A Hundred Years by Post
A Jubilee Retrospect
BY
J. WILSON HYDE
AUTHOR OF 'THE ROYAL MAIL: ITS CURIOSITIES AND ROMANCE'
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND CO., LIM.
St. Dunstan's House
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1891
[All rights reserved]
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty,
at theEdinburgh University Press.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
HENRY CECIL RAIKES, M.P.
HER MAJESTY'S POSTMASTER-GENERAL,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE,
BY PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
The following pages give some particulars of the changes that have takenplace in the Post Office service during the past hundred years; and thematter may prove interesting, not only on account of the changesthemselves, but in respect of the influence which the growing usefulnessof the Postal Service must necessarily have upon almost every relationof political, educational, social, and commercial life. More especiallymay the subject be found attractive at the close of the present year,when the country has been celebrating the Jubilee of the Penny Post.
Edinburgh,
December 1890.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| Frontispiece—Mail-Coach in Thunderstorm. | |
| Past and Present contrasted, | 1 |
| Liberty of Subject and Public Opinion, | 5 |
| Abuses of Power, | 7 |
| Slow Diffusion of News, | 17 |
| Illustration—Analysis of London to Edinburgh Mail of 2d March 1838 | |
| State of Roads and Insecurity of Travelling, | 27 |
| Foot and Horse Posts, | 33 |
| Illustration—The Mail, 1803 | |
| The Mail-Coach Era, | 40 |
| Illustration—The Mail, 1824 | |
| Illustration—Modern Mail "Apparatus" for Exchange of Mails | |
| Illustration—The Mail-Coach Guard |
