periods: 1st, before 1784; 2nd, from that year to 1839; and 3rd, from 1839 to the present time. In the first period the mails were conveyed on horseback or in light carts, and the robbery of the mail was one of the most common of the higher class of offences. The service was very inefficiently performed, and the rate of travelling did not often exceed four miles an hour. A time-bill for the year 1717 has been preserved, addressed "to the several postmasters betwixt London and East Grinstead." It is headed "Haste, haste, post haste!" from which it might be inferred that extraordinary expedition was not only enforced but would be accomplished. The mails, conveyed either on horseback or in a cart, departed "from the letter-office in London, July 7th, 1717, at half-an-hour past two in the morning," and reached East Grinstead, distant forty-six miles, at half-an-hour after three in the afternoon. There were stoppages of half-an-hour each at Epsom, Dorking, and Reigate, and of a quarter-of-an-hour at Leatherhead, so that the rate of travelling, exclusive of stoppages, was a fraction above four miles an hour. But even nearly fifty years afterwards, and on the great roads, five miles an hour was considered as quite "going a-head." "Letters are conveyed in so short a time, by night as well as by day, that every twenty-four hours the post goes one hundred and twenty miles, and in five or six days an answer to a letter may be had from a place three hundred miles from London." Letters were despatched from London to all parts of England and Scotland three times a-week, and to Wales twice a-week; 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." The mails were not all despatched at the same hour, but were sent off at various intervals between one and three in the morning, and letters were delivered in London at different times of the day as each post arrived. This careless and lazy state of things existed until Mr. Palmer's plan for extending the efficiency of the Post Office began to be adopted in 1784.

Mr. Palmer's attention was drawn to the singular discrepancy which existed between the speed of the post and of the coaches. Letters which left Bath on Monday night were not delivered in London until two or three o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, and were sometimes even later; but the coach which left Bath on Monday afternoon arrived in London sufficiently early for the delivery of parcels by ten o'clock the next morning; and though the postage from Bath to London was at that time only threepence, yet despatch was in many cases of such importance that the tradesmen of Bath willingly paid two shillings to send their letters to London in the form of a coach parcel, besides requesting their correspondents to give a gratuity to the porter for the early delivery of the packet, this promise of additional payment forming part of the direction. The slow rate of travelling of the Bath post was not an exception. The post which left London on Monday night, or rather on Tuesday, from one to three in the morning, did not reach Norwich, Worcester, or Birmingham, until Wednesday morning; and the Exeter post not until Thursday morning, while letters were five days in passing from London to Glasgow.

Mr. Palmer submitted his plans to Mr. Pitt. He proposed that the mails

should no longer be transported on horseback or in light carts, but that coaches should be employed, and, as the robbery of the mail was so frequent an occurrence, a man with fire-arms was to travel with each coach. The coaches with the mails were all to start from London at the same hour, and their departure from the country was to be so regulated as to ensure, as far as possible, their simultaneous arrival in town at an early hour in the morning. The first mail-coach upon Mr. Palmer's plan left London for Bristol on the evening of the 24th of August, 1784. The improvements suggested by Mr. Palmer met with a good deal of opposition from some of the Post Office authorities. One of them, Mr. Hodgson, "did not see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England ;" and he conceived that to bring the Bristol mail to London in sixteen or eighteen hours was a scheme altogether visionary., Another gentleman, Mr. Draper, declared "that the post cannot travel with the same expedition as chaises and diligences do, on account of the business necessary to be done in each town;" and the quarter-of-an-hour which Mr. Palmer proposed to allow at the different posttowns was insufficient, as half-an-hour would, in Mr. Draper's opinion, be required in many places. The idea of a guard to each coach, so far from affording safety, would only occasion the crime of murder to be added to that of robbery; for, "when desperate fellows had once determined upon a mail robbery, the consequence would be murder in case of resistance." Timing the arrival and departure of the coaches bearing the mails would "fling the whole commercial correspondence of the country into the utmost confusion." Even the Postmasters General addressed the Lords of the Treasury after Mr. Palmer's plans had been partially in operation for eighteen months, stating that they felt "perfectly satisfied that the revenue had been very considerably decreased by the plan of mail-coaches.” Happily the minister saw more clearly the advantages of increased safety, and of more frequent, rapid, and certain facilities of communication; and he resolved that the scheme should be carried out in all its most essential features. The results were that by 1797 the greater part of the mails were conveyed in one-half the previous time; in many cases in one-third; and in some of the cross posts in one-fourth of the previous time. Daily posts were established to above five hundred places, which before had only received them thrice a-week. The great commercial towns were thought to be as much entitled to this advantage as the water-drinkers at Tunbridge Wells thirty years before. The revenue of the Post Office increased beyond anticipation; but Mr. Palmer, who had stipulated for a per-centage on the surplus net revenue beyond 240,000l., received instead an annuity of 30007.

