A Hundred Years by Post: A Jubilee Retrospect

Here is another old-fashioned address, in which one must admit the spirit of filial regard with which it is inspired:—

Yet one more specimen, referring to the year 1702:—

Under the circumstances of the time it was necessary thus to define at length where letters should be delivered; and the same circumstances were no doubt the raison-d'être of the corps of caddies in Edinburgh, whose business it was to execute commissions of all sorts, and in whom the paramount qualification was to know everybody in the town, and where everybody lived.

All this is changed in our degenerate days, and it is now possible for any one to find any other person with the simple key of street and number.

The irregular way in which towns grew up in former times is brought out in an anecdote about Kilmarnock. Early in the present century the streets of that town were narrow, winding, and intricate. An English commercial traveller, having completed some business there, mounted his horse, and set out for another town. He was making for the outskirts of Kilmarnock, and reflecting upon its apparent size and importance, when he suddenly found himself back at the cross. In the surprise of the moment he was heard to exclaim that surely his "sable eminence" must have had a hand in the building of it, for it was a town very easily got into, but there was no getting out of it.

A duty that the changed circumstances of the times now renders unnecessary was formerly imposed upon postmasters, of which there is hardly a recollection remaining among the officials carrying on the work of the post to-day. The duty is mentioned in an order of May 1824, to the following effect: "An old instruction was renewed in 1812, that all postmasters should transmit to me (the Secretary), for the information of His Majesty's Postmaster-General, an immediate account of all remarkable occurrences within their districts, that the same may be communicated, if necessary, to His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. This has not been invariably attended to, and I am commanded by His Lordship to say, that henceforward it will be expected of every Deputy." This gathering of news from all quarters is now adequately provided for by the Daily Press, and no incident of any importance occurs which is not immediately distributed through that channel, or flashed by the telegraph, to every corner of the kingdom.

A custom, which would now be looked upon as a curiosity, and the origin of which would have to be sought for in the remote past, was in operation in the larger towns of the kingdom until about the year 1859. The custom was that of ringing the town for letters to be despatched; certain of the postmen being authorised to go over apportioned districts, after the ordinary collections of letters from the receiving offices had been made, to gather in late letters for the mail. Until the year above mentioned the arrangement was thus carried out in Dublin. The letter-box at the chief office, and those at the receiving offices, closed two hours before the despatch of the night mail. Half an hour after this closing eleven postmen started to scour the town, collecting on their way letters and newspapers. Each man carried a locked leather wallet, into which, through an opening, letters and other articles were placed, the postmen receiving a fee of a penny on every letter, and a halfpenny on every newspaper. This was a personal fee to the men over and above the ordinary postage. To warn the public of the postman's approach each man carried a large bell, which he rang vigorously as he went his rounds. These men, besides taking up letters for the public, called also at the receiving offices for any letters left for them upon which the special fee had been paid, and the "ringers" had to reach the chief office one hour before the despatch of the night mail. This custom seems to have yielded considerable emolument to the men concerned, for when it was abolished compensation was given for the loss of fees, the annual payments ranging from £10 8s., to £36 8s. Increased posting facilities, and the infusion of greater activity into the performance of post-office work, were no doubt the things which "rang the parting knell" of these useful servants of the period.

It will perhaps be convenient to look at the packet service apart from the land service, though progress is as remarkable in the one as in the other. During the wars of the latter half of the last century, the packets, small as they were, were armed packets. But we almost smile in recording the armaments carried. Here is an account of the arms of the Roebuck packet as inventoried in 1791:—

In our own estuaries and seas the packets were not free from molestation, and were in danger of being taken. In 1779 the Carron Company were running vessels from the Forth to London, and the following notice was issued by them as an inducement to persons travelling between these places:—

