ABSTRACT
A M O N G the manifold arrangements which characterise the interior of the British hive there is, we believe, no one which offers to an intelligent observer a more important moral than the respect which is everywhere paid by us to the correspondence of the nation. Prior to the introduction of railways our post-office establishment was the admiration of every foreigner who visited us. But although our light mail-coaches, high-bred horses, glittering harness, skilful coachmen, resolute guards, and macadamised roads were undeniably of the very best description, yet the moral basis on which the whole fabric rested, or rather the power which gave vitality to its movements, evidently was a patriotic desire indigenous in the minds of people of all classes to protect, as their common wealth, the correspondence of the country ; and accordingly it mattered not whether on our public thoroughfares were to be seen a butcher's cart, a brewer's dray, a bishop's coach, a nobleman's landau, the squire's chariot or his tenant's waggon ;—it mattered not what quantity of vehicles were assembled for purposes good, bad, or indifferent, for church, for race-course, or for theatre ;—it mattered not for what party of pleasure or for what political purpose a crowd or a mob might have assembled ; for at a single blast through a long tin horn people of all ranks and conditions, however they might be disposed to dispute on all other subjects, were ready from all quarters to join together in exclaiming, " M A K E W A Y FOR THE M A I L ! "
