48 Transactions. 
their infancy ; so far as Colvend was concerned they were non- 
existent. There was, indeed, a sub-office on the Southwick side 
at Caulkerbush. On the Colvend side, the more populous side of 
the parish, there was none. On neither side was there a runner 
to distribute letters. On the Southwick side, if any letters 
arrived, they were kept until called for, or they were sent by 
some casual hand who happened to be going to where the letter was 
addressed. In Colvend the case was still worse ; our letters 
came no nearer than to Dalbeattie, five or six miles off, and, not 
only so, the Post Office in Dalbeattie was a small closet in or off 
the bar of the public-house, where the letters lay huddled together 
with other articles. No arrangement whatever existed for dis- 
persing them to their destination. I have known letters detained 
for upwards of a week. One case in particular occurs tome. A 
young man, who was undergoing a sentence of penal servitude in 
Pentonville Penitentiary, for whom I was instrumental in obtain- 
ing remission of part of the sentence, had a passage purchased 
for him to Canada. The letter containing his ticket to Canada, 
paid for by his friends, was detained in the Dalbeattie Post Office 
for more than a week ; and as a result the passage was forfeited. 
After representation to the Shipping Company of the circum- . 
stances they generously allowed the young man to avail him- 
self of a vessel for the succeeding voyage. 
Now (1894) there is not only the original sub-office at 
Caulkerbush on the Southwick side, there is one at Lochend, one 
at Rockcliffe, which is a money-order office, and one at Kippford, 
which is also a money-order office, all on the Colvend side of the 
parish ; and to expedite the delivery of letters, newspapers, and 
parcels, there are two runners in Southwick and three in Colvend. 
For ten or fifteen years the Post Office authorities turned a 
deaf ear to all our applications for a sub-office at Lochend, with 
a runner between Colvend and Dalbeattie. In those days it was 
no uncommon occurrence to have letters tampered with and 
opened either from curiosity or with some worse motive. At 
that time letters were fastened with wafers, or when of greater 
importance they were sealed with wax. The day of envelopes 
was not yet. A letter fastened by a wafer could be opened with- 
out detection ; 1t was otherwise with a letter sealed with wax. 
The main industry of the parish, that on which its prosperity 
depends and has always depended, is farming, agricultural and 
pastoral. But there is another industry, ship-building and ship- 