"The Carron vessels are fitted out in the most complete manner for defence, at a very considerable expense, and are well provided with small arms. All mariners, recruiting parties, soldiers upon furlow, and all other steerage passengers who have been accustomed to the use of firearms, and who will engage to assist in defending themselves, will be accommodated with their passage to and from London upon satisfying the masters for their provisions, which in no instance shall exceed 10s. 6d. sterling." This was the year in which Paul Jones visited the Firth of Forth, and was spreading terror all round the coasts. The following was the service of the packets in the year 1780. Five packets were employed between Dover and Ostend and Calais, the despatches being made on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Between Harwich and Holland three were employed, the sailings in this case also taking place on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For New York and the West India Service twelve packets were engaged, sailing from Falmouth on the first Wednesday of every month. Four packets performed the duty between Falmouth and Lisbon, sailing every Saturday; and five packets kept up the Irish communication, sailing daily between Holyhead and Dublin. In the year 1798, a mail service seems to have been kept up by packets sailing from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, respecting which the following particulars may be interesting. They are taken from an old letter-book. "The passage-money to the office is 12s. 6d. for whole passengers, and 6s. 6d. for half passengers, either to or from England; 6d. of which is to be paid to the Captain for small beer, which both the whole and half passengers are to be informed of their being entitled to when they embark.

"1s. 6d. is allowed as a perquisite on each whole passenger, 1s. of which to the agent at Cuxhaven for every whole passenger embarking for England, and the other 6d. to the agent at Yarmouth; and in like manner 1s. to the agent at Yarmouth on every whole passenger embarking for the Continent, and 6d. to the agent at Cuxhaven; but no fee whatever is to be taken on half passengers, so that 10s. 6d. must be accounted for to the Revenue on each whole passenger, and 6s. on each half passenger."

Half passengers were servants, young children, or persons in low circumstances.

While touching upon passage-money, it may be noted that in 1811 the fare from Weymouth to Jersey or Guernsey, for cabin passengers, was, to the captain, 15s. 6d. and to the office 10s. 6d.—or £1, 6s. in all.

The mail packets performing the service between England and Ireland in the first quarter of the present century were not much to boast of. According to a survey taken at Holyhead in July 1821, the vessels employed to carry the mails between that port and Dublin were of very small tonnage, as will be seen by the following table:—

The valuation of these crafts, including rigging, furniture, and fitting, ranged from £1600 to £2400.

The failures or delays in making the passage across the Channel are thus described by Cleland in his Annals of Glasgow: "It frequently happens," says he, "that the mail packet is windbound at the mouth of the Liffey for several days together"; and we have seen it stated in a newspaper article that the packets crossing to Ireland by the Portpatrick route were sometimes delayed a couple of weeks by contrary winds.

A few years previously an attempt had been made to introduce steam-packets for the Holyhead and Dublin service; but this improved service was not at that time adopted. Referring to the year 1816, Cleland writes: "The success of steamboats on the Clyde induced some gentlemen in Dublin to order two vessels to be made to ply as packets in the Channel between Dublin and Holyhead, with a view of ultimately carrying the mail. The dimensions are as follows:—viz., keel 65 feet, beam 18 feet, with 9 feet draught of water—have engines of 20 horse-power, and are named the 'Britannia' and 'Hibernia.'" These were the modest ideas then held as to the power of steam to develop and expedite the packet service. In the period from 1850-60, when steam had been adopted upon the Holyhead and Dublin route, one of the first contract vessels was the Prince Arthur, having a gross tonnage of 400, and whose speed was thirteen or fourteen knots an hour. The latest addition to this line of packets is the Ireland a magnificent ship of 2095 tons gross, and of 7000 horse-power. Its rate of speed is twenty-two knots an hour.

As regards the American packet service perhaps greater strides than these even have been achieved. Prior to 1840 the vessels carrying the mails across the Atlantic were derisively called "coffin brigs," whose tonnage was probably about 400. At any rate, as will be seen later on, a packet in which Harriet Martineau crossed the Atlantic in 1836 was one of only 417 tons. On the 4th July 1840, a company, which is now the Cunard Company, started a contract service for the mails to America, the steamers employed having a tonnage burden of 1154 and indicated horse-power of 740. Their average speed was 8½ knots. In 1853 the packets had attained to greater proportions and higher speed, the average length of passage from Liverpool to New York being twelve days one hour fourteen minutes. As years rolled on competition and the exigencies of the times called for still more rapid transit, and at the present day the several companies performing the American Mail Service have afloat palatial ships of 7000 to 10,000 tons, bringing America within a week's touch of Great Britain.

