hour was reckoned at £3 a double mile. Mails were exempt from turnpike tolls.
With the introduction of the mail coaches with well-armed, resolute guards, there was a cessation of mail robberies on the main roads. Pilfering, however, was occasionally carried on; for instance, in the early winter of 1794 one Thomas Thomas travelled day after day up and down on the London and Bristol coach. At last his opportunity came when the guard temporarily left his coach with the mailbox unlocked, and then Thomas Thomas looted the mails. On the cross roads the saddle horse and cart posts were frequently stopped and robbed (1796). One of the worst roads in this respect was that between Bristol and Portsmouth. Proposals for the postboys to be furnished with pistols, cutlasses, and caps lined with metal, like hunting caps, for the defence of the head, fell through on account of the expense which their supply would have entailed.
There exists a popular belief that the mail coaches were driven up and down the steep Queen Street in Bristol now known as Christmas Steps. The belief is erroneous, for an inscription over
the recessed seats at the top of the passage tells us that—
"This Streete was Steppered Done
& Finished, September, 1669.
The Right Worpfl Thomas Stevens,
Esqr. Mayor.
Named Qveene Streete."
Probably, however, the postboys who carried the mails in earlier days rode up the steep incline.
A gentleman now writing in the Bristol Times and Mirror under the nom-de-plume of "Old File," delving in the historical garden of Felix Farley's Journal, has unearthed the following very interesting announcements and advertisements, which throw light on the mail services of the time:—
"MILFORD AND BRECKNOCK MAIL COACH.
"A coach sets out from the 'White Hart,' Broad Street, Bristol, over the Old Passage (Aust), every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, at noon, and joins the above coach at Ragland the same day; and a corresponding coach returns from Milford on certain days." The chief point in the advertisement was in the paragraph: "N.B.—This road is nineteen