Smyrna times., 1896-11-25
FIRST MAIL COACH.
IT MADE ITS APPEARANCE IN ENG
LAND IN AUGUST, 1884.

John Palmer, a Theatrical Manager,
Brought Out the Idea-Pitt Helped
Him to Put 1t Into Execution Against
Pretty Strong Opposition.
''To Trade Expedition and Property
Protection" This was the legend on the
mail coach halfpenny struck to COM
memorate the introduction of the mail
coach by John Palmer of the Bath thea
ter on Aug 2, 1884, an undertaking
which is not without its effect today.
The careful student of the "Postal
Guide" will not fail to notice what IA
cilities are open to him for the trans
mission of important letters. Over and
above frequent collections and cOnven-
iently late hours for posting, he can hand
his letter in at a railway station parcels
office; he can post in late letter boxes at
the station serving the district for which
his letter is intended, while up to the
last moment there hangs outside the
sorting van box into which letters may
be dropped preparatory to being whirled
away throughout the length and breadth
of England at the rate of so miles an
hour, and to be delivered next morning
at many a distant breakfast table.
To appreciate to the full the present
state Of postal facilities, one should
look at the system under which mails
were carried prior to the Palmer era.
For two or three centuries before the
first mail coach ran the post was carried
by men or boys ON horseback, but in
1890 Ralph Allen, from whom Fielding
took his ideas for Squire Allworthy in
'Tom Jones, " sent in contract to farm
the cross country posts and to carry the
mails by what were subsequently known
as 'Allen's Postboys," who were sup
posed to travel on horseback at pace
averaging five miles an hour.
Palmer, in explaining his scheme for
reform to Pitt in 1888, thus criticised
the then existing state of things: "The
post, " he said, "at present, instead of
being the quickest, is almost the slow
est conveyance in the country, and al
though, from the great improvements
in our roads, other carriers have pro-
portiOnately mended their speed, the
post is as slow as ever. Palmer point
ed out to the authorities that the system
then i'll vogue was unsafe, "for, - said
he, ''the mails are generally intrusted
to some idle boy without a character,
mounted on wornOut hack, and who,
so far from being able to defend himself
or escape from a rObber, is far more
likely to be in league with him.
What was known as the robbery of
ho Dyir,
stopping of a mail coach by a we'll
mounted highwayman, but the stopping
of lad of about Is years old by
couple of loafing footpads named Rookie
and Howell, who were afterward hanged
in due course, and the circumstance of
the mother of Rookie going night after
night to the gibbet TO collect the bones
as they were blown down by the wind
suggested the poem "Mizpah. "
Those boys without characters and
the wretched horses they bestrode were
cheap labor, and the profits on the con-
tract enabled Allen to turn in about
e12, 600 year and to take up his resi-
dence at Prior Park, one of the finest
Italian houses in England, and it is
said that it was the sight of this grand
place and the knowledge of how Aliens
money had been made which first sug-
gested to Palmer the attempt to bring
his scheme to the notice Of the postal
authorities. John Palmer was lessee
and manager Of the Bath and Bristol
theaters-it was at the old theater at
Bath that actors like Lee, Crawford,
Henderson, SiddOns and Brunton made
some of their early appearances, while,
thanks to the influence of friends, Bath
New theater was the only patent thea
ter out of London.
Palmer always appears to have been
man of more or less horsy tastes, like
the late Mr.. Newcome of the Plymouth
theater, and his business led him to
travel good deal about the country.
With him time was money; so, abjuring
the slow, rumbling stagecoach, he went
about beating up actors, actresses and
companies in postchaises, always, of
course, passing the coaches on the road
along which he was travelling. With
the mail coach of the future in his eye
he asked himself, remembering that
letter took three days to go from Bath
to London, why letters should not be
carried at the same pace at which it
was possible to travel in a ohaise? He
kept record of times and distances,
and, having thought out all details and
deeming his scheme ripe for adoption,
he sought the good offices Of Mr.. John
Pratt, afterward Lord Camden, by
whom Palmer was introduced to Pitt,
who warmly approved the idea.
Lords Carteret and Tankerville, the
joint postmasters general, besides not
being experts were bound securely
hand and foot by fetters of red tape, and
so contented themselves with learning
the opinions Of the postoffice officials,
who. it were almost needless to tell,
were almost to a man against Palmer.
The farseeing Pitt was not long in
coming to the conclusion that more
than half Of the objections to the pro-
posed mail coach had their outcome in
jealousy; SO, calling together Palmer,
the postmasters general and sundry hos
tile officials, he decided that the system
should have a trial. - London Tele-
graph.