inside. The railway servants immediately carry the large sacks to a hugelooking machine, which, with an accompanying tender, is the last of a long train of carriages. This caravan is the Railway Post-office. In 10 or 12 minutes the omnibuses are emptied of their contents, and the train of carriages is then wound up to the station at Camden Town, where the engine is attached.

THE RAILWAY POST-OFFICE.

The Railway Post-office travels on the northern chain of railroads, the letter-bags on the Great Western and South-Western lines being conveyed in a mail tender in the care of a guard. The Railway Post-office is a carriage 16 feet long, seven and a half feet wide, and six and a half feet high, and is fitted up as a sorting-room, with counters and desks, and tiers of neatly-labelled boxes or pigeon-holes. While the train is moving at a rate which occasionally exceeds 30 miles an hour, two clerks are engaged in sorting letters and arranging letter-bags; and while maintaining the same speed, letter-bags belonging to towns on or near the line are taken up by an ingenious contrivance, which is the invention of Mr. Ramsey, of the General Post-office. The bags to be taken up are hung upon a beain close upon the line, and on being detached from it, as the train passes, fall into a net spread out from the exterior of the Railway Post-office, while the bags to be de livered are simply dropped into the road. The letter-bag so

taken up is opened, and its contents sorted. Thus a bag taken up at Watford may contain letters for Leighton Buzzard, or for other places northward. These letters are distributed in the boxes labelled with the names of the towns for which they are destined, before reaching which the letters are collected and put into the proper bag, which is left while at full speed at many of the stations. If the engine did not stand in need of a supply of water, and passengers were not leaving the line at the different towns, the Post-office business would scarcely require any stoppages. The time allowed is only three minutes at some of the stations; at some five, and at others ten minutes are allowed: but at Birmingham, which is so important a central point, the train stops half an hour.

The correspondence for Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Rotherham, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, York, Darlington, and for the districts which surround each of these places; also for Edinburgh and the east of Scotland, with the intermediate places, is detached at Rugby, 82 miles from Euston-square station; the lines of railway from thence being opened to Darlington, 264 miles from London, which is reached by a quarter-past nine in the morning, or 12 hours after leaving London.. This great north-eastern line has various branches, there being one to Nottingham, one to Sheffield, one to Leeds, and one to Hull. The letter-bags are under the care of guards, who leave and take up bags only where the train stops.

The Railway Post-office, with the clerks, continues its route to Birmingham; thence by the Grand Junction Railway to the Chester and Crewe branch, where part of the Irish correspondence is detached, and conveyed by the latter railway. At Parkside, which is on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the correspondence for those two places is detached. The line northward is continued by the North Union Railway to Preston, and thence by the Preston and Lancaster Railway to Lancaster, distant 241 miles from London, and which is reached in eleven hours and a half, or before 8 o'clock in the morning. The clerks are occupied during the whole night in taking up and delivering bags, and in sorting their contents. At 10 stations the bags are dropped or taken up by means of the bag-apparatus; at two this is effected by hand without stopping; and at 19 others the train stops. The number of stations between London and Lancaster is 31. The distance between these stations averages about eight miles ; one station is 18 miles distant from any other, and one is only three miles and a quarter. Every 20 minutes therefore, on an average, bags are to be left and taken up, and extraordinary care and vigilance must be required to perform all the necessary operations, and, under such circumstances, without failure and error. The number of clerks employed in the department of the Railway Post-office is 18. Eight work between London and Birmingham, and 10 between Birmingham and Lancaster. The night-work is performed by 12 clerks; but the correspondence by the day-mails not being so heavy, the services of six clerks only are required. Bags are made up in the nightoffice for above 50 different towns, and in the day-office for about 40. The gross number of bags received in one day by both offices is nearly 500, containing on an average about 20,000 letters. The distance between London and Lancaster is performed in nine hours and a quarter, exclusive of stoppages. The railway here terminates, and the letterbags for Glasgow and the west of Scotland and intermediate places, and for the north of Ireland, are conveyed from Lancaster by the mail-coaches.

