POST-OBIT BOND. 



POST-OFFICE. 



An eminent experimenter has laid down the following as his mode 

 of proceeding : and that he does not intend the words possible and 

 impossible to be used in their vague and popular sense is evident from 

 his repeating the dictum, without remark or explanation, after full 

 warning of what he seemed to be doing. " Before we proceed to con- 

 sider any question involving physical principles, we should set out 

 with clear ideas of the naturally possible and impossible." No doubt 

 if there be a naturally possible and impossible, which is more than our 

 experimenter can know, and if he can get a clear idea of it, which is 

 more than he can do, his plan is a very good one. In the meanwhile, 

 situated as we are in this world, we believe that a remark * made by 

 Arago, a year before the above method was propounded, is much more 

 to the purpose. It is that he who pronounces the word impossible, 

 except in pure mathematics [to which logic ought to be added], shows 

 a lack of prudence. 



POST-OBIT BOND (Post Obitam, Lat), a bond given for the pur- 

 pose of securing a sum of money, the condition of which is, that the 

 money shall be paid on the death of some person. 



POST-OFFICE. History. Correspondence is the offspring of ad- 

 vanced civilisation. When the state of society in this country anterior 

 to the seventeenth century ia considered, there can be little surprise 

 that we hear nothing of a post-office before that period. Few of the 

 motives to written communication could be said to exist. Each 

 district of the country supplied its own wants. The little foreign 

 trade which flourished was conducted between the English buyer 

 and the foreign seller in person, at the port where the import was 

 made. Literature and science dwelt only in the convent or the cell. 

 There was little absence from the domestic hearth, excepting that of 

 the fighting man following the service of his lord ; but few, either 

 servants or masters, had the power, even if they had the will, to 

 write letters. The king summoned his barons from all quarters of the 

 kingdom by letters, or writs, and held frequent communication with 

 his sheriffs, to collect his parliament together, to muster his forces, 

 to preserve his peace, to fill his treasury. The expenses of the esta- 

 blishment of Nuncii, charged with the conveyance of letters, formed 

 a large item in the charges of the royal household. As early as the 

 reign of King John, the payments to Nuncii for the carriage of letters 

 may be found enrolled on the Close and MisjB^Rolls, and these pay- 

 ments may be traced in an almost unbroken series through the 

 records of subsequent reigns. Nuncii also formed part of the esta- 

 blishment of the more powerful nobles. In a wardrobe account of the 

 27th year of Edward I., we find a specimen of the mode in which the 

 payment is entered: "x die Januarii nuncio Domini Regis de 

 Uastang redeunti ad eundum dominum suum cum litteris Regis, 

 pro expensis suis sic redeundo xiii." As correspondence grew, it 

 ia easy to see that economical arrangements for its transmission would 

 grow likewise. The Nuncius of the time of King John was probably 

 obliged to provide his own hone throughout his journey ; whilst in 

 the reign of Edward II. he was able, and found it more suitable, to 

 hire horses at fixed potti or stations. In 1481, Edward IV., during 

 the Scottish war, is stated by Gale to have established at certain posts, 

 twenty miles apart, a change of riders, who handed letters to one 

 another, and by this means expedited them 200 miles in two days. 

 It would seem that the posts, at which relays of riders and hones 

 were kept, were wholly private enterprises; but that, when their 

 importance became felt and appreciated, the state found it both 

 politic and a source of profit to subject them to its surveillance. 

 Before any substantive evidence appears of the superintendence of 

 the posts by the government, the superscription often met with, of 

 " haste porte haste," on letters written at the close of the fifteenth 

 and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, is sufficient to show that 

 the posts had become the customary channel for transmitting letters 

 in the speediest way. 



A statute in 1548 (2 and 3 Edw. VI., c. 3) fixed a penny a mile as 

 the rate to be chargeable for the hire of post-horses. In 1581, one 

 Thomas Randolph is mentioned by Camden as the chief postmaster of 

 England ; and there are reasons for concluding that his duties were 

 to superintend the posts, and had no immediate connection with 

 letters. The earliest recital of the duties and privileges of a post- 

 master seems to have been made by James I. The letters patent of 

 Charles I., in 1632 ('Pat.,' 8 Car. I. p. i. m. 15 d; ' Fcedera,' vol. 19, 

 p. 385) recite that James constituted an office called the office of 

 postmaster of England for foreign parts being out of his dominions. 

 This functionary was to have " the sole taking up, sending, and con- 

 veying of all packets and letters concerning his service, or business to 

 be despatched into forraigne parts, with power to grant moderate 

 salaries ; " the office was " graunted to Mathewe le Quester, and Mathewe 

 le Quester his son : all others were publiquely prohibited that they 

 should not directly or indirectly exercise or intrude themselves : the 

 said M. le Quester made and substituted William Frizell and Thomas 

 Witherings his deputies, and his Majesty accepted the substitution." 

 The king, " affecting the welfare of his people, and taking into his 

 princely consideration how much it imports his state and this realm 

 that the secrets thereof be not disclosed to forreigne nations, which 

 cannot be prevented if a promiscuous use of transmitting or taking up 



Celui qui, en dchors dcs mathcmatiqucs pures, prononce le mot impouiltle, 

 manque de prudence. (' Annuaire ' for 1853, p. 445.) 