Going back a little more than a hundred years, it is of interest to see how irregular were the communications to and from foreign ports by mail packet. Benjamin Franklin, writing of the period 1757, mentions the following circumstances connected with a voyage he made from New York to Europe in that year. The packets were at the disposition of General Lord Loudon, then in charge of the army in America; and Franklin had to travel from Philadelphia to New York to join the packet, Lord Loudon having preceded him to the port of despatch. The General told Franklin confidentially, that though it had been given out that the packet would sail on Saturday next, still it would not sail till Monday. He was, however, advised not to delay longer. "By some accidental hindrance at a ferry," writes Franklin, "it was Monday noon before I arrived, and I was much afraid she might have sailed, as the wind was fair; but I was soon made easy by the information that she was still in the harbour, and would not leave till the next day. One would imagine that I was now on the very point of departing for Europe. I thought so; but I was not then so well acquainted with his Lordship's character, of which indecision was one of the strongest features. It was about the beginning of April that I came to New York, and it was near the end of June before we sailed. There were then two of the packet-boats which had long been in port, but were detained for the General's letters, which were always to be ready to-morrow. Another packet arrived; she, too, was detained; and, before we sailed, a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to be despatched, as having been there longest. Passengers were engaged in all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and the merchants uneasy about their letters, and the orders they had given for insurance (it being war-time) for fall goods; but their anxiety availed nothing; his Lordship's letters were not ready; and yet, whoever waited on him found him always at his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs write abundantly."

Apart from the manifest inconvenience of postal service conducted in the way described, one cannot wonder that the affairs of the American Colonies should get into a bad way when conducted under a policy of so manifest vacillation and indecision.

But the irregular transmission of mails between America and Europe was not a thing referring merely to the year 1757, for Franklin, writing from Passy, near Paris, in the year 1782, again dwells upon the uncertainty of the communication. "We are far from the sea-ports," he says, "and not well informed, and often misinformed, about the sailing of the vessels. Frequently we are told they are to sail in a week or two, and often they lie in the ports for months after with our letters on board, either waiting for convoy or for other reasons. The post-office here is an unsafe conveyance; many of the letters we receive by it have evidently been opened, and doubtless the same happens to those we send; and, at this time particularly, there is so violent a curiosity in all kinds of people to know something relating to the negotiations, and whether peace may be expected, or a continuance of the war, that there are few private hands or travellers that we can trust with carrying our despatches to the sea-coast; and I imagine that they may sometimes be opened and destroyed, because they cannot be well sealed."

Harriet Martineau gives an insight into the way in which mails were treated on board American packets in the year 1836, which may be held to be almost in recent times; yet the treatment is such that a Postmaster-General of to-day would be roused to indignation at the outrage perpetrated upon them. She thus writes: "I could not leave such a sight, even for the amusement of hauling over the letter-bags. Mr. Ely put on his spectacles; Mrs. Ely drew a chair; others lay along on deck to examine the superscriptions of the letters from Irish emigrants to their friends. It is wonderful how some of these epistles reach their destinations; the following, for instance, begun at the top left-hand corner, and elaborately prolonged to the bottom right one:—Mrs. A. B. ile of Man douglas wits sped England. The letter-bags are opened for the purpose of sorting out those which are for delivery in port from the rest. A fine day is always chosen, generally towards the end of the voyage, when amusements become scarce and the passengers are growing weary. It is pleasant to sit on the rail and see the passengers gather round the heap of letters, and to hear the shouts of merriment when any exceedingly original superscription comes under notice." Such liberties with the mails in the present day would excite consternation in the headquarters of the Post Office Department. Nor is this all. Miss Martineau makes the further remark—"The two Miss O'Briens appeared to-day on deck, speaking to nobody, sitting on the same seats, with their feet on the same letter-bag, reading two volumes of the same book, and dressed alike," etc. The mail-bags turned into footstools, forsooth! It is interesting to note the size of the packet in which this lady crossed the Atlantic. It was the Orpheus, Captain Bursley, a vessel of 417 tons. In looking back on these times, and knowing what dreadful storms our huge steamers encounter between Europe and America, we cannot but admire the courage which must have inspired men and women to embark for distant ports in crafts so frail.[4] It is well also to note that the transit from New York occupied the period from the 1st to the 26th August, the better part of four weeks.

Reference has been made to the fact that a century ago the little packets, to which the mails and passengers were consigned, were built for fighting purposes. It was no uncommon thing for them to fall into the hands of an enemy; but they did not always succumb without doing battle, and sometimes they had the honours of the day. In 1793 the Antelope packet fought a privateer off the coast of Cuba and captured it, after 49 of the 65 men the privateer carried had been killed or disabled. The Antelope had only two killed and three wounded—one mortally. In 1803 the Lady Hobart, a vessel of 200 tons, sailing from Nova Scotia for England, fell in with and captured a French schooner; but the Lady Hobart a few days later ran into an iceberg, receiving such damage that she shortly thereafter foundered. The mails were loaded with iron and thrown overboard, and the crew and passengers, taking to the boats, made for Newfoundland, which they reached after enduring great hardships.

The introduction of the uniform Penny Postage, under the scheme with which Sir Rowland Hill's name is so intimately associated, and the Jubilee of which occurs in the present year, marks an important epoch in the review which is now under consideration. To enter into a history of the Penny Postage agitation would be beyond the scope of these pages. Like all great schemes, the idea propounded was fought against inch by inch, and the battle, so far as the objectors are concerned, remains a memorial of the incapacity of a great portion of mankind to think out any scheme on its merits. Whatever is new is sure to be opposed, apparently on no other ground than that of novelty, and in this bearing men are often not unlike some of the lower creatures in the scale of animated nature, that start and fly from things which they have not seen before, though they may have no more substance than that of a shadow. However this may be, the Penny Postage measure has produced stupendous results. In 1839, the year before the reduction of postage, the letters passing through the post in the United Kingdom were 82,500,000. In 1840, under the Penny Postage Scheme, the number immediately rose to nearly 169,000,000. That is to say, the letters were doubled in number. Ten years later the number rose to 347,000,000, and in last year (1889) the total number of letters passing through the Post Office in this country was 1,558,000,000. In addition to the letters, however, the following articles passed through the post last year—Book Packets and Circulars, 412,000,000; Newspapers 152,000,000; Post Cards 201,000,000.

Should any reader desire to inform himself with some degree of fulness of the stages through which the Penny Postage agitation passed, he cannot do better than peruse Sir Henry Cole's Fifty Years of Public Work.

The Postmaster-General, speaking at the Jubilee Meeting at the London Guildhall, on the 16th May last, thus contrasted the work of 1839 with that of 1889: "Although I would not to-night weary an assemblage like this with tedious and tiresome figures, it may be at least permitted to me to remind you that, whereas in the year immediately preceding the establishment of the Penny Postage the number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom amounted to[5] 76,000,000, the number of letters delivered in this country last year was nearly 1,600,000,000—twenty times the number of letters which passed through the post fifty years ago. To these letters must be added the 652,000,000 of post-cards and other communications by the halfpenny post, and the enormous number of newspapers, which bring the total number of communications passing through the post to considerably above two billions. I venture to say that this is the most stupendous result of any administrative change which the world has witnessed. If you estimate the effect of that upon our daily life; if you pause for a moment to consider how trade and business have been facilitated and developed; how family relations have been maintained and kept together; if you for a moment allow your mind to dwell upon the change which is implied in that great fact to which I have called attention, I think you will see that the establishment of the penny post has done more to change—and change for the better—the face of Old England than almost any other political or social project which has received the sanction of Legislature within our history."

Among the Penny Postage literature issued in the year 1840 there are several songs. One of these was published at Leith, and is given below. It is entitled "Hurrah for the Postman, the great Roland Hill." The leaflet is remarkable for this, that it is headed by a picture of postmen rushing through the streets delivering letters on roller skates. It is generally believed that roller skates are quite a modern invention, and in the absence of proof to the contrary it may be fair to assume that the author of the song anticipated the inventor in this mode of progression. So there really seems to be nothing new under the sun!

