Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/148

148 At times the mails on the Cumberland Road were greatly delayed, taxing the patience of the public beyond endurance. The road itself was so well built that rain had little effect upon it as a rule. In fact, delay of the mails was more often due to inefficiency of the Post Office Department, inefficiency of the stage line service, or failure of contractors, than poor roads. Until a bridge was built across the Ohio River at Wheeling, in 1836, mails often became congested, especially when ice was running out. There were frequent derangements of cross and way mails which affected seriously the efficiency of the service. The vast number of connecting mails on the Cumberland Road made regularity in transmission of cross mails confusing, especially if the through mails were at all irregular.

To us living in the present age of telegraphic communication and the ubiquitous