The principle by which the charge for conveying the mails by the different railways should be determined, involved at first many difficult considerations. The amount of capital invested in the necessary buildings, engines, tools, &c., for the passenger and light goods traffic, was ascertained, and allowance was made for a return of profit upon such capital to the amount of six per cent., to which one and a half per cent. was added for wear and tear. The sum thus obtained was next divided by the number of trips annually required by the Postoffice, and the amount per trip again subdivided, so as to

apportion to the Post-office that part only of the expense which arose out of conveying the gross weight taken on its account, the calculation being made on the average weight of a passenger train, exclusive of the engine and tender. The railway companies appear to have acted in a liberal spirit in coming to this arrangement, the result of which is that the Post-office pays only for the weight of its own carriage and contents. The weight of the Railway Post-office, with the tender, bags, clerks, &c., is stated by Mr. Whishaw, in his work on Railways, to be above nine tons.

In a few years the transmission of the mails by the railways will have become so general, that scarcely a single mail-coach will be required from London. In 1837 there were 27 which left nightly, travelling above 5500 miles in the aggregate before they reached their respective destinations. It is impossible to have witnessed their disappearance one by one without a feeling of regret. There are but 10 now left, two of which are only pair-horse mails; and several mails will be superseded before the summer of 1841 is over. The number of miles travelled by the direct and cross-road mails, in 1837, was upwards of 7,377,000-a distance nearly equal to a journey round the globe on every week-day in the year.

POST-OFFICE DESPATCH IN 1760.

Seventy years ago the communication by post with the principal towns of England was only twice or three times a-week, and with many places was not so frequent. Saturday was the great post-day, mails being on that day made up for all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland; but "the post goes every day to those places where the court resides, as also to the several stations and rendezvous of his Majesty's fleet, as the Downs and Spithead; and to Tunbridge during the season for drinking the waters." This was in 1768. In the olden time, if we may apply that term to a period almost within the recollection of persons now living, the post went out daily to the place where the fashionables of the last century were accustomed to resort; while to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, and all our great cities, three times a-week was considered sufficiently frequent. Let the reader imagine, if possible, that these towns in the present day had only a postoffice communication with London thrice a-week instead of twice a-day, and that Bath and Tunbridge had their daily post; and it will be felt how great are the changes which have taken place in our social and commercial intercourse since the commencement of the reign of George III. The account from which we quote says -"Letters are received from all parts of England and Scotland (except Wales) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; from Wales every Monday and Friday; and from Kent and the Downs every day."

POST-OFFICE DESPATCH IN 1841.

By means of the extraordinary facilities of despatch afforded by the railways, a letter written in London at six o'clock in the evening is read at the breakfast-table next morning at Lancaster, 240 miles distant. Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow are reached in 24 hours, Belfast in 23; and other places in a space of time which is so inconceivably quick that some time will elapse before our ideas become accustomed to such a rapid mode of intercourse. It is quite possible, in a case of emergency, for a merchant at Birmingham to write to his correspondent at Liverpool in the afternoon and receive a communication in reply the same night, the distance, which is above 200 miles, being traversed between half-past two and a quarter before twelve, and an hour being allowed at Liverpool. At the ordinary rate of acceleration, prior to Mr. Palmer's plans being adopted, a letter despatched from London on Monday night at eight o'clock, instead of reaching Lancaster at eight o'clock the next morning, would not arrive until Thursday afternoon at four o'clock. A letter may now be written from London on one day, and an answer to it received from Lancaster on the following day. Before the period to which we have alluded, exactly a week would have been required to accomplish this desideratum.

MORNING MAILS.

By the recent establishment of morning mails, letters are sent to most parts of the country twice a-day, or 12 times a-week. Thus, a letter from Brighton, addressed to a person in Yorkshire, is not delayed 14 hours in London, but is hurried on to its destination two or three hours after it reaches the General Post-oflice. A merchant at Liverpool also receives the letters which arrive every morning in London by the foreign mails without that injurious delay which took place only two or three years ago. The change arose out of the accelerated speed of railway conveyance, which made delays appear monstrous which were formerly little thought of. When the mail-coach was 21 hours in travelling from London to Liverpool, a delay of 15 hours in London was little more than one-half the time occupied by the journey; but when the same distance came to be performed in about nine hours, then the disproportion appeared so great as to require an immediate alteration; and at present letters, instead of lying in the General Post-office all day, are despatched by the morning mails, and reach places above 200 miles distant from London before the hour at which they would formerly have been sent off by the night mails. The morning mails are of course available to as well as from London. The greater frequency and despatch in the transmission and delivery of letters are justly regarded among the most efficient means of promoting increased correspondence. The statements previously given prove this; and reference might also be made to the great increase of correspondence which took place between Liverpool and Manchester after the opening of the railroad between those two towns, and the more frequent despatch of letters from each place.

