FURTHER REGULATIONS. y, 



Mr. B 1 enquired what he could be at to bring a dog on 



the top of the mail against his order, and right through 

 London too, and up to the very Post Office doors ; and he 

 added, 'Suspend you for a week, sir.' The guard replied, 

 ' You told me, sir, I was only to take anything covered 

 with leather or hair, and this ere's covered with hair.' 

 He was let off his punishment. 



There was no duty imposed on mail coachmen or 

 guards as there was on the drivers and guards of the 

 stage coaches. On these the duty is i/. $s. per annum. 

 There is a stage coach duty of \d. a mile for four persons, 

 \d. a mile for twenty-one persons. 



' It was the mail coach,' says De Quincy, ' that dis- 

 tributed over the face of the land, like the opening of 

 apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news of Trafalgar, 

 of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo.' 1 Dressed in 

 laurels and flowers, oak leaves and ribbons, these coaches 

 took down into the country the first news of any of the 

 numerous victories achieved by English valour on the 

 Continent ; the laurels, the emblem of victory, told the 

 well-known tale throughout the whole course. The great 

 disadvantages of not living near a mail coach road must 

 have been felt at some time at a certain little village in 

 Lancashire, which we are told the news of the battle of 

 Waterloo never reached until near the first anniversary of 

 that memorable fight, when the church bells rang out re- 

 joicing peals. ' The grandest chapter in our experience,' 

 says one who was a systematic coach traveller between 



1 < 



Selections, Grave and Gay.' 



