The herald., 1896-11-05
THE FIRST MAIL COACH.
Made Its Appearance at Bath, England,
112 Years Ago.

ITO 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 August 2, 1884, so that Sunday
last was the 112th anniversary of an
undertaking which is not without its
effect today. The careful student of the
Postal Guide" will not fail to notice
what facilities are open to him for the
transmission of important letters. over
and above frequent collections and con-
veniently late hours for posting he can
hand his letter in at a railway station
parcels office; he can post it late in let
ter boxes at the station serving the dis
trict 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 al the
rate of fifty miles an hour and to be de-
livered next morning at many distant
breakfast table. To appreciate to the
full the present state of postal facili-
ties 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 horse
back, but in 1920 Ralph Allen. from
whom Fielding took his ideas for Squire
Allworthy in "Tom Jones'" sent in a
contract to farm the cross-country
posts, and to carry the mails by what
were subsequently known as ALIENS
postboys," who We're supposed to travel
on horseback at a 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 pres
n Or t1,o ,if,l-p &c.
almost the slowest conveyance in the
country, and, although from the great
Improvement in our roads, other car
riers have proportionately mended their
speed. the post is as slow as ever"
Palmer pointed out to the authorities
that the system then in vogue was un-
safe, for" said he, ''the mails are gen.
orally entrusted to some idle boy with
out character, mounted on wornout
hack, and who, so far from being able
to defend himself or escape from a rob-
ber, is far more likely to be in league
with him." What was known as the
robbery of the Brighton mail in 1882
was not the stopping of a mail coach
| by well-mounted highwayman but the
| stopping of a lad of about Is years old
by couple of loafing footpads named
Rookie and Howell who were afterward
| hanged in due course, and the crcum-
| stance 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 We're
| cheap labor, and the profits on the con-
| tract enabled Allen to turn in about
G12.OOO year and to take up his resi-
| dence in 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 Allen
money had been made which first sug-
gested to Palmer the attempt to bring
/ his scheme to the notice of the postal au-
! thorities. John Palmer was lessee and
manager of the Bath and Bristol thea
ters-it was at the old theaters at Bath
| that actors like Lee. Crawford, Hen
derson. 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 ap-
! pears to have been man of more or less
! horsey tastes, like the late Mr. New
come of the Plymouth theater, and his
business led him to travel a good deal
about the country. With him time was
money, so, abjuring the slow, rumblng
stage coach, he went about beating up
| actors, actresses and companies in post
chaises, always, of course, passing the
travelling. With the mail coach of the
future in his eye. he asked himself re-
membering that a 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
chaise. 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
In aftarward
den, by whom Palmer was introduced to
Pitt. who warmly approved the idea.
Lords Carteret and Tankerville,s 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, 1t were needless to tell. were al
most to a man against Palmer. The far
seeing Pitt was not long in coming to the
conclusion that more than half the OBJ