. "If an information were
lodg'd but an informer wou'd get tar'd and feather'd, no jury wou'd find
the fact." The government-riders were in truth the chief offenders. Any
ship's captain, or wagon-driver, or post-rider could carry merchandise;
therefore small sham bundles of paper, straw, or chips would be tied to
a large sealed packet of letter, and both be exempt from postage paid to
the Crown.

The post-rider between Boston and Newport loaded his carriage with
bundles real and sham, which delayed him long in delivery. He bought and
sold on commission along this road; and in violation of law he carried
many letters to his own profit. He took twenty-six hours to go eighty
miles. Had the Newport deputy dared to complain, he would have incurred
much odium and been declared a "friend of slavery and oppression."

"Old Herd," the rider from Saybrook to New York, had been in the service
forty-six years and had made a good estate. He coolly took postage of
all way-letters as his perquisite; was a money carrier and transferrer,
all advantage to his own pocket; carried merchandise; returned horses
for travellers; and when Finlay saw him he was waiting for a yoke of
oxen he was paid for fetching along some miles. A Pennsylvania
post-rider, an aged man, occupied himself as he slowly jogged along by
knitting mittens and stockings. Not always were mail portmanteaux
properly locked; hence many letters were lost and the pulling in and out
of bundles defaced the letters.

Of course so much horseback riding made it necessary to have
horse-blocks in front of nearly all houses. In course of time stones
were set every mile on the principal roads to tell the distance from
town to town. Benjamin Franklin set milestones the entire way on the
post-road from Boston to Philadelphia. He rode in a chaise over the
road; and a machine which he had invented was attached to the chaise;
and it was certainly the first cyclometer that went on that road, over
which so many cyclometers have passed during the last five years. It
measured the miles as he travelled. When he had ridden a mile he
stopped; from a heavy cart loaded with milestones, which kept alongside
the chaise, a stone was dropped which was afterwards set by a gang of
men.

A number of old colonial milestones are still standing. There is one in
Worcester, on what was the "New Connecticut Path"; one in Springfield on
the "Bay Path," and there are several of Benjamin Franklin's setting,
one