Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 105.djvu/66



consist, in general, of heavy matériel, but among some exceptions issued of late from her Majesty's printers, we must except a thin volume of about one hundred pages, containing "The First Report of the Postmaster-General on the Post-office." The contrasts presented at different periods in the mode of conveying and distributing letters are very curious. It is pleasant to observe the position of the present chief functionary of the Post-office, having at his command every facility that science and convenience can suggest, for the rapid transmission of his instructions, and then to glance at the cumbrous and complicated machinery of old, which impelled the communicating medium to our patient forefathers, at a rate which we should now term intolerably sluggish.

To supply die particulars contained in this report, the early records of the Post-office, deposited in the vaults of that building, have been carefully examined by Mr. Scudamore, of the Accountant-General's Office, and much interesting information has been collected from them.

We are indebted to foreigners for the earliest postal arrangements of any consequence in our country, for we are told that so early as 1514 the alien merchants residing in London had established a post-office of their own from the metropolis to the outports, appointing from time to time their own postmaster. In consequence of complaints from English merchants that this post acted unfairly towards them by keeping back their letters, &c., the government of James I. set on foot a post-office for letters to foreign countries; and in the reign of Charles I. inland letters were also conveyed, and a post or two settled to run night and day between London and Edinburgh, "to go thither and come back again in six days"—a distance now accomplished in less than fifteen hours!

The first rates of postage for this inland conveyance were not excessive, considering the difficulties and the expenses of transit. Twopence was the charge on a single letter for any distance under eighty miles; fourpence up to one hundred and forty miles; sixpence for any longer distance in England; and eightpence to any place in Scotland.

The impediments to expedition at this time were numerous. One complaint states that the gentry "doe give much money to the riders, whereby they be very subject to get in liquor, which stopes the mailes." The Surveyor, whose office it was to visit annually every postmaster in England, describes the abuses of which he was the witness. At Petersfield "he found the deputy so unhappy in his circumstances that he cannot appear but of Sundays." At Chester the Surveyor encounters another deputy "uneasy in his mind." On inquiring the reason, "the deputy charged the clarke with being frequently out, and keeping company thought to be more expensive than the wages allowed him, and several other little articles which appeared more in malice than else."

About the middle of the seventeenth century the office of postmaster was formed, and continued, as regards the bye-posts, almost to the close of the eighteenth century. The most vexatious part of the duties of the Surveyors was to establish the difference of postage accruing to the former