CHAPTEE XX. 



GUARDS AND THEIR FEES. 



Guards were mostly on night- coaches — mail-guards 

 especially, as they never left the General Post Office 

 in London until eight o'clock at night, so that for the 

 greater part of the year it was dark even before they 

 commenced their journeys. I fancy the principle 

 upon which the mails were arranged by the Post- 

 master-General throughout the country was that the 

 correspondence should be proceeding to its destination 

 all night, so that no time should be lost, and that, so 

 far as practicable in large and important towns, the 

 mails should be made up and despatched shortly after 

 the conclusion of the usual hours of business, and 

 by the general time of commencing business in the 

 morning should arrive at any place not more than a 

 hundred miles distant from London. 



Guards' places on long coaches were hard work, a 

 man being out so many hours. On the mails they 

 were not out so long, as they did not go much above 

 a hundred and twenty or thirty miles, unless in 



