ly Mr.
Humphries, the proposer, for the kind and considerate and genial way in
which he had alluded to his department. In the first place, he wished
to extend to the delegates assembled there--and they came from all parts
of the United Kingdom, North, South, East, and West--the right hand of
good comradeship. Welcome, delegates to Bristol, thrice welcome, he
said. He supposed, in response to this important toast, they would
expect that he should say something of the postal system. The Lord
Bishop had taken them back some hundreds of years--1200 years back, when
Bishop Aldhelm wrote a letter. He must go a little further back than
that. His friend, Mr. Humphries, found a parallel in