The era of mail-coaches embraces about half a century. Their origin, maturity, and perfection, and gradual displacement by the railways, all took place within that short period. In 1836 there were 54 four-horse mails in England, 30 in Ireland, and 10 in Scotland. The number of pair-horse mails in England was 49. Their average speed in England was nine miles, all but a furlong, per hour, including stoppages. Starting from London at eight o'clock in the evening, the mail reached Exeter, 170 miles, in 16 hours 34 minutes; Holyhead, 261 miles, in 27 hours; Glasgow, 396 miles, in 42 hours; Edinburgh, 399 miles, in 42 hours. The number of miles travelled by the mails in England and Scotland, in

1838, was above seven millions, equal to a circuit round the globe, every day in the year. The English mail-coach was strongly characteristic of the national energy and spirit, and also of the national taste. The daily departure of the mail-coaches from the Post Office was always a favourite sight. In 1837 the number which left London every night was 27, travelling in the aggregate above 5500 miles before they reached their respective destinations. A short time before the hour of starting, they arrived in the yard round the Post Office from their respective inns, with the passengers already in their places. Through the iron railing, by the light of innumerable gas-lamps, the public could see the process of packing the mail-bags. It was really a fine sight to see twenty of these vehicles drawn up, each occupying the same station night after night, the horses fine and spirited animals, the harness unexceptionably neat, and the coachmen and guards wearing the King's livery. The travellers for such various and distant parts of the kingdom seemed as if they felt the difference between travelling by the mail and by the stage-coach. As the clock struck eight the Post Office porters dragged out huge bags, of which the guards of the different mails took charge. In a few minutes, cach coach, one by one, passed out of the yard, and the sound of the guard's horn became lost in the noise of the streets. About six of the mailcoaches on the south-western, western, and north-western roads, did not take up their bags at the Post Office, but started from the western end of Piccadilly—the bags for those mails being conveyed in light carts in the care of mail-guards. The starting of these mails was a sight for the West-End. About twenty minutes past eight the mail-carts drove up at great speed, the guards' horns warning passengers of the necessity of getting out of the way. The bags were transferred to the mail-coaches, and each successively took its departure.

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The annual procession of the mail-coaches on the King's birthday was also an exhilarating and pleasing sight, which will never again be witnessed. "The gala turn-out of our mail-coaches on the King's birthday," says a popular writer,* I always think must strike foreigners more than anything else in our country with the sterling, solid integrity of the English character." And here we have some of the impressions of a foreigner after witnessing this sight:—“ Such a splendid display of carriages-and-four as these mail-coaches could not be found or got together in all Berlin. It was a real pleasure to see them in all the pride and strength which, in an hour or two later, was to send them in every direction, with incredible rapidity, to every corner of England."+ The procession proceeded from the City to the West-End, and through Hyde Park; and usually passed before the residence of the Postmaster General for the time being.

We now come to a new era, which has had a most important influence on the arrangements of the Post Office. In 1836 the stamp-duty on newspapers was reduced from fourpence to one penny. The circulation of the London and provincial papers together has nearly doubled since this change; and a very large proportion of the total number is sent through the Post Office. Here is so much additional work to be got through. The Penny Postage came into operation on the 10th January, 1840; and the number of letters passing through the Post Offices of the United Kingdom has risen from 1,500,000 per week to 4,000,000, † Von Raumer, England in 1835.'

*Sir F. Head,

being at the rate of above 200,000,000 letters per year, instead of about 78,000,000. In the same period the letters passing through the General Post Office, London, have increased from 400,000 to 1,364,000 per week; and in the London District Post (late Twopenny Post) the increase has been from 255,300 per week to 476,000.

The great lines of railway have been gradually rendered available for the transmission of correspondence as they were successively opened. In 1838 the sum paid by the Post Office to Railway Companies amounted to 12,3807., and in 1841 to 94,8187. Most of the great towns in England, with Dublin and Edinburgh, have now a mail twice a-day from London, or fourteen times a-week, and a mail to London as often, making twenty-eight communications per week to and from the metropolis. Before the morning mails were established, a letter from Brighton for a town in Yorkshire was stopped fourteen hours in London, as it could not be transmitted until eight o'clock at night; but it now reaches its destination (200 miles, perhaps, from London) two or three hours before it would formerly have left the Post Office. The Liverpool merchant receives his foreign letters on the same day that they reach London, instead of thirty hours afterwards. The effect of expediting the class of letters formerly detained a whole day in London is a good illustration of the philosophy of the Post Office system: they have increased from 6,000 to 30,000 a-day, or five-fold.

