312 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



even if it contemplated the mail-coach as an agent, 

 had no special reference to its further development. 

 He had formed his scheme in 1835 ; in 1840 it bore 

 fruit ; in 1842 Hill was, after temporary employment 

 on postal matters at the Treasury, sent to the right- 

 about as superfluous ; in 1846 the Ministry of Lord 

 John Kussell brought him back again to share in a 

 dual management at St. Martin's-le-Grand ; but it 

 was not, as I say, until 1854 that he actually became 

 Secretary of the Post-Office. 



By that time nearly all the great trunk railways 

 were open, or had been planned, and were fast ap- 

 proaching completion. Mail - coaches had almost 

 wholly disappeared from the road. 



The reformer must have based the success of his 

 scheme on railways, for without their aid cheap and 

 uniform rates of postage, as we know them now, 

 could never have come about. This is not saying 

 that penny letter-postage, pure and simple, would 

 have been impracticable and unremunerative by 

 mail-coach. Such a conclusion is by no means 

 certain. 



Under the postage rate of a penny for the weight 

 of half an ounce, inland letters produced on the 

 average IJd. apiece, and ran in number 25*6 to the 

 pound. It was reckoned that, although mail-coaches 

 on the average carried only about three hundred- 

 weight of mails, they could, if necessary, be loaded up 

 to fifteen hundredweight. At that rate, a full load in 

 one direction would represent 42,840 letters, which 