 XBI8 AKD KI. DIV. VOL. VI. 



of forreigne letters and packetts should be suffered," forbids all others 

 from exercising that which to the office of such postmaster pertaineth, 

 at their utmost perils. 



In 1635, a proclamation was made " for settling of the letter-office 

 of England and Scotland." It sets forth " that there hath been no 

 certain or constaut intercourse between the kingdoms of England and 

 Scotland;" and commands " Thomas Witherings, Esq., his Majesty's 

 postmaster of England for foreign parts, to settle a running post or 

 two, to run night and day between Edinburgh and Scotland and the 

 City of London, to go thither and come back in six days." Directions 

 are given for the management of the correspondence between post- 

 towns on the line of road, and other towns which are named, and 

 likewise in Ireland. All postmasters are commanded " to have ready 

 in their stables one or two horses : " 2rf. for a single horse, and 5cl. 

 for two horses per mile were the charges settled for this service. A 

 monopoly was established, with the exceptions in favour of common 

 known carriers and particular messengers sent on purpose, most of 

 which have been preserved in all subsequent regulations of the 

 Post-Office. In 1640, a proclamation was made concerning the seques- 

 tration of the office of postmaster for foreign parts, and also of the 

 letter-office of England, into the hands of Philip Burlamachy, of 

 London, merchant ; but, in 1642, it was resolved by a committee of 

 the House of Commons, that such sequestration was " a grievance and 

 illegal, and ought to be taken off," and that Mr. Wytherings ought to 

 be restored. As late as 1644, it appears that the postmaster's duties 

 were not connected directly with letters. A parliamentary resolution 

 entered on the Journals of the Commons states that, " the Lords and 

 Commons, finding by experience that it is most necessary, for keeping 

 of good intelligence between the parliament and their forces, that 

 post stages should be erected in several parts of the kingdom, and 

 the office of master of the posts and couriers being at present void, 

 ordain that Edmund Prideaux, Esq., a member of the House of 

 Commons, shall be, and is hereby constituted, master of the posts, 

 messengers, and couriers." " He first established a weekly conveyance 

 of letters into all parts of the nation, thereby saving to the public the 

 charge of maintaining postmasters to the amount of 7,000. per 

 annum." (Blackstone.) An attempt of the Common Council of 

 London to set up a separate Post-Office, in 1649, was checked by 

 a resolution of the House of Commons, which declared " that the 

 office of postmaster is, and ought to be, in the sole power and disposal 

 of parliament." 



But the most complete step in the establishment of a Post-Office 

 was taken in 1656, when an act was passed " to settle the postage of 

 England, Scotland, and Ireland." This having been the model of all 

 subsequent measures, induces us to give something more than a 

 passing notice of it. The preamble sets forth " that the erecting of 

 one general Post-Office for the speedy conveying and recarrying of 

 letters by post to and from all places within England, Scotland, and 

 Ireland, and into several parts beyond the seas, hath been and is the 

 best means not only to maintain a certain and constant intercourse of 

 trade and commerce between all the said places, to the great benefit 

 of the people of these nations, but also to convey the publique de- 

 spatches, and to discover and prevent many dangerous and wicked 

 designs which have been, and are, daily contrived against the peace 

 and welfare of this commonwealth, the intelligence whereof cannot 

 well be communicated but by letter of escript." It also enacted that, 

 " there shall be one Oenerall Post-Office, and one officer stiled the 

 postmaster-generall of England and comptroller of the Post-Office." 

 This officer was to have the horsing of all "through" posts and 

 persons " riding in post." Prices for letters, whether English, Scotch, 

 Irish, or foreign, and for post-horses, were fixed. All other persons 

 were forbidden to " set up or imploy any foot-posts, horse-posts, or 

 pacquet-boats." These arrangements were confirmed in the first year 

 of the Restoration, by an act which was repealed 9 Anne, c. 11. In 

 1683, a metropolitan penny-post was set up, the history of which is 

 given at length in the ' Ninth Report of the Commissioners of Post- 

 Office Inquiry.' From 1711 to 1838, upwards of 150 acts affecting 

 the regulations of the Post-Office were passed. In the first year of 

 her present Majesty, ninety-nine of these were repealed, either wholly 

 or partially, and the following acts were passed, by which the whole 

 department of the Post-Office was regulated : 



For the management of the Post-Office, c. 33. 



The regulation of the duties of postage, c. 34. 



For regulating the sending and receiving of letters and packets by 

 the post, free from the duty of postage, c. 35. 



For consolidating the laws relative to offences against the Post- 

 Office, and explaining certain terms and expressions, c. 36. 



A mere enumeration of the titles of all the acts affecting the Post- 

 Office would occupy a considerable space. An account even of these 

 four last-mentioned acts must be dispensed with, and the reader re- 

 ferred to the acts themselves. Their enactments have been abro- 

 gated, to a great extent, by the adoption of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan 

 of uniform postage, which we shall notice hereafter. This measure 

 was carried into effect by an act passed in 1839, 2 & 3 Vic. cap. 52, 

 which conferred temporary powers on the Lords of the Treasury to do 

 so, and was subsequently confirmed by an act 3 & 4 Vic., c. 90, passed 

 10th August, 1840. 



Rates of Puilarjc. The first establishment of a rate of postage for 



U U 



