ACROSS THE NUMBER 63 



1863. Sword and gun have been wholly superseded 

 by the pen — the fosse by the wet-dock. Commerce, 

 fostered by the mail-coach, and stmiulated by cheap 

 postage, has swept away the fortifications. 



The old town remains virtually an island. The Hull, 

 seventy yards wide, on the east side, the Humber on 

 its southern front, and a succession of docks on the 

 western side, admit of complete circumnavigation, 

 should a modern explorer essay the task. 



With more than adult vigour the new tow^n has, in 

 one direction, overleapt this w^atery barrier, and now 

 extends fully a couple of miles beyond it. 



In Hull, in 1808, the elder Mathews gave his first 

 entertainment, under the title of ' The Mail-Coach 

 Adventures.' These must have been plentiful for the 

 subject to be popular, and sometimes humorous, as well 

 as exciting, inasmuch as a feature of the programme 

 was a favourite comic song styled * The Mail-Coach.' 



To the port of Hull belongs the distinction of 

 providing the merchantman to which the w^orst of 

 Australian bushrangers — always excepting the leader 

 of the Kelly gang — one Michael How^e, was apprenticed. 

 Howe was not, how^ever, born in Hull. He broke his 

 indentures, entered and deserted from a King's ship, 

 was tried at York for highway robbery, and was 

 finally transported, in 1812, to the penal settlement 

 in Van Diemen's Land. There, being assigned as 

 a servant, he again absconded, joined twenty-eight 

 other desperadoes, and for six years ranged the colony 

 far and wide, making his name notorious by robbery 



