At the beginning of the nineteenth century the roads in Ireland were attracting considerable attention, and it was the slow speed made by the mail carts there which was a primary cause in producing any improvement. The Postmasters-General were directed to cause surveys to be made and maps drawn of those roads in Ireland over which the mail passed. The roads were to be levelled so that the ascent or descent should be no more than one foot in thirty-five wherever this was practicable, the expense to be borne by the county or barony.[405] This was in 1805, and the next year the Grand Jury was given the power to call for another survey, and the surveyor whom they appointed was to decide as to the necessity for a change in the direction of the road. Copies of all Grand Jury presentments were to be made to the Postmasters-General.[406] In 1813 the Grand Juries were empowered to present for damages accruing to owners and occupiers of land, such damages to be raised by the county and advanced from the consolidated fund.[407]
After 1817, the Postmasters-General were able to report a considerable acceleration in the speed at which the mails were carried. This was owing largely to the introduction of a lighter and more improved type of mail coach, and after 1821 the use of steam packet boats in the case of the transportation of the Irish and continental mails. Letters leaving London at 8 P.M. on Tuesday for Ireland had not been delivered in Dublin until 10 A.M. on Friday. In 1817 they arrived on Thursday in time for delivery on that day.[408] In 1828, the coaches travelled from London to Holyhead, a distance of 261 miles, in twenty-nine hours and seventeen minutes. Four years later the time had been reduced to twenty-eight hours.[409] By the introduction of one of the patent mail coaches on the Yarmouth road, the inhabitants of that town were enabled to answer their letters a day earlier. The coach left London at the usual time (8 P.M.), arriving in Yarmouth at 11.40 A.M., returning at 3 P.M. on the same day.[410] The mails to Manchester and Liverpool travelled at the rate of nine miles an hour over the greater part of the road.[411] The average speed varied from eight to nine miles an hour. To give the exact figures, the highest speed attained in England was ten miles and five furlongs an hour, the slowest six miles, and the average eight miles and seven furlongs.[412] In Ireland the highest speed attained by the mail coaches was nine miles and one furlong an hour, the slowest speed six miles and seven furlongs, and the average eight miles and two furlongs.[413] Mail carts drawn by two horses were also used largely in Ireland for the conveyance of the mails, and by these the speed was not so great. The highest speed made by them was seven miles and five furlongs an hour, the slowest five miles and one furlong, and the average six miles and three furlongs.[414] In Scotland the highest speed was ten miles and four furlongs an hour, the slowest seven miles, and the average eight miles and two furlongs. [415]
The mails which left London at 8 P.M. arrived in Holyhead at 12.6 A.M. on the next day but one. The packet left Holyhead twenty-five minutes later for Howth. The packet left Howth at 4 P.M. for Holyhead, and the mails for London left Holyhead at 12.15 A.M. The passage across the Irish Sea took from five to eight hours. The London coach arrived in Milford at 5.27 A.M., travelling at a rate of eight miles an hour, and twenty-five minutes after its arrival, the packet left for Dunmore. Another left Dunmore with the mails at 12 P.M., and the coach left Milford for London at 7.30 P.M.[416] The London mail coach arrived at Portpatrick at 10.27 P.M., fifty hours and twenty-seven minutes from London. The packet did not leave Portpatrick until 6.10 A.M., after the arrival of the Glasgow mail, which left Glasgow at 4.45 P.M., arriving at 5.6 A.M. The packet left Donaghadee at noon, and the mail left Portpatrick at 4 P.M., arriving in Glasgow at 6 A.M. Ordinarily the passage across took four hours. The London mail coach arrived in Liverpool at 6 P.M., twenty-two hours from London, and left at 10.30 P.M. Packets sailed from Liverpool and Kingstown at 5 P.M. and 5.15 P.M., the time for crossing being about fourteen hours. No London letters went via Liverpool until 1841.[417]
The method used to ensure a rapid transmission of the mails by the coaches was as follows: Time bills were issued to the guards of the different coaches. On these bills were printed the speed that should be made from stage to stage, and it was the guard's duty to fill in the time made by the coach on which he rode. Penalties were inflicted for any mistakes which he might make or any failure on his part to leave the bill in the office at the end of his route. On some of the time bills it was set forth that a fine of one shilling was payable by the proprietor for each minute that the coach was late and he might recover it from the guard or coachman if the delay was due to the negligence of either of them. The coachmen were ordered to make up any time lost on the road and to report the horse keepers if they were at fault.[418]
The chief cause for delay was the lack of close connection between the mail coaches and the packets to and from Ireland. In 1837 the London mail arrived in Holyhead at 11 P.M., but the packet did not leave for Kingstown until 8 A.M., a change having been made in the time of sailing.[419] Letters from England were detained in Dublin eleven hours before their departure for the rest of the island.[420] More than one third of the Irish letters for England left Kingstown by the day packet at 9 A.M., remaining in Holyhead from 3 P.M. to 4 A.M., with the exception of the letters for Chester and Manchester, which were forwarded by a special coach.[421]
The packets from Liverpool started shortly before the arrival of the London mail. The Commissioners proposed that they should be detained until it had arrived, but this was not done until ten years later.[422] The packets at Portpatrick always waited for the mails from Glasgow, and as these were nearly always late, letters from Carlisle and Northern England were necessarily detained.[423] The station at Milford had always given the most trouble. From a financial point of view it was the least satisfactory, and English letters for the south of Ireland often went through Holyhead. The packet left Waterford[424] for Milford at 12 P.M., arriving in Milford about noon, but the mail did not leave for London until 7.30 P.M.[425] English letters for Ireland via Milford were detained from ten to thirteen hours in Waterford.[426]
Before the introduction of Penny Postage, the use of railways had only started. In 1837, it was objected that the railways could never be of much use in this respect because they could not travel at night for fear of accidents. In answer to this objection it was pointed out that trains between Liverpool and Manchester and Leeds and Selby found no difficulty in that respect.[427] In 1837, mails were carried between Manchester and Liverpool at a rate of twenty miles an hour, and these trains left both Liverpool and Manchester as late as 5 P.M.[428] The Postmaster-General was given authority by Parliament to require any railway to carry mails either by ordinary or special train and to regulate the speed to the maximum of the fastest passenger train, as well as to control places, times and duration of stoppage and the times of arrival, provided that such regulations were reasonable. He might require the exclusive use of a carriage, if necessary, provided either by the railway or himself as seemed better to himself. In 1844 he was allowed to order a speed not in excess of twenty-seven miles an hour but he complained that he was unable to enforce his regulations although the speed was increasing. In 1855 a parliamentary committee reported in favour of a deduction of payment for irregularity on the part of the railways and the fining of the Post Office for irregularity in dealing with mail to be entrusted to the railways, the amounts of such deductions and fines to be a matter of contract, and in addition it was advised that the Postmaster-General's demands with reference to speed should be certified by the Railway Department of the Board of Trade to be consistent with safety. In conformity with this resolution, the Postmaster-General proposed to pay a bonus to the railways when their trains were on time and to exact a penalty from either the railway or the Post Office whichever were the offender, but the proposition was, as a rule, not very favourably received by the railways.[429]
CHAPTER VII
SAILING PACKETS AND FOREIGN CONNECTIONS