DE QUINCY ON COACHING. 39 



On the four upper panels were the orders of : off side, 

 fore, the Bath, hind, St. Patrick ; near side, fore, 

 Thistle, hind, Garter. Before the year 1829, from 

 8 p.m. to twenty minutes later, the mails paraded not in 

 St. Martin's-le-Grand, 1 but in Lombard Street, then the 

 site of the General Post Office, and they filled the street 

 double file. The coaches were summoned up to the 

 Post Office by their names, — Lincoln, Winchester, 

 Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, 

 York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Stirling, 

 and Aberdeen. The thunder of the lid locked down 

 upon the mails was the signal for each one to depart. 



1 The present building in St. Martin's-le-Grand was opened on September 

 25, 1829. 



