The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-06-12
Coaching the Mails.

crease In our postal business during the
last forty-6ve years to the penny rate, for
the introduction of the railways, as facili-
tating the means of communication, must |
at least have had some influence on it. The
railway first reached London in 1888. Pre-
vious to then the mails from the capital
had gone by coach, as they do now in many
of our colonies. When we hear of the "old
coaching days" with all their pleasures and
excitement we are apt to think that the
mail must have gone by coach for centu-
ries. As matter Of fact the mails trav-
elled by coach for shorter period than
they have done by train. The word
''coach'' is misleading; there was vast
difference between the stage coach and the
mail coach
Palmer's scheme was introduced in 1888,
but it was not till August 8, 1884, that
the first mail coach started. 1t left Lon
don at eight in the morning and reached
Bristol at eleven at night. The success
was obtained by cutting the road up into
short stages, so as to change horses every
ten miles, and running light, compact
coaches of the type familiar to us is the
modern drag. The Improvement in the
coach was helped by the improvement in
the road, for Palmer was contemporary
of Macadam. To horse the mail took as
many horses as there were miles to be ira
versed The rate was as nearly as possible
ten miles an hour, and each horse ran only
for one hour in the twenty-four, and re-
mained quiet on the fourth day. The
horses lasted aSont four years; they cost
about e25 each to buy, and e. per week
to keep. For the coach to pay it had to
earn 910 for each double mile, and the
fares were not much in excess of those now
charged for railway first class, averaging
threepence per mile. To run well the coach
had to be ballasted almost as carefully as a
boat. The build was quite a triumph of
ingenuity for ensuring strength and speed,
though the wear and tear were tremendous.
1t was owing to this wear and tear that
Charles Babbage, just before the railways
started, came out with his invention of
sending the mails on wires sloping from the
church steeples and housetops, along which
the bags, or rather cylinders, would slide
by gravitation. In the winter the mails
were carried on sledges, the coach-wheels
being in many cases replaced by runners.
The introduction of the mail coaches
was, of course, strongly opposed. A vast
number of people saw no need for the
':perilous velocity" Those who tried the
velocity however, rather liked 1t, and
Palmer's coaches prospered and prospered
until, in 1885, there were seven hundred of
them on the road, and the start of the
twenty seven each evening from the Post
office was one of the most popular sights
of London.
The mail coaches succeeded, on the main
roads, the old postboys, whose work was
done in very slovenly and dilatory man
ner, under circumstances of great difficult
ty and danger. The roads were bad, badly
kept, and badly watched, and highway
robbery was frequent Those were the
days when travellers made their wills be-
fore they set out for the south. "Whereas
| am about to take journey to London,
and whereas it is uncertain whether or not
| may live to return, / do Therefore think
It necessary to make my last will and tes-
lament" That these fears were not en-
tirely groundless is sufficiently apparent
from the following incident, which will
serve to illustrate the perils of the post
fourteen years after the introduction of
the mail coaches, and only twenty
years before the opening of our first rail
way
In 1898 the postboy coming from Selby
to York was one evening robbed of the
mail. About three miles out of Selby he
had, he said, been accosted by a man on
foot, who, gun in hand, told him to un-
strap the mail and give it to him. As ssoon
as he obtained possession of the bag the
highwayman pulled the bride from the
horses head and the horse galloped off with
the boy. The man was stout, looked like
a heckler, and wore drab jacket. The
mail contained the bags for Howden and
London, Howden and York, and Selby and
York. A reward of e200 was offered for
the discovery of the thief, but nothing was
forthcoming, and the robbery dropped out
ofrecollection until 1876, when an old public
house was pulled down on the Church Hill
at Selby, in the roof of which were found
the clothes worn by the thief, and the very
bag that had been stolen This quiet
house on the Church Hill must have been
queer haunt in its day, for not only were
these traces of the highway robbery eighty
years before found in the roof, but in the
basement, among the foundations, were the
evidences of still more serious crime in the
shape of several cofins, "with the bodies
in a good state of preservation. " j.
Gordon, IN Leisure Hour.