The gross revenue of the Post Office in 1838, the last year of the old system, was 2,346,2987.; of the first year under the Penny Postage, 1,342,604.; of the second year (1841), 1,495,540. If the increase should be progressive at the same rate, the gross revenue will be restored to its former amount in about two years from the present time. The cost of management, which in 1838 was 686,768/., in 1841 amounted to 938,1687. for the whole country. Of this increased costnamely, 251,4007. in 1841, as compared with 1838-the sum to be attributed to the Penny Postage plan does not much exceed 50,000l. The morning mails, additional Post Offices, and other additions to the public accommodation, account for the remainder.

From what has been already stated, it will be seen that the London Post Office has grown up with the development of commercial and intellectual activity. If it were merely an establishment for the collection and distribution of the letters which pass through it, the building required for such a purpose would still rank amongst those of the largest class. Nearly as many letters go through the London Office now as circulated a few years ago through all the Post Offices of the United Kingdom, including London in the number. But the General Post Office is a grand central department for the management of the Post Office business of the United Kingdom, for maintaining the means of intercourse with foreign countries and distant colonies, and therefore apartments are required for a large number of officers who are employed in the general administration of the establishment at home and abroad.

The Post Office appears to have been successively removed, immediately after the commencement of the last century, from Cloak Lane, near Dowgate, to Bishopsgate Street, when the next transfer was made to a mansion in Lombard Street, occupied by Sir Robert Viner, who was Lord Mayor in 1675. It was a

large and substantial brick building, with an entrance from Lombard Street, through a gateway into a court-yard, around which were the various offices. There was a second entrance by an inferior gateway into Sherbourne Lane. In 1765 four houses in Abchurch Lane were taken, and additional offices erected; and from time to time other additions were made, until the whole became a cumbrous and inconvenient mass of buildings, ill adapted to the great increase which had taken place in the business of the Post Office. It was at length determined to erect a building expressly for affording the conveniences and facilities required; and in 1815 an Act was passed authorising certain Commissioners to select a site, and to make the necessary arrangements for this purpose. The situation chosen was at the junction of St. Martin's-le-Grand with Newgate Street, where once stood a monastery which possessed the privileges of sanctuary. Since the dissolution it had been covered with streets, courts, and alleys. Compensation was granted to the parties whom it was necessary to remove their houses were pulled down; and the first stone of the new building was laid in May, 1824. On the 23rd of September, 1829, it was completed and opened for the transaction of business. It is about 389 feet long, 130 wide, and 64 feet high. The front is composed of three portions, of the Ionic order, one of four columns being placed at each end; and one of six columns, forming the centre, is surmounted by a pediment. The other parts of the building are entirely plain. The public entrances are on the east and west fronts, which open into a hall 80 feet long, by about 60 wide, divided into a centre and two aisles by two ranges of six columns of the Ionic, standing upon pedestals of granite; and on each side of the hall are corresponding pilasters of the same order. There is a tunnel underneath the hall by which the letters are conveyed, by ingenious mechanical means, between the northern and southern divisions of the building.

On entering the hall from the principal front, the offices on the right hand are appropriated to the departments of the Receiver- General, the Accountant-General, the Money-Order Office, and the London District (late Twopenny Post) Office. On the left are the Newspaper, Inland, Ship, and Foreign Letter Offices. A staircase at the eastern end of this aisle leads to the Dead, Mis-sent, and Returned Letter Offices. The Inland Office, in the northern portion of the building, is 88 feet long, 56 wide, and 28 high; and there is a vestibule in the eastern front where the letter-bags are received, and whence they are despatched from and to the mails. The Letter-Carriers' Office adjoins the Inland Office, and is 103 feet long, 35 wide, and 33 feet high. The business of assorting the letters and newspapers for delivery and for despatch into the country is carried on in these two offices. The whole building is warmed by means of heated air, and the passages and offices are lighted by about a thousand Argand burners.

The business of the General Post Office, independent of the general routine of administration, is directed towards two operations, the delivery and the collection and despatch of letters and newspapers. But before giving some explanation of the means by which these objects are effected, we must briefly advert to the London District Post-the local post of the metropolis and its vicinity.

In 1683, a merchant of the name of Dowckra set up an office in London, and undertook the delivery of letters, within certain limits, for a penny each. This