270 THE COACHING AGE. 



part of their lines until a year or two after that time, 

 and none of them were completed for a continuous 

 length of more than 100 miles for some time later, 

 there must have been a difficulty in transmitting 

 all the correspondence by the road mails. Although 

 the quantity of letters greatly and rapidly increased 

 under the reduced postage, it had not reached the 

 numbers attained shortly afterwards, and which, I 

 presume, have continued to increase annually since 

 its original introduction. 



It is rather curious that, on undertaking the parcel- 

 post business, the Post Office have had to resort to 

 the road again. We do not certainly see the old 

 four-horse mail going along the road with the front- 

 boot nearly full of parcels, but we see the Post-^ 

 Office vans, with a pair of horses carrying them, much 

 I presume, to the detriment of the general carriers or 

 companies in that line of business. 



That the parcel-post must have y&vj materially 

 affected the parcel-traffic by railway companies and 

 parcel-carriers, there can be no doubt ; and in anticipa- 

 tion of its introduction, and with a view to securing 

 as much of the trade as possible, they issued a table, 

 setting out very reduced rates for carriage, but still 

 not so low as those of the parcel-post. 



The railways still adhered partially to the plan 

 of charging according to distance, w^hile the Post 



