The Royal Mail. James Wilson Hyde
twenty-six letters were found inside his hat when he was searched, it is not unlikely that he commenced by merely peeping into the letters by pulling out their ends, for several bank letters containing notes for considerable sums had been so violated, while the contents were found safe. To cover one delinquency the boy had recourse to others. In order to account for his delay on the road, he opened the bag containing his way-bill, borrowed a knife from a shoemaker who kept one of the toll-houses, and altered his hour of despatch from his starting-point. The unfortunate youth also gave way to drink, stopping at the toll-houses, and calling sometimes for rum, sometimes for whisky, the keepers sharing in the refreshments, which were purchased with stolen money. On one occasion the boy opened a parcel intrusted to him, and from a letter inside abstracted a twenty-shilling note. Whether to render himself all the more redoubtable on the road, over a section of which he travelled in the dark, or for some other purpose, is not clear, but with six shillings of the aforesaid sum he bought a sword, and with two shillings a pistol, the balance going in drink. The occupation of riding the mail was not for one so young: yet it was found that full-grown men often gave more trouble than boys; and it may be here remarked that the adventure of Davie Mailsetter in the 'Antiquary' is no great exaggeration of the service of postboys at the period to which it refers. The poor boy Shearer was put upon his trial before the Circuit Court of Justiciary at Aberdeen; and when called upon to plead, confessed his guilt. There was every disposition on the part of the public prosecutor, and of the presiding judge, to let the case go as lightly as possible against the prisoner—doubtless on account of his youth; but the law had to be vindicated, and the sentence passed was that of transportation for a period of seven years. Since then humanity has made progress, and no such punishment would be inflicted in such a case nowadays.
Exposed to all the inclemency of the seasons, both by night and day; having to weather snowstorms and suffer the drenchings of heavy rain; to grope a way through the dense fogs of our climate, and endure the biting frosts of midwinter; or yet to face the masked highwayman on the open heath, or the footpad in the deep and narrow road—these were the unpleasantnesses and the dangers which beset the couriers of the Post-office in past years, ere the department had grown to its present robust manhood. As to the exposure in wintry weather, it is stated that postboys on reaching the end of their stages were sometimes so benumbed with the cold that they had to be lifted out of their saddles. Some idea of what the postboys suffered may be gathered from the adventure of the Rothbury to Morpeth mail driver in the snowstorm of the 1st March 1886. This man, Robert Paton, left Rothbury with two horses, and another was sent from Morpeth to meet him. On his way two of the horses succumbed to fatigue, and these, with the mail-cart, were left behind in charge of a companion, while Paton proceeded on the third horse, that sent from Morpeth, to his destination. One of the horses abandoned was so knocked up that it had to be left in the snow till next day. At one time the snow would just reach the horses' knees, at another the animals would be plunging desperately through quickly forming wreaths, in snow reaching half-way up their shoulders, and then an open stretch of country would expose them to the fury of the blinding storm. Paton had started from Rothbury at five o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at Morpeth at 8.40 p.m., but he did not reach the Post-office there till 11.45 p.m., and his son, who had carried the parcel basket for the last three miles, did not come in till midnight. On his arrival at Morpeth, Paton presented a most grotesque appearance, something like the pictures of Father Christmas, being covered over with snow, and adorned with icicles hanging from his hair and beard. He required the aid of a friendly hand to steady him when he descended, as his lower limbs seemed cramped and powerless, owing to the cold and long continuance in the saddle.
Rothbury and Morpeth Mail Driver.
Of the attacks made upon postboys by highwaymen, some instances more or less tragic are given in another chapter. This we will conclude by recording the fate that befell a postboy who was charged with the conveyance of the mail for London which left Edinburgh on Saturday the 20th November 1725. This mail, after reaching Berwick in safety and proceeding thence, was never again heard of. A notice issued by the Post-office at the time ran as follows: "A most diligent search has been made; but neither the boy, the horse, nor the packet has yet been heard of. The boy, after passing Goswick, having a part of the sands to ride which divide the Holy Island from the mainland, it is supposed he has missed his way, and rode towards the sea, where he and his horse have both perished." The explanation here suggested is not at all improbable, in view of the fact that November is a month given to fogs, when a rider might readily go astray crossing treacherous sands.
CHAPTER III.
STAGE AND MAIL COACHES.
Prior to the middle of the seventeenth century, about which period stage-coaches came into use in England, the only vehicles available to ordinary travellers would seem to have been the carrier's stage-waggon, which, owing to its lumbering build and the deplorable state of the roads, made only from ten to fifteen miles in a long summer's day. The interior of such waggons exhibited none of the refinements of modern means of travel, the only furnishing of the machine being a quantity of straw littered on the floor, on which the passengers could sit or lie during the weary hours of their journey. Though the stage-coaches came into vogue about the middle of the seventeenth century, as already stated, the heavy waggons seem also to have held a place till much later—for in one of these Roderick Random performed part of his journey to London in 1739; and it was doubtless only the meaner class of people who travelled in that way, as the description given by Smollett of his companions does not mirror, certainly, people of fashion. M. Sobrière, a Frenchman, on his way from Dover to London in the reign of Charles II., thus writes of his experience of the waggon: "That I might not take post, or be obliged to use the stage-coach, I went from Dover to London in a waggon. It was drawn by six horses, one before another, and driven by a waggoner, who walked by the side of it. He was clothed in black, and appointed in all things like another St. George. He had a brave Montero on his head, and was a merry fellow, fancied he made a figure, and seemed mightily pleased with himself." Unlike travelling in the present day, when one may go 100 miles in a railway carriage without speaking to a fellow-passenger, the journey in the old-fashioned waggon brought all the travellers too close and too long together to admit of individual isolation, for the passengers might be associated for days together as companions, had to take their refreshment together, lived as it were in common, and it was even the custom to elect a chairman at the outset to preside over the company during the journey. But the stage-coach gradually became the established public conveyance of the country, improving in its construction and its rate of progression as the improved state of the roads admitted of and encouraged such improvement. Still, compared with the stage-coaches of the best period, travelling by the earlier stage-coaches was a sorry achievement. Here is an advertisement of stage-coaches of the year 1658:—
"From the 26th April there will continue to go stage-coaches from the George Inn, without Aldersgate, London, unto the several cities and towns, for the rates and at the times hereafter mentioned and declared:—
"Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—To Salisbury, in two days, for xx. s.; to Blandford and Dorchester, in two days and half, for xxx. s.; to Burput, in three days, for xxx. s.; to Exmister, Hunnington, and Exeter, in four days, for xl. s.; to Stamford, in two days, for xx. s.; … to York, in four days, for xl. s."
Indeed the charges might have been reckoned by time, the travelling being at the rate of about 10s. a day. Another advertisement in 1739 thus sets forth the merits of some of the stage-coaches of the period:—
"Exeter Flying Stage-coach in three days, and Dorchester and Blandford in two days. Go from the Saracen's Head Inn, in Friday Street, London, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; and from the New Inn, in Exeter, every Tuesday and Thursday." Then the advertisement