The advantages resulting from a rapid and cheap carriage of letters must readily occur to any ordinary mind; but perhaps the following would hardly suggest itself as one of those advantages. Dean Alford thus wrote about the usefulness of post-cards, introduced on the 1st October 1870: "You will also find a new era in postage begun. The halfpenny cards have become a great institution. Some of us make large use of them to write short Latin epistles on, and are brushing up our Cicero and Pliny for that purpose."

Unlike some of the branches of post-office work, other than the distribution of news, either by letter or newspaper, the money order system dates from long before the introduction of penny postage—namely from the year 1792.

It was set on foot by some of the post-office clerks on their own account; but it was not till 1838 that it became a recognised business of the Department. Owing to high rates of commission, and to high postage, little business was done in the earlier years. In 1839 less than 190,000 orders were issued of the value of £313,000, while last year the total number of transactions within the United Kingdom was 9,228,183, representing a sum of nearly £23,000,000 sterling.

In the year 1861 the Post Office entered upon the business of banking by the establishment of the Post Office Savings Banks. At the present time there are upwards of 9000 offices within the kingdom at which Post Office Savings Bank business is transacted. The number of persons having accounts with these banks is now 4,220,927, and the annual deposits represent a gross sum of over £19,000,000.

In order of time the next additional business taken up by the Department was that of the telegraphs. Before 1870 the telegraph work for the public was carried on by several commercial companies and by the railway companies; but in that year this business became a monopoly, like the transmission of letters, in the hands of the Post Office. The work of taking over these various telegraphs, and, consolidating them into a harmonious whole, was one of gigantic proportions, requiring indomitable courage and unwearying energy, as well as consummate ability; and when the history of this enterprise comes to be written, it will perhaps be found that the undertaking, in magnitude and importance, comes in no measure short of the Penny Postage scheme of Sir Rowland Hill.

In the first year of the control of the telegraphs by the Post Office the number of messages sent was nearly 9,472,000, excluding 700,000 press messages. At that time the minimum charge was 1s. per message. In 1885 the minimum was reduced to 6d., and under this rate the number of messages rose last year to 62,368,000.

The most recent addition of importance to the varied work of the Post Office is that of the Parcel Post. This business was started in 1883. In the first year of its operation the number of inland parcels transmitted was upwards of 22,900,000. Last year the number, including a proportion of foreign and colonial parcels, rose to 39,500,000, earning a gross postage of over £878,547. The uniform rates in respect of distance, the vast number of offices where parcels are received and delivered, and the extensive machinery at the command of the Post Office for the work, render this business one of extreme accommodation to the public. Not only is the Parcel Post taken advantage of for the transmission of ordinary business or domestic parcels, but it is made the channel for the exchange of all manner of out-of-the-way articles. The following are some instances of the latter class observed at Edinburgh: Scotch oatmeal going to Paris, Naples, and Berlin; bagpipes for the Lower Congo, and for native regiments in the Punjaub; Scotch haggis for Ontario, Canada, and for Caebar, India; smoked haddocks for Rome; the great puzzle "Pigs in Clover" for Bavaria, and for Wellington, New Zealand, and so on. At home, too, curious arrangements come under notice. A family, for example, in London find it to their advantage to have a roast of beef sent to them by parcel post twice a week from a town in Fife. And a gentleman of property, having his permanent residence in Devonshire, finds it convenient, when enjoying the shooting season in the far north-west of Scotland, to have his vegetables forwarded by parcel post from his home garden in Devonshire to his shooting lodge in Scotland. The postage on these latter consignments sometimes amounts to about fifteen shillings a day, a couple of post-office parcel hampers being required for their conveyance.

And we should not omit to mention here the number of persons employed in the Post by whom this vast amount of most diverse business is carried on for the nation. Of head and sub-postmasters and letter receivers, each of whom has a post-office under his care, there are 17,770. The other established offices of the Post Office number over 40,500, and there are, besides, persons employed in unestablished positions to the number of over 50,000. Thus there is a great army of no less than 108,000 persons serving the public in the various domains of the postal service.