SECONDARY DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS.

At the present time the following, considering posts formerly called Penny-posts, "Fifth-clause posts," and sub-offices as post-offices, may be taken to be about the numbers :Post offices. Sub-offices. Penny-posts. Total.

190

1090

1930

220

105

230

555

330

105

200

635

England. 650 Scotland. Ireland Every post-office in the United Kingdom has direct communication respectively with the chief offices in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh.

The total number of persons employed in the business of the Post-office in England is stated, in the 18th Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry (made in March, 1829), to amount to 4905. Of these, 3059 persons were officially entrusted with the receipt and delivery of letters in England, and were exclusive of the persons employed in London, and of 563 deputy postmasters in the country.

LONDON DELIVERY OF LETTERS.

The duty of the London General Post-office in the receipt of letters consists in unloading the mails and delivering the letters, that is to say-1, in opening the bags, of which there are 700, and in checking the deputy-postmaster's accounts for unpaid letters, one person examining a bag in one minute and a half; 2, sorting into districts; 3, telling, that is, making out bills against every letter-carrier; 4, delivering; the lettercarriers return by a certain time, and pay the money charged against them to the Receiver-general.

Portions of the letters, as they have undergone the process of stamping and examination, are, from time to time, delivered to letter carriers, who are employed in the assorting of them, which in the first place is effected into about 14 grand divisions; immediately after which the letters are taken by other letter-carriers, who sort them in divisions corresponding with the districts of actual delivery. In the progress of this sorting the letters are sent in small parcels to the tellers, who cast up the amount of each parcel, and deliver a ticket of each charge to the check-clerk. These parcels are then deposited in boxes

They are also called "Convention Posts," on account of the General Post-office defraying a portion only of the expenses, the remainder being made up by local exertions in the district benefited by the establishment of an office.

provided for each district, and subsequently retold by the letter-carrier, by whom they are to be accounted for; and he states the amount of his telling to the check-clerk, to see that it corresponds with the tellers' tickets. The carriers then set out in order to deliver the letters; and in order to expedite this business as much as possible, a plan was first put in operation when the New Post-office was opened for business. Those letter-carriers whose walks are at a considerable distance from the office, take their stations in carriages built something in the form of an omnibus, and are conveyed as near as possible to the scene of their duties. The postmen are packed in these carriages after the same principle adopted in placing the mail-bags in the sack; the man who has the greatest distance to go gets first into the carriage, while he who is to quit it the earliest gets in the last. By means of these omnibuses there is much less difference than formerly between the time of delivering letters at the near and the more distant parts of the town; while the greater convenience afforded by the enlarged space and well-considered arrangements of the new office has occasioned the sorting and other preliminaries to be got through in much less time than formerly. A few years ago there were three classes of letter-carriers, Foreign, General, and Twopenny; but the former are no longer a distinct class, and there is a tendency to render the services of the remainder available for the general services connected with the delivery of letters; and letters which arrive by the day-mails are delivered by the carriers employed in the London District (late Twopenny-post) department.

THE LONDON DISTRICT POST (FORMERLY THE TWOPENNY POST).

In 1683 a metropolitan Penny-post was set up, the history of which is given at length in the Ninth Report of the Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry.' In a report of the Postmasters-general to the Lord High Treasurer, in 1702, they say,-"In obedience to your lordship's order of reference of Mr. William Dowckra's petition, we have considered of the allegations therein contained, and do humbly acquaint your lordship that we are informed your petitioner was the person who did first set up a Penny-post; and that it being thought to interfere with the power granted by parliament to the Postmaster-general, a suit was commenced against him by the order of the late King James, then Duke of York, whereupon there was a trial at the King's Bench bar, and a verdict given against him, and damages found; and that soon after the Revolution, the petitioner did apply himself to the House of Commons for some consideration of his case; and after examination thereof, the House came to a resolution that the petition and case of Mr. William Dowckra, merchant, in relation to the Penny-post office, be humbly represented and commended to his Majesty from this House, to relieve him therein, as to his great wisdom and justice shall be meet." Mr. Dowckra, on this recommendation, received a pension of 5007. per annum, for seven years from 1691, and afterwards for three years longer. In 1697 he was made Comptroller of the Pennypost; but it would appear that his enterprise in starting the post was better than his management of it, for he was dismissed in 1700, in consequence of complaints against him. The complaints set forth that "Hee hath removed the general Penny-post from Cornhill, a place most proper, being near the 'Change, and in the heart of the citty, to a more remote place altogether improper, whereby the messengers' walks are altered from one to two houres, so that letters are thereby delayed for some hours, to the great hindrance of business and fatigue to the poor messengers, and 1007. charges to His Majesty to fit his house for his own convenience. Hee forbids the taking in any bandboxes (except very small), and all parcels above a pound, which, when they were taken, did bring in considerable advantage to the office, they being now at great charge sent by porters in the citty, and coaches and watermen into the country, which formerly went by Penny-post messengers much cheaper and more satisfactorily. Hee stops, under spetious pretences, most parcells that are taken in, which is great damage to tradesmen by losing their customers or spoiling their goods;

