MAIL-GUARDS 255 



and-so," and the coach would be brought to a 

 momentary halt outside some public-house, and 

 the sack, from whose neck the inquisitive might 

 perhaps have seen something remarkably like 

 pheasants' tails projecting, handed to an expectant 

 porter. Any interested person following that 

 porter would observe that the sack was delivered 

 at the nearest poulterer's. 



A guard pocketed half a crown each for all 

 bankers' parcels he was entrusted with ; he was 

 purveyor of tea and fish and buyer of meat to 

 a hundred villages down the road; netted many 

 a guinea from the lawyers in those days before 

 ever the Judicature Act was thought of, when 

 every answer filed in Chancery must needs be filed 

 by special and sworn messenger ; had a penny each 

 for all letters picked up on the way, when post- 

 offices were few and far between ; was entrusted 

 with great sums of money for payment into the. 

 London banks ; and purchased wedding-rings for 

 half the love-sick swains in a county. Every one 

 knew^ him, trusted him, and fed him, and if he was 

 a prudent man he had no difiiculty in making 

 money at express speed. One guard, it is 

 recorded, was so earnest a fishmonger that he 

 used the Post Ofiice bags to carry his fish in, 

 greatly to the disgust of the clerks, who found 

 themselves smothered in scales and surrounded by 

 a decidedly ancient, as well as fishlike, smell. 

 They complained to the Postmaster-General, who 

 reprimanded the delinquent, and with a quite 

 unintentional pun observed that the "sole" reasons 



