"The postboy coming from Selby to York was robbed of his mail between six and seven o'clock this evening. About three miles on this side of Selby he was accosted by a man on foot, with a gun in his hand, who asked him if he was the postboy, and at the same time seized hold of the bridle. Without waiting for any answer, he told the boy he must immediately unstrap the mail and give it him, pointing the muzzle of the gun at him whilst he did it. When he had given up the mail, the boy begged he would not hurt him; to which the man replied he need not be afraid, and at the same time pulled the bridle from the horse's head. The horse immediately galloped off with the boy, who had never dismounted.
"He was a stout man, dressed in a drab jacket, and had the appearance of being a heckler. The boy was too much frightened to make any other remark on his person, and says he was totally unknown to him. The mail contained the bags for Howden and London, Howden and York, and Selby and York."
Selby Mail-Bag.
Although a reward of £200 was offered for the discovery of the robber, and a free pardon to any accessory who might turn accuser, nothing was heard of the matter at the time, though suspicion, it is said, pointed to some of the inhabitants of Selby. The robbery might perhaps have remained forgotten, but that, upon a public-house situated on the Churchhill, Selby, being pulled down in 1876, a suit of clothes, a sou'-wester hat, and an old mail-bag marked "Selby" were found in the roof. There is little doubt that these were the clothes worn by the robber on the occasion under notice, and that the bag (which is a sort of waterproof-pouch, furnished with two straps to pass over the shoulders) is the identical bag which contained the mails stolen in 1798. When the foundations of this old public-house were turned up, the discovery was made of several coffins containing bodies in a good state of preservation—a circumstance, when taken in connection with the traces of the mail-robbery and the public character of the house, ominous in the extreme. The case is one which might be taken as somewhat proving the suggestion put forward by Smollett in 'Roderick Random' as to the intimate relations which existed between the personnel of the innkeepers and the common highwaymen—the former being well aware of the profession followed by the latter, if not actually sharers in their plunder.
The illustration of the Selby bag is from a photograph. The bag, when folded for the postboy's back, measured about 17 inches broad by 15 inches deep.
On Wednesday the 23d October 1816, at half-past nine in the evening, the postboy carrying the mail-bags from Teignmouth and neighbouring places to Exeter, was assaulted "in a most desperate and inhuman manner" near the village of Alphington, and plundered of the Teignmouth and Exminster bags. The poor man was attacked with such fury that he was felled from his horse, came to the ground on his head, which was fractured in two places, and in consequence of his injuries, he remained insensible for some time. When he regained consciousness in the Exeter Hospital, whither he had been conveyed, he was able to explain that, at the time of the attack, he was walking his horse up a hill, that the assailant was a young man, and that he was mounted on a grey horse. This horse was supposed afterwards to be traced, though the robber failed to be discovered, notwithstanding that a reward of £50 was offered for his discovery and conviction. "A horse exactly answering the description," says an official record, "was taken from a field near Dawlish on the Wednesday night, and turned back to the same place before daybreak on Thursday, having evidently been rode very fast, and gored very much in the sides." The owner of the horse could give no assistance in the matter, nor had he suspicions against any one; so that it would appear the robber had taken the horse surreptitiously for his purpose. The mail-bags were afterwards recovered, with some few of the letters opened: but it did not appear that any property was missing. The unfortunate rider, whose name was "Caddy," remained in hospital till the January following, when he was discharged; but in the month of May his wounds broke out afresh, and he had to return to hospital, being now become subject to epileptic fits owing to his injuries. As he was no longer able for service, he was granted a gratuity by the Post-office; and it is not probable that he survived very long thereafter. With the mere expectation of getting some little gain from the robbery, the marauder had all but killed the poor postboy, who had a wife and two children dependent on him; and he has in his evil-doing given a good example of what Burns calls "man's inhumanity to man," that "makes countless thousands mourn."
In the year 1797 the deputy-postmaster of the Orkneys and his son, a lad of about sixteen years of age, were tried at the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, on a charge of breaking open certain post-letters while in their custody in course of transit, and therefrom abstracting money. The indictment contained a further charge of forgery against the elder prisoner, the deputy having endorsed another person's name upon a money-order contained in one of the stolen letters. The thefts were committed at different times in 1794 and 1796, and the specific cases upon which evidence was led were in respect of the following letters—viz., two letters sent at different times to Orkney by a seaman in the Royal Navy, one containing a guinea-note and half a guinea in gold, the other containing either a guinea in gold or a note for that amount; a letter from London for Orkney, containing a money-order for £5 5s.; and a letter from Perth for Orkney, enclosing a note for a guinea: the whole amount involved being under £9.