and many times hazard the life of the patient, when physick is sent by a doctor or an apothecary." Other complaints charged him with opening and detaining letters, &c.

Mr. Povey set up a private post in 1708, under the name of the Halfpenny Carriage, and appointed receiving houses and persons to collect and deliver letters for hire within the city of London, Southwark, and Westminster. But this attempt was suppressed by the Post-office authorities.

The Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry stated that the regulations under which letters were conveyed by the Pennypost cannot be clearly ascertained from the records of the department. No limit appears to have been assigned to the weight of the parcels and packets, although it was required that they should not exceed 107. in value, from which it may be inferred that the office was held responsible to that amount for their safe delivery. The conveyance of parcels continued down to 1765, when it was enacted by the 5 Geo. III. c. 25, that no packet exceeding the weight of four ounces should be carried by the Penny-post, unless it had first passed or was intended to pass by the General-post.

From the first establishment of the Penny-post down to the year 1794, the postage was paid in advance. The delivery of letters was originally confined to the city of London, Southwark, and Westminster; but it was extended to the towns and villages round London on the application of the inhabitants, who voluntarily agreed to pay an additional penny on the receipt of their letters. This additional penny was for some time a perquisite of the messengers; but, from 1687, it was carried to the account of the revenue.

The charge of this additional penny was not authorised by law till 1727. In an account of the "gross and neat produce of the second penny by the letters taken in by the several receivers of the Penny-post office in London,which were directed and delivered to sundry persons in the country," the gross produce in 1687 is stated at 3267.; in 1690, as 3147.; in 1692, as 3381.; in 1700, it was 358.; and in 1702, 3617.

The Penny-post became a Twopenny-post in 1801, under the 41 Geo. III. c. 7, and in 1805 the postage on letters delivered beyond the limits of the city of London, Southwark, and Westminster, was advanced to threepence. In 1831 the boundaries of the Twopenny-post were extended to include all places within three miles of the General Post-office; and, in 1833, the boundaries of the Threepenny-post were extended to places not exceeding 12 miles.

The above districts are not now distinguished in any respect from other parts of the country, except by the frequency of collection and delivery of letters, and the service forming a distinct department of the General Post-office.

Since the commencement of the present century—that is, from the time that the Penny-post was converted into a Twopenny-post-the gross annual receipts of the establishment have been gradually augmented from 54,893. to 120,8017., which was the amount for the year ended 5th January, 1837. The charges for collection on this latter sum amounted to 47,4667. In 1839 the gross produce was 137,0417., and the charges of collection 62,2517., leaving a net revenue of 74,7901. Assuming the increase of letters to continue for another year at the same rate as 1840, the gross revenue of this department will be equal to what it was before the uniform rates of postage came into operation. In 1837 there were 209 Twopenny-post receiving houses within the three-mile boundary, and 194 within the Threepenny-post boundary. The keepers of the receiving houses are shopkeepers; they used to be paid according to the number of letters received; but they now have fixed salaries, according to the duty performed, and the situation. Some of these annual payments are very small, as low as 51., and varying from that up to 407. In one instance, a salary of 100% is paid; this is for a receiving-house in Cornhill. The total annual expense of the 209 Twopenny-post receiving houses in 1837 was 3,3381.

Up to November 14, 1837, the average time which was occupied before an answer could be received to a letter put into the receiving-house between eight A.M. and seven P.M. was 14