THE CORNISH MAIL 1 33 



At this moment the two head post-offices in the 

 United Kingdom which have been longest under post- 

 mistresses are probably Penryn in Cornwall and Tuam 

 in Ireland. 



As far as I remember them, all the offices so con- 

 trolled were models of neatness and good order. At 

 Cirencester, indeed, when, about 1857, Mrs. Martha 

 Squires was postmistress, the post-office w^as dis- 

 tinguished beyond all other offices in the fact that 

 every bundle of letters was carefully wrapped up in 

 blue paper before being despatched. 



When, as sometimes has been the case, the ex- 

 pediency of dispensing with date-stamping has been 

 advocated, the value of the practice from a legal 

 point of view has generally defeated the innovators. 

 Mr. Newberry Cox, the postmaster of Falmouth, would 

 be an effective witness to call in such an inquiry. He 

 has been able, when needful, to establish triumphantly 

 the date of his birth by flourishing before authority a 

 letter written (probably on Bath post, as was cus- 

 tomary) by his father to his grandmother, announcing 

 the fact of the grandson's arrival in the world, and 

 the outer sheet of the letter bears a very distinct 

 impression of the dated stamp of the Taunton post- 

 office of August 14, 1833. The production of this 

 document has obviated the need of a certificate of 

 birth, and has been always accepted as legal proof. 



There was from the first a strong postal flavour 

 about Mr. Cox's young days. His earliest ex- 

 perience of public life was to travel part of the way 



