28 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



Post Office records of three years earlier 



clearly show : — 



1836. 



February 5. Edinburgh and Aberdeen Mail overturned. 



„ 9. Devonport Mail overturned. 



„ 10. Scarborough and York Mail oveiturned. 



„ 16. Belfast and Enniskillen Mail overturned. 



„ „ Dublin and Derry i\Iail o\erturn(d. 



„ IT. Scarborough and Hull Mail overturned. 



„ „ York and Doncaster Mail overturned. 



„ 20. Thirty-five mail-horses burnt alive at Heading. 



„ 24. Louth Mail overturned. 



„ 25. Gloucester Mail overturned. 



No place was better served by the Post 

 Office than Exeter in the last years of the 

 road, and few so Avell. Before 1837 it had no 

 fewer than three mails, and in that year a fonrth 

 was added. All four started simultaneous!}^ 

 from the General Post Office, and reached the 

 Queen City of the West within a few hours of 

 one another every day. On its own merits, 

 Exeter did not deserve or need all these travelling 

 and postal facilities, and it was only because it 

 stood at the converging-point of many routes 

 that it obtained them. Only one mail, iiulecd, 

 was dedicated especially to Exeter, and that 

 was the last-establish(Hl, the '' New Exeter," 

 put on the road in 1837. The others continued 

 to Devonport or to Ealmouth, then a port, a 

 mail-packet and naval station of great ])ro- 

 minence, where the West Indian mails landed, 

 and whence they where shipped. To tlie mail- 

 coaches making for Devonport and Ealmoutli, 

 Exeter was, therefore, only an incident. 



