262 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



There was a great * to do ' once in a town not far 

 from Belfast, in consequence of brevity of endorsement 

 being carried to an extreme. A postman could not 

 deliver the letters of a certain merchant at his private 

 house, because the only information obtainable was 

 that the family had gone to the seaside. ' Gone to 

 the sea ' was the postman's first idea, ' Gone to sea ' 

 his second and more compact note on the letters, 

 which, being returned to the senders, spread con- 

 sternation amongst the young merchant's friends and 

 busmess correspondents. 



Here, at Belfast, by the way, has Mrs. Maziere left 

 a name behind her, not so much, perhaps, as Post- 

 mistress of Belfast, but rather as a long-lived annui- 

 tant. She received her pension for the long period 

 of forty years — from 1795 to 1834. 



The memory reflects a stirring incident in Strabane 

 one market-day, in January, 1843. The Sligo three- 

 horse mail from Derry was thundering down the 

 narrow street leading from the bridge, when in- 

 opportunely, in turning Walker's Corner, it struck a 

 cart laden with oats in such a way that the weight 

 of the oats shifted to the back, and in a twinkling, 

 like Mahomet's coffin, the draught horse w^as seen to 

 be dangling in mid-air. 



A constable rushed forward to stay the mail. He 

 laid sacrilegious hands on the coachman's whip, and 

 bade him leave the box. Was the guard, the bold 

 Meighan, to suffer without remonstrance this indignity 

 to the mail ? Not for a moment. He snatched a 