A century ago, and indeed down to a period only fifty years ago, the world, looked at from the present vantage-ground, must appear to have been in a dull, lethargic state, with hardly any pulse and a low circulation. As for nerve system it had none. The changes which the Post Office has wrought in the world, but more particularly in our own country, are only to be fully perceived and appreciated by the thoughtful. Now the heart of the nation throbs strongly at the centre, while the current of activity flows quickly and freely to the remotest corners of the state. The telegraph provides a nervous system unknown before. By its means every portion of the country is placed in immediate contact with every other part; the thrill of joy and the moan of desolation are no longer things of locality; they are shared fully and immediately by the whole; and the interest of brotherhood, extending to parts of the country which, under other conditions, must have remained unknown and uncared for, makes us realise that all men are but members of one and the same family.

The freedom and independence now enjoyed by the individual, as a result of the vast influence exercised by society through the rapid exchange of thought, is certainly a thing of which the people of our own country may well be proud. Right can now assert itself in a way which was entirely beyond the reach of our predecessors of a hundred years ago; and wrong receives summary judgment at the hands of a whole people. Yet there is a growing danger that this great liberty of the individual may become, in one direction, a spurious liberty, and that the elements of physical force, exerting themselves under the ægis of uncurbed freedom, may enter into conspiracy against intellect, individual effort, and thrift in such a way as to produce a tyranny worse than that existing in the most despotic states.

The introduction of the telegraph, and the greater facilities afforded by the press for the general distribution of news, have greatly changed the nature of commercial speculation. Formerly, when news came from abroad at wide intervals, it was of the utmost consequence to obtain early command of prices and information as to movements in the markets, and whoever gained the news first had the first place in the race. Nowadays the telegraph, and the newspapers by the help of the telegraph, give all an equal start, and the whole world knows at once what is going on in every capital of the globe. The thirst for the first possession of news in commercial life is happily described in Glasgow Past and Present, wherein the author gives an account of a practice prevailing in the Tontine Reading Rooms at the end of last century. "Immediately on receiving the bag of papers from the post-office," says the writer, "the waiter locked himself up in the bar, and after he had sorted the different papers and had made them up in a heap, he unlocked the door of the bar, and making a sudden rush into the middle of the room, he then tossed up the whole lot of newspapers as high as the ceiling of the room. Now came the grand rush and scramble of the subscribers, every one darting forward to lay hold of a falling newspaper. Sometimes a lucky fellow got hold of five or six newspapers and ran off with them to a corner, in order to select his favourite paper; but he was always hotly pursued by some half-dozen of the disappointed scramblers, who, without ceremony, pulled from his hands the first paper they could lay hold of, regardless of its being torn in the contest. On these occasions I have often seen a heap of gentlemen sprawling on the floor of the room and riding upon one another's backs like a parcel of boys. It happened, however, unfortunately, that a gentleman in one of these scrambles got two of his teeth knocked out of his head, and this ultimately brought about a change in the manner of delivering the newspapers."

Another instance of the anxiety for early news is exhibited in a practice which prevailed in Glasgow about fifty years ago. The Glasgow merchants were deeply interested in shipping and other news coming from Liverpool. The mail at that period arrived in Glasgow some time in the afternoon during business hours. A letter containing quotations from Liverpool for the Royal Exchange was due in the mail daily. This letter was enclosed in a conspicuously bright red cover, and it was the business of the post-office clerk, immediately he opened the Liverpool bag, to seize this letter and hand it to a messenger from the Royal Exchange who was in attendance at the Post Office to receive it. This messenger hastened to the Exchange, rang a bell to announce the arrival of the news, and forthwith the contents of the letter were posted up in the Exchange. The merchants who had offices within sound of the bell were then seen hurrying to the Exchange buildings, to be cheered or depressed as the case might be by the information which the mail had brought them.

