and Rudgeway: Goes out twenty minutes before 10 in the morning; arrives at half-past 4 in the evening. Bitton, through New Church, Kingswood, Hanham, and Willsbridge: Goes out at 10.0 in the morning; arrives at half-past 4 in the evening. Exeter and Westward: Out every morning between 9.0 and 10.0; arrives every evening between 4.0 and 5.0. Portsmouth, Chichester, Salisbury, etc.: Out at half-past 5 in the afternoon; arrives every day previously to the London mail. Tetbury and Cirencester: Out every morning at half-past 9; arrives every evening at 5.0. Birmingham and Northward: Out every evening at 7.0; arrives every morning between 6.0 and 7.0. Milford and South Wales: Out every day at half-past 9; arrives at half-past 3 in the afternoon. The Irish mail is made up every day, and letters from Ireland may be expected to arrive every day at half-past 3. Jamaica and Leeward Islands, first and third Wednesday in the month; Lisbon, every week; Gibraltar and Mediterranean, every three weeks; Madeira and Brazils, first Tuesday in each month; Surinam, Berbice, and Demorara, second Wednesday in each month; France and Spain, Sundays, Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Thursdays; Holland and Hamburgh, Mondays and Thursdays; Guernsey and Jersey, Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Letters for all parts may be put into the Post Office at any time, but should be delivered half an hour before the mail is made up. Letters delivered later than half an hour previous to the departure of the respective mails to be accompanied with one penny. Payment of postage will not be received unless tendered full half an hour before the time fixed for closing the bags. Letters for Axbridge, Weston-super-Mare, and adjacent places are sent and received by the Western mail. Letter bags are made up daily, after the sorting of the London mail, for Bourton, Wrington, Langford, Churchill, Nailsea, Clevedon, and their respective deliveries. The letters must be put in by 9.0 o'clock. The return to Bristol is at 4.0 in the afternoon. Letters may be put into the receiving offices for all parts of the kingdom, and the full postage, if desired, paid with them. Letter carriers are despatched regularly every day (Sundays not excepted) with letters to and from Durdham Down, Westbury, Stapleton, Frenchay, Downend, Hambrook, and
Winterbourne; and also to Brislington, Keynsham, and other places. The delivery of letters at Clifton is each day at 10.0 and 6.0. Letters should be in the offices at Clifton and the Wells for the London and the North mails by 4.0."
It may be interesting to state, what the rates of postage from this city were in 1830. Thus: Australia, 11d.; Buenos Ayres, 3s. 5d.; Canary Islands, 2s. 6d.; Cape de Verde Islands, 2s. 6d.; Chili, 3s. 5d.; China, 11d.; Colombo, 3s.; Cuba, 3s.; East Indies, 11d.; Havana, 3s.; St. Helena, 11d.; South America, 3s. 5d.; Van Dieman's Land, 11d.; whilst for the Continent the rates were considerably higher, thus: Austria, 2s. 2d.; Belgium, 1s. 11d.; Corsica, 2s. 2d.; Denmark, 2s. 3d.; Flanders, 2s. 2d.; France—Calais, 1s. 5d.; Germany, 2s. 3d.; Gibraltar, 2s. 6d.; Holland, 1s. 11d.; Italy, 2s. 2d.; Malta, 2s. 6d.; Poland, 2s. 3d.; Prussia, 2s. 3d.; Russia, 2s. 3d.; Spain, 2s. 2d.; Turkey, 2s. 2d. At that period the Inland Rates were very high, and the cost was regulated thus: From any Post Office in England or Wales, to any place not exceeding 15 miles from such office, 4d.; above 15 to 20 miles, 5d.; 20 to 30 miles, 6d.; 30 to 50 miles,
7d.; 50 to 80 miles, 8d.; 80 to 120 miles, 9d.; 120 to 170 miles, 10d.; 170 to 230 miles, 11d.; 230 to 300 miles, 12d. And one penny in addition on each letter for every 100 miles beyond 300. Thus a letter from Bristol to Cirencester cost 7d.; Cheltenham, 8d.; Banbury, 10d.; Leeds, 11d.; Hull; 12d., and so on. Now a letter four ounces in weight can be sent from one end of the land to the other for a penny, and a parcel one pound in weight for threepence.
The Bristol ex-Postal Superintendent, Mr. H. T. Carter, carrying his mind back over his forty years of diligent and zealous service, recalls the time when the mails for the not far-distant village of Shirehampton were conveyed in a cart drawn by a dog, the property of rural postman Ham. The cart was not large, but of sufficient size to carry postman and mail bags. The dog, of Newfoundland breed, got over the ground at a rapid pace. Ham was addicted to drink, but nevertheless, whether he was drunk or sober, asleep or awake, in stormy or fine weather, the dog took him and the mails to their proper destination.
A venerable man now living at Earthcott Green,
a hamlet within ten miles of our great city, well recollects the time when he received his letters through Iron Acton, at a special cost to him of 2d. each, with a delivery only every other day. The plan was for an additional penny to be charged on all letters sent out by rural posts for delivery, and in addition to this penny an extra charge was levied on all letters delivered from sub-Post Offices to bye houses or places beyond the several village deliveries. In some cases recognised men or women attended at the Head Office, Bristol, once or twice a week to take out letters for delivery in the remote country regions—of course for a "consideration."
The Bristol district shared in the representations in 1838 of the hardships borne by poor people in respect of the heavy charges for the conveyance of letters. The postmaster at Congresbury deposed thus:—"The price of a letter is a great tax on poor people. I sent one, charged eightpence, to a poor labouring man about a week ago; it came from his daughter. He first refused it, saying it would take a loaf of bread from his other children; but, after hesitating a little time, he paid the money, and opened the letter. I seldom return letters of this
kind to Bristol, because I let the poor people have them, and take the chance of being paid; sometimes I lose the postage, but generally the poor people pay me by degrees." Then the postmaster of Yatton stated as follows:—"I have had a letter waiting lately for a poor woman, from her husband who is at work in Wales; the charge was 9d.,—it lay many days, in consequence of her not being able to pay the postage. I at last trusted her with it." Of the desire of the poor to correspond, a Mr. Emery gave evidence, stating "that the poor near Bristol have signed a petition to Parliament for the reduction of the postage. He never saw greater enthusiasm in any public thing that was ever got up in the shape of a petition; they seemed all to enter into the thing as fully and with as much feeling as it was possible, as a boon or godsend to them, that they should be able to correspond with their distant friends."