| Paisley, 1790 to 1800, | £33 |
| Dundee, 1800, | 50 |
| Arbroath, 1763 to 1794, | 20 |
| Aberdeen, 1763 to 1793, about | 90 |
| Glasgow, 1789 | 140 |
| and Clerk | 30 |
Constant appeals reached headquarters for "an augmentation," which was the term then applied to an increase of salary, and in the circumstances it is not surprising that the post-office work was indifferently done. Attendance had to be given to the public during the day, and when the mail passed through a town in the dead hours of night some one had to be up to despatch or receive the mail. Sometimes the postmaster, when awoke by the post-boy's horn, would get up and drop the mail-bag by a hook and line from his bedroom window. An instance of such a proceeding is given by Williams in his history of Watford, where the destinies of the post were at the time presided over by a postmistress. "In response," says he, "to the thundering knock of the conductor, the old lady left her couch, and thrusting her head, covered with a wide-bordered night-cap, out of the bedroom window, let down the mail-bag by a string, and quickly returned to her bed again." Coming thus nightly to the open window must have been a risky duty as regards health for a postmistress.
A hundred years ago the chief post-office in London was situated in Lombard Street. The scene, if we may judge by a print of the period, would appear to have been one of quietude and waiting for something to turn up. In 1829 the General Post Office was transferred to St. Martin's le Grand, and the departure of the evening mails (when mail-coaches were in full swing) became one of the sights of London.
Living in an age of cheap postage as we do, we look back upon the rates charged a century ago with something akin to amazement. In the following table will be seen some of the inland and foreign postage charges which were current in the period from 1797 to 1815:—
| ENGLAND, 1797. | Single letter | Double letter | Treble letter | 1 oz. |
| Distance not exceeding in Miles— | ||||
| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | |
| 15, | 0 3 | 0 6 | 0 9 | 1 0 |
| 15 to 30, | 0 4 | 0 8 | 1 0 | 1 4 |
| 30 " 60, | 0 5 | 0 10 | 1 3 | 1 8 |
| 60 " 100, | 0 6 | 1 0 | 1 6 | 2 0 |
| 100 " 150, | 0 7 | 1 2 | 1 9 | 2 4 |
| 150 and upwards, | 0 8 | 1 4 | 2 0 | 2 8 |
| For Scotland these rates | ||||
| were increased by | 0 1 | 0 2 | 0 3 | 0 4 |
| FOREIGN. | ||||
| From any part in Great | ||||
| Britain to any part in— | ||||
| Portugal, | 1 0 | 2 0 | 3 0 | 4 0 |
| British Dominions in America, | 1 0 | 2 0 | 3 0 | 4 0 |
| 1806. | ||||
| From any part in Great | ||||
| Britain to— | ||||
| Gibraltar, | 1 9 | 3 6 | 5 3 | 7 0 |
| Malta, | 2 1 | 4 2 | 6 3 | 8 4 |
| 1808. | ||||
| From any part in Great | ||||
| Britain to— | ||||
| Madeira, | 1 6 | 3 0 | 4 6 | 6 0 |
| South America, Portuguese Possessions, | 2 5 | 4 10 | 7 3 | 9 8 |
| 1815. | ||||
| From any part in Great | ||||
| Britain to— | ||||
| Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, East Indies, | 3 6 | 7 0 | 10 6 | 14 0 |
Over and above these foreign rates, the full inland postage in England and Scotland, according to the distance the letters had to be conveyed to the port of despatch, was levied.
Many persons remember how old-fashioned letters were made up—a single sheet of paper folded first at the top and bottom, then one side slipped inside the folds of the other, then a wafer or seal applied, and the address written on the back. That was a single letter. If a cheque, bank-bill, or other document were enclosed, the letter became a double letter. Two enclosures made the letter a treble letter. The officers of the Post Office examined the letters in the interest of the Revenue, the letters being submitted to the test of a strong light, and the officers, peeping in at the end, used the feather end of a quill to separate the folds of the letter for better inspection. Envelopes were not then used.
These high rates of postage gave rise to frequent attempts to defraud the Revenue, and many plans were adopted to circumvent the Post Office in this matter. Sometimes a series of words in the print of a newspaper were pricked with a pin, and thus conveyed a message to the person for whom the newspaper was intended. Sometimes milk was used as an invisible ink upon a newspaper, the receiver reading the message sent by holding the paper to the fire. At other times soldiers took the letters of their friends, and sent them under franks written by their officers. Letters were conveyed by public carriers, against the statute, sometimes tied up in brown paper, to disguise them as parcels. The carriers seem to have been conspicuous offenders, for one of them was convicted at Warwick in 1794, when penalties amounting to £1500 were incurred, though only £10 and costs were actually exacted. The Post Office maintained a staff of men called "Apprehenders of Letter Carriers," whose business it was to hunt down persons illegally carrying letters.