148 STAGli-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



be continued as of old. It would l3e idle to 

 speculate how long the department Avould have 

 lagged behind the times and seen the Post Office 

 revenues being gradually eaten away by the 

 growing practice of secretly sending letters by 

 the stage-coaches, which had by this time attained 

 a speed of about seven miles an hour, and in 

 addition set out more frequently and at more 

 convenient hours than the postbo^-s. It Avould be 

 idle thus to speculate, because, when the scandal 

 was growing to noticeable proportions — when it 

 was asserted that the Post Office lost not less 

 than £80,000 a year by letters being conveyed 

 by unauthorised persons, and when people grew 

 indignant that " every common traveller passed 

 the King's Mail " — there came to the front a man 

 with a plan to remedy what surely was the very 

 absurd paradox that the Government strenuously 

 reserved to itself the monopoly of letter-carrying, 

 and yet provided no reasonable facilities for those 

 letters to be conveyed, and idly watched thousands 

 of pounds of that cherished revenue being annually 

 diverted from their proper destination. This man 

 with a well-matured scheme of reform was John 

 Palmer, a native of Bath, born at No. 1, Galloway's 

 Buildings (noAV North Parade Buildings), in 1742. 

 His father was a brcAver and spermaceti-merchant, 

 and j)roprietor of two highly prosj^erous theatres 

 at Bath and another at Bristol. Intended by his 

 father for the Church, his oAvn inclinations were 

 for the Army ; but he was not suffered to follow 

 his bent, and so was taken from school and placed 



