102 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



smashed by the rival faction for housing politicians 

 of the wrong colour."^ 



The opening of the docks and rail, however, were 

 the turning-point of postal prosperity. Up at a 

 bound w^ent the number of letters and the popula- 

 tion. When the century began, Southampton was 

 but a small town, up a muddy creek, and contained 

 less than eight thousand souls ; while coaches were 

 in high career its inhabitants were a bare twenty 

 thousand ; when the railway had opened, and the 

 docks had got well to work, they were nearly forty 

 thousand ; and now, in 1895, with the Channel 

 dredged and deepened, many of the shoals cut away, 

 acres of fine deep docks available, and at hand an 

 unsurpassed service of railway trains, running at high 

 speed, there are not fewer than seventy thousand 

 people in Southampton. 



Of all my recollections of post-towns out of Herts, 

 Southampton stands earliest. In the late forties, 

 after a short service at Waterloo terminus, I used to 

 receive at the General Post- Office telegrams brief and 

 to the point, such as : 



' Cooper [o7' Williams'], 



Southampton, to Post-Office, 



London. 



' Arrived the West India mail. Despatches by mail train ;' 



* While the bombardment went on, a lady of my acquaint- 

 ance had the singular experience of sitting within one of the 

 rooms which sustained the attentions of the mob. 



