letters cost 2s. 1d. each, what of that? Did they not contain accounts of sugar and rum cargoes, and of good news from absent ones. Letters were letters in those days, and not the notes and cards and "flimsies" of to-day.
Arrival of the Bath and Bristol Mail Coach at a Roadside Inn.
CHAPTER IV.
VICTORIAN ERA, 1837-1899.
MAIL TRANSPORT BY RAILWAY.—TRAVELLING POST OFFICES.
Although the world's railway system was inaugurated by the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825, it was not until 1838 that any attempt was made by a great railway to open up the traffic to the West from the Metropolis. It was in that year that the Great Western Company made a line between Paddington and Maidenhead, and mails were sent by it. The section from Bristol to Bath was opened in the same year. Woolmer's Gazette of January, 1840, speaks of the 9.0 a.m. "Exquisite" coach for Bristol, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool, with part of the service by rail. Intermediate sections of the railway were completed from time to time, and, finally, on the 30th January, 1841, the Western line was opened throughout, and the coaches which
had formed so striking a feature both of town and country life generally disappeared. One coach, however, obstinately held its ground in spite of the railway, and continued to carry passengers from and to London and Bristol at the rate of 1d. per mile until October, 1843.
In consequence of the completion of the Great Western Railway to Bristol, extensive mail alterations had to be made, and they were commenced on the 30th July, 1841, affecting the whole district right through Somersetshire and Devonshire into Cornwall. Some towns were made post towns and others were reduced from the rank of post towns to that of sub-post offices. To meet the altered circumstances, revised sacking of bags had to be resorted to. The instructions given by the President to the staff in St. Martin's-le-Grand ended thus: