[ 179 ] 



CHAPTEE XI. 



THE PORT OF LIVERPOOL. 



Business took me to Liverpool for the first time in the 

 summer of 1851 — thirteen years after the last coach 

 with the Lancashire mails had been despatched from 

 London. The glories of the road had already been 

 forgotten. The new excitement was to travel in a 

 train hauled up by rope from the Lime Street 

 Terminus to Edgehill Station, or by one which used 

 to run down the incline by mere attraction of gravity. 



Statham, the aged postmaster of the nineties, had 

 been succeeded by the Banning family, who ruled the 

 post-office from 1798 : Thomas (Statham's assistant) 

 until 1819, William (Thomas's son) until 1847, and 

 Charles (brother of William), the best known of all, 

 until 1875. 



Mail-coaches had not been established in Statham's 

 time a day too soon. Highway robberies in North 

 Cheshire and South Lancashire had become rife. 

 Bags sent by the new coaches mostly escaped scot- 

 free, because, perhaps, of the blunderbuss, yet 

 mounted riders carrying the mails in wallet and 



