250 THE COACHING AGE. 



from there having been no post out of London on the 

 previous day. 



I dare say many persons will scarcely suppose that 

 less than fifty years since it occupied a period of 

 five days, or if a Sunday intervened, six, for a letter' 

 to, be sent and the answer received between two 

 persons on the opposite sides of London, but not forty 

 miles distant from each other. Such, however, was 

 the case; and in order to show how it arose, I will 

 illustrate my case, and prove the veracity of my 

 assertions. 



I will take A., living at St. Albans, twenty-one 

 miles on the north side of London, writing to B., 

 resident at Brentwood, eighteen from it, making a 

 distance of thirty-nine miles only between them. 

 The same thing would apply to the distance from 

 Brentwood to Slough — ^^only thirty-eight miles. I will 

 take the year 1836, being before any part of the 

 London and Birmingham railway was opened and 

 carried the mails, when letters travelled the whole 

 distance by the road mail-coaches ; thus the period 

 to which I refer is only forty-eight years since. Both 

 St. Albans and Brentwood being beyond the radius of 

 the twopenny posts, and there being no day-mail to 

 either of them, they had but one delivery a day, and 

 all their letters and papers were conveyed by the 

 long mails. 



