might have saved me the journey spoken of, was placed in my hands, with the assurance that it was delivered at my house about half an hour after I left home. The next case is this – A letter coming from a friend whose residence is not more than a quarter of a mile from my own, (and both less than that distance from the St. Leonards post-office) was posted at St. Leonards, and instead of being delivered as formerly from that office, it was taken to Hastings, and did not reach me till the following morning. These are the first fruits of a change in our postal regulations, which was as uncalled for as it will prove to be mischievous.” “I am, &c. Loco.”
More Post Office Grievances. The following is a short extract from a letter which appeared in the Hastings News, of April 12th:- “The and good management of the Post Office authorities is something quite peculiar to themselves. We have hardly received the assurance of the tardy reformation of a long-standing grievance before another arises.... Notice has just been given that the mail-cart with letters for East-Kent has been taken off, and I, for one, supposed that some increased facilities had been found by which the old fashioned mail-cart was superseded by an improved arrangement. But, instead of this, a letter which a fortnight ago, if posted at the chief office here by 4 a.m., have been delivered at Margate with the London letters at breakfast time, is not delivered till 6 in the evening, the whole of our correspondence with East-Kent, suffering in a similar manner.... If this is the new man’s doing, let’s have another man, who will better study the requirements of one who, though a Hastinger, is also “A Man of Kent”
Who would not be a Postman? Under this interrogative the St. Leonards Gazette, of June the 22nd had the following remarks:- “The alterations recently effected in postal matters have entailed upon the St. Leonards letter-carriers an additional trudge of about 15 miles per diem. How comfortable! How delightful! Only think, ye pedestrians how charming it must be during the present sultry weather, or even by and by, in frost and snow and rain and blow, to be privileged to walk six times to Hastings and six times back to St. Leonards in the course of a day, and to have the further privilege to knock and ring at every man’s door throughout the last-named town. Only think, ye philanthropic sons of England and ye kind-hearted daughters of humanity of the efforts that are now made to transfer the loads and labours of the poor beasts of burden to the backs of intelligent man, - ‘the noblest work of God’. Time was when a horse might be driven 28 miles on alternative days in suitable weather; but now it would be cruel to impose such a condition, and so, the two-footed animal is permitted to perform the distance instead, the only modification being that the 28 miles must -
