The Dumfries Post Office, 1642-1910. • 83 



Council a letter from the Post Office, Edinburgh, staling [hat an 

 ipplication having been made to the Postmaster-General desiring 

 that a delivery of letters should be made from the Dumfries Post 

 Office between 1 and 2 o'clock on Sundays and desiring that the 

 Pro\'OSt sliould inform the Post Office whether the inhabitants of 

 Dumfries generally would i:)refer an afternoon to a morning 

 deliverv. The Council, having considered this subject, request 

 the Provost by a majority to answer said communication and state 

 that the feeling is for a delivery betwixt one and two." 



Again on 7th Feb., 1851 — " Mr M'Gowan brought the subject 

 of the postal arrangements in this quarter before the Council, and 

 moved that a Committee be appointed to watch the proceedings in 

 an action now in progress at the instance of the Lord Advocate 

 against the Perth and Dundee Railway in regard to carrying the 

 mails. [The meeting agreed to this motion, and named the 

 following Committee, viz. — Provost Nicholson, Bailie Leighton, 

 Messrs Dinwiddie, Blaind, Smyth, and M'Gowan, 3 a quorum — ■ 

 Mr M'Gowan convener.] " 



At the next Council meeting, on 7th March, 1851, Mr 

 M'Gowan intimated that the Committee upon Postal Arrangements 

 in this quarter had not been called together, but he considered the 

 subject so urgent that he begged to move the following resolu- 

 tions : — 



" That the Burgh and District of Dumfries from their exten- 

 sive and daily increasing population and extensive Mercantile and 

 Shipping interest are entitled to the benefit of the most improved 

 communication under the powers entrusted by Parliament to the 

 Post Office. 



That the existing postal arrangements are defective, incon- 

 venient, and exceedingly prejudicial to the interest of the Burgh. 

 That although two Mails from London arrive in Dumfries within 

 twenty-four hours one of these lies in the Post Office there till the 

 following morning, and by this means the whole correspondence 

 to Galloway and the upper district of Dumfriesshire is detained 

 for eight or ten hours unnecessarily. 



That the Edinburgh and Glasgow Mails, which formerly 

 arrived twice in twenty-four hours, now only arrive once, and, 

 were these forwarded by the train from Glasgow direct, to and 

 through Dumfries, two mails from each might readily be had 

 and an end put to the absurdity of all the Dumfries Correspond- 



