Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/166

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. FEB. 19, wo*.

ment that "stamped covers" were used in Australia previous to Rowland Hill's scheme to be precise, in 1838 was culled from an interesting article on 'Stamp Collecting,' written in October last by Mr. C. H. Bulli- vant. In giving the name of Randolph as a Post-Master I merely quoted from Haydn's 'Dictionary of Dates,' as could easily be seen by the context. A great amount of informa- tion regarding 'Postage and Post Office' may be found in the ' Dictionary of Com- merce,' a copy of which I have, dated 1835, which quotes from Herodotus, lib. viii. c. 98 ; Bergier, ' Histoire des Grands Chemins,' lib. iv. c. 4 ; ' Bouchand sur la Police des Remains,' pp. 136-51 ; Black, ' Commerce,' book i. c. viii. ; Macpherson's ' History of Commerce,' 1784, &c. THORNE GEORGE.

My memory takes me back to 1830-40, and I saw a good deal of correspondence, private, official, and of M.P.s. My impression is that small envelopes were in use for invitations delivered by hand, and occasionally for official correspondence and for franks by M.P.s., which were given to friends, and occasionally sold by impecunious members of Parliament. Their use for ordinary post-letter purposes was impossible, owing to the vigilance of the Post -Office authorities. Anything which appeared to contain a second piece of paper was charged double postage. I remember once folding up a letter in an unusual way, which I thought clever, but the receiver was charged double postage for it in consequence.

As regards the extra halfpenny upon Scotch letters, my impression is that this charge was to cover the tolls which had to be paid in Scotland, while in England mails passed all toll-bars free. Envelopes only came into general use in 1840, when the penny post was introduced. G. C. W.

MR. HOUSDEN is probably right in saying' "When ordinary private letters were first sent by post is a question more easily asked than answered." No doubt the practice of including private letters among those from and to the king or State, for which the post was originally instituted, was of slow growth ; but Mr. Joyce, in his ' History of the Post Office,' conclusively shows that the earliest postal reformer of real eminence, Witherings, was the man who, in Charles I.'s reign, made of an irregular practice an organized system. After Witherings's three years' able manage- ment of the foreign posts, the king com- missioned him, in 1635, to put the inland posts into better order. It was surely time, since the keepers of the post-houses, as appears from the petition of the unfortunate '

"99 poore men," had, so far back as 1628. received no wages for nearly seven years, and some were in prison for debt. A detailed account of Witherings's plan will be found in Mr. Joyce's interesting pages. "The term ' post,' " as he reminds us, " meant nothing more than the carrier or bearer of the letter." And again :

" The term ' postage,' in the sense of a charge upon a letter, is comparatively modern. The term is, indeed, used in the Act of 1660, but there it signifies the hire of a horse for travelling ; ' Each horse's hire or postage.' "

MR. HOUSDEN may be interested to learn from the same authority that " the Act of 1764 is the first to use it" i.e., the term " postage " as applied to letters although I fear this information cannot do much to lessen the difficulty of answering the question as to when private letters first travelled in company with those of the State.

ELEANOR C. SMYTH. Harborne.

MUNDY (9 th S. xii. 485 ; 10 tb S. i. 31). MR. PERCY DRYDEN MUNDY is surely in error when he asserts that Lord Edmund Howard, son of the second Duke of Norfolk, married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Mundy, Lord Mayor of London (1522-3). Lord Edmund Howard was, so far as I can dis- cover, only twice married : firstly to Joyce Culpepper, by whom he was father of Queen Katharine Howard, and secondly to one Dorothy Troyes. Perhaps, however, MR. MUNDY can advance some proof to the effec that the "Margaret Hawarde" of Sir Joh Mundy's will was Lord Edmund's wife.

GERALD BRENAN. .

Willesden.

PINDAR FAMILY (9 th S. xii. 448). Your correspondent may perhaps find in Wesley's 'Journal,' 20 July, 1774, 5 July, 1788, some- thing to his purpose. " Mr. Pinder " is almost certainly Robert, rather than John, "of the two brothers set forth in the ' Alumni Oxonienses.' The volume of ' Lincolnshire Pedigrees' (Harleian Soc., No. 50) containing letter P has not come to my hand. Sir Wm. Dugdale disallowed the baronetcy of the Pindars of [? ] at his visitation of 1663

(Wotton). But are these connected Pindars ?

F.

Sir Paul Pindar, to whom MR. LEWIS LAM- BERT refers, was born at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, in 1565 or 1566. His arms are given in Northamptonshire Notes and Queries, vol. i. p. 160, as a chevron argent between three lions' heads erased ermine, crowned or. They are engraved, I believe.