A clever instance of how the possession of early news could be turned to profitable account in the younger days of the century is recorded of Mr. John Rennie, a nephew of his namesake the great engineer, and an extensive dealer in corn and cattle. His headquarters at the time were at East Linton, near Dunbar. "At one period of his career Mr. Rennie habitually visited London either for business or pleasure, or both combined. One day, when present at the grain market, in Mark Lane, sudden war news arrived, in consequence of which the price of wheat immediately bounded up 20s., 25s., and even 30s. per quarter. At once he saw his opportunity and left for Scotland by the next mail. He knew, of course, that the mail carried the startling war news to Edinburgh, but he trusted to his wit to outdo it by reaching the northern capital first. As the coach passed the farm of Skateraw, some distance east of Dunbar, it was met by the farmer, old Harry Lee, on horseback. Rennie, who was an outside passenger, no sooner recognised Lee than he sprang from his seat on the coach to the ground. Coming up to Lee, Rennie hurriedly whispered something to him, and induced him to lend his horse to carry Rennie on to East Linton. Rennie, who was an astonishingly active man, vaulted into the saddle, and immediately rode off at full gallop westwards. The day was a Wednesday, and, as it was already 11 o'clock forenoon, he knew that he had no time to lose; but he was not the stamp of man to allow the grass to grow under his feet on such an important occasion. Ere he reached Dunbar the mail was many hundred yards behind. At his own place at East Linton he drew up, mounted his favourite horse "Silvertail," which for speed and endurance had no rival in the county, and again proceeded at the gallop. When he reached the Grassmarket, Edinburgh—a full hour before the mail,—the grain-selling was just starting, and before the alarming war news had got time to spread Rennie had every peck of wheat in the market bought up. He must have coined an enormous profit by this smart transaction; but to him it seemed to matter nothing at all. He was one of the most careless of the harum-scarum sons of Adam, and if he made money easily, so in a like manner did he let it slip his grip."

The two following instances of the expedients to which merchants resorted, before the introduction of the telegraph, in cases of urgency, and when the letter post would not serve them, are given by the author of Glasgow Past and Present, to whose work reference has already been made:—

"During the French War the premiums of insurance upon running ships (ships sailing without convoy) were very high, in consequence of which several of our Glasgow ship-owners who possessed quick-sailing vessels were in the practice of allowing the expected time of arrival of their ships closely to approach before they effected insurance upon them, thus taking the chance of a quick passage being made, and if the ships arrived safe the insurance was saved.

"Mr. Archibald Campbell, about this time an extensive Glasgow merchant, had allowed one of his ships to remain uninsured till within a short period of her expected arrival; at last, getting alarmed, he attempted to effect insurance in Glasgow, but found the premium demanded so high that he resolved to get his ship and cargo insured in London. Accordingly, he wrote a letter to his broker in London, instructing him to get the requisite insurance made on the best terms possible, but, at all events, to get the said insurance effected. This letter was despatched through the post-office in the ordinary manner, the mail at that time leaving Glasgow at two o'clock p.m. At seven o'clock the same night Mr. Campbell received an express from Greenock announcing the safe arrival of his ship. Mr. Campbell, on receiving this intelligence, instantly despatched his head clerk in pursuit of the mail, directing him to proceed by postchaises-and-four with the utmost speed until he overtook it, and then to get into it; or, if he could not overtake it, he was directed to proceed to London, and to deliver a letter to the broker countermanding the instructions about insurance. The clerk, notwithstanding of extra payment to the postilions, and every exertion to accelerate his journey, was unable to overtake the mail; but he arrived in London on the third morning shortly after the mail, and immediately proceeded to the residence of the broker, whom he found preparing to take his breakfast, and before delivery of the London letters. The order for insurance written for was then countermanded, and the clerk had the pleasure of taking a comfortable breakfast with the broker. The expenses of this express amounted to £100; but it was said that the premium of insurance, if it had been effected, would have amounted to £1500, so that Mr. Campbell was reported to have saved £1400 by his promptitude."

"At the period in question a rise had taken place in the cotton-market, and there was a general expectancy among the cotton-dealers that there would be a continued and steady advance of prices in every description of cotton. Acting upon this belief Messrs. James Finlay & Co. had sent out orders by post to their agent in India to make extensive purchases of cotton on their account, to be shipped by the first vessels for England. It so happened, however, shortly after these orders had been despatched, that cotton fell in price, and a still greater fall was expected to take place. Under these circumstances Messrs. Finlay & Co. despatched an overland express to India countermanding their orders to purchase cotton. This was the first, and, I believe, the only overland express despatched from Glasgow to India by a private party on commercial purposes."

One of the greatest achievements of our own time, yet too often overlooked, is the marvellously rapid diffusion of parliamentary news throughout the country. Important debates are frequently protracted in the House of Commons into the early hours of the morning. The speeches are instantly reported by the shorthand writers in the gallery, who dog the lips of the speakers and commit their every word to paper. Thus seized in the fleet lines of stenography, the words and phrases are then transcribed into long-hand. Relays of messengers carry the copy to the telegraph office, where the words are punched in the form of a mysterious language on slips of paper like tape, which are run through the Wheatstone telegraph transmitter, the electric current carrying the news to distant stations at the rate of several hundred words a minute. At these stations the receiving-machine pours out at an equal rate, another tape, bearing a record in a different character, from which relays of clerks, attending the oracle, convert the weighty sayings again into ordinary language. The news thus received is carried forthwith by a succession of messengers to the newspaper office; the compositors set the matter up in type; it is reviewed and edited by the men appointed to the duty; the columns are stereotyped, and in that form are placed in the printing-machines. The machines are set in motion at astonishing speed, turning out the newspapers cut and folded and ready for the reader. A staff is in attendance to place under cover the copies of subscribers for despatch by the early mails. These are carried to the post-office, and so transmitted to their destinations. Taking Edinburgh as a point for special consideration, all that has been stated applies to this city. For the first despatches to the north, the Scotsman and Leader newspapers are conveyed to certain trains as early as 4 A.M.; and by the breakfast-hour, or early in the forenoon, the parliamentary debates of the previous night are being discussed over the greater part of Scotland. And all this hurry and intellectual activity is going on while the nation at large is wrapped in sleep, and probably not one person in a hundred ever thinks or concerns himself to know how it is done.

The frequency and rapidity of communication between different parts of the world seems to have brought the whole globe into a very small focus, for obscure places, which would be unknown, one would think, beyond their own immediate neighbourhoods, are frequently well within the cognisance of persons living in far-distant quarters. An instance of this is given by the postmaster of Epworth, a village near to Doncaster. "We have," says the postmaster, "an odd place in this parish known as Nineveh Farm. Some years ago a letter was received here which had been posted somewhere in the United States of America, and was addressed merely

Mr. ——
Nineveh.

I have always regarded its delivery to the proper person as little less than a miracle, but it happened."

It is impossible to say how far the influence of this great revolution in the mail service on land and sea may extend. That the change has been, on the whole, to the advantage of mankind goes without saying. One contrast is here given, and the reader can draw his own conclusions in other directions. The peace of 1782, which followed the American War of Independence, was only arrived at after negotiations extending over more than two years. Prussia and Austria were at war in 1866. The campaign occupied seven days; and from the declaration of war to the formal conclusion of peace only seven weeks elapsed. Is it to be doubted that the difference in the two cases was, in large measure, due to the fact that news travelled slowly in the one case and fast in the other?

We may look back on the past with very mixed feelings,—dreaming of the easy-going methods of our forefathers, which gave them leisure for study and reflection, or esteeming their age as an age of lethargy, of lumbering and slumbering.

We are proud of our own era, as one full of life and activity, full of hurry and bustle, and as existing under the spell of high electrical tension. But too many of us know to our cost that this present whirl of daily life has one most serious drawback, summed up in the commonplace, but not the less true, saying,—

"It's the pace that kills."

Yet one more thought remains. Will the pace be kept up in the next hundred years? There is no reason to suppose it will not, and the world is hardly likely to go to sleep. Our successors who live a hundred years hence will doubtless learn much that man has not yet dreamt of. Time will produce many changes and reveal deep secrets; but as to what these shall be, let him prophesy who knows.