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Title: A Hundred Years by Post
A Jubilee Retrospect

Author: J. Wilson Hyde

Release Date: January 2, 2009 [EBook #27688]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A Hundred Years by Post

A JUBILEE RETROSPECT

BY

J. WILSON HYDE

AUTHOR OF 'THE ROYAL MAIL: ITS CURIOSITIES AND ROMANCE'

[Illustration]

LONDON

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND CO., LIM.
St. Dunstan's House
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.

1891

[_All rights reserved_]

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, at the
Edinburgh University Press.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

HENRY CECIL RAIKES, M.P.

HER MAJESTY'S POSTMASTER-GENERAL,

THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE,

BY PERMISSION,

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

The following pages give some particulars of the changes that have taken
place in the Post Office service during the past hundred years; and the
matter may prove interesting, not only on account of the changes
themselves, but in respect of the influence which the growing usefulness
of the Postal Service must necessarily have upon almost every relation
of political, educational, social, and commercial life. More especially
may the subject be found attractive at the close of the present year,
when the country has been celebrating the Jubilee of the Penny Post.

EDINBURGH,

_December 1890._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

_Frontispiece_--MAIL-COACH IN THUNDERSTORM.

PAST AND PRESENT CONTRASTED, 1

LIBERTY OF SUBJECT AND PUBLIC OPINION, 5

ABUSES OF POWER, 7

SLOW DIFFUSION OF NEWS, 17

_Illustration_--ANALYSIS OF LONDON TO EDINBURGH
MAIL OF 2D MARCH 1838, _facing_ 22

STATE OF ROADS AND INSECURITY OF TR