Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/287

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

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��the Department will be able to assort, with facility and correctness, the country letters, according to their respective districts, before they reach London in the morning." Each resident was also requested to add the initials of his district to his address inside his letters, and, if in business, to insert them in his hi voices or advertise- ments.

' N. & Q.' from almost its commencement has had many notes Harriet and queries about the Post Office. A correspondent on the 4th of Martineau. January, 1851, quotes Miss Martineau's story of the origin of the Penny Post from her ' History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace,' vol. ii. p. 425. In the following week, over the well-known initials C. W. D., appears a reply ; and on the 5th of April, after a long article on ' Edmund Prideaux and the First Post Office,' the following extract is given from Rowland Hill's ' Post Office Reform ' :

" Coleridge tells a story which shows how much the Post Office Coleridge, is open to fraud, in consequence of the option as to prepayment which now exists. The story is as follows :

" ' One day, when I had not a shilling which I could spare, I was passing by a cottage not far from Keswick, where a letter-carrier was demanding a shilling for a letter, which the woman of the house appeared unwilling to pay, and at last declined to take. I paid the postage, and when the man was out of sight, she told me that the letter was from her son, who took that means of letting her know that he was well ; the letter was not to be paid for. It was then opened and found to be blank ! '

" This trick is so obvious a one that in all probability it is exten- sively practised."

On the 15th of October, 1870, the Editor makes a note of the Post cards introduction of " postal cards." introduced.

On the 30th of May, 1874, thirty-four curious postal addresses of 1714 are given by Mr. Charles Jackson. Two of them were :

" This, for Mr. Baradale, ye Merser, att ye seven stars and naked Curious Boy on Ludgate Hill, London." addresses.

" This, for Mr. Clancey, in Catherin street, next dor to ye sine of ye Cherry Tree, in Common [sic] Garden."

Among other interesting notes is one on ' The Posts in 1677,' 'The Posts in contributed by Mr. J. A. J. Housden on the 12th of February, 1898. 1677>>

In taking a glance back at the history of Penny Postage, " the child of Hill affection," it is curious to remember Croker's article in The Quarterly for October, 1839, on the second reading of the Postage Bill on the 22nd of the previous July. It

" seems to us one of the most inconsiderate jumps in the dark ever made Croker's

by that very inconsiderate assembly .... On the whole, we feel that article in

so far from the exclusive benefits to ' order, morals, and religion ' which The

Mr. Hill and the Committee put forward, there is at least as great a Quarterly.

chance of the contrary mischief, and that the proposed Penny Post Rowland Hill.

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