6 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



For, although the feats of penny postage are in- 

 separably associated with St. Martin's-le-Grand, the 

 Post-Office had won a name and its way into public 

 favour long before the first stone of the building of 

 1829 had been laid — long before the public had begun 

 to find the high rates of postage oppressive, and the 

 speed of mail-coaches susceptible of increase. 



' The Post-Office,' says Pennant, in his ' London,' 

 ' gives wrings to the extension of commerce ;' and, ' in 

 the more confined and humble scenes of social life,' 

 wrote the Saturday Magazine of December 1, 1832, 

 ' the posts spread comfort and joy with a liberality 

 which we seldom hear sufficiently acknowledged.' 

 These were welcome tributes to the work of Sir 

 Francis Freeling, freshly transplanted to the new 

 w^estward office. 



Two of the chief features of the inner life of 

 the General Post-Office in Lombard Street (and from 

 1829 to 1839 of the new office) were taxing and 

 franking. None but the most expert could determine 

 at a glance the rate proper for an inland letter, and 

 just before mail-time, when hundreds of unpaid 

 letters, and letters to be prepaid, would be dropped 

 into the letter-l)oxes or handed through the window 

 at Lombard Street, it needed a lightning hand to tax 

 them with the proper charge, and mark it in large 

 figures by quill pen on the front face. 



Every enclosure, however light, involved an in- 

 creased charge, and to such an extent was this rule 

 carried that a sheet of paper, containing a protested 



