Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/119

Rh by the morning mails, on their way to other towns, lie all day at the Post Office for want of a morning dispatch, although there are excellent morning coaches from London to every part of the kingdom. The consequence of this delay is, that places corresponding through London, however near they may really be to one another, are, as regards facilities of communication by post, forced as far asunder as London and Durham.

If a blank post-day intervene, the delay is even more remarkable. A letter written at Uxbridge after the close of the Post Office on Friday night, would not be delivered at Gravesend, a distance of less than forty miles, earlier than Tuesday morning.

The extent to which personal intercourse takes place between London and the district within a circuit of ten miles, that is to say, between the places of business and the homes of thousands of professional men and tradesmen, is shown by the continued current of stage-coaches and other carriages along every road. There can be no doubt that the communication by letter, in the same district, would be proportionately great if the Post Office afforded the necessary facilities; but such is the ludicrous tardiness of the three-penny post, that no one thinks of employing it where dispatch is of the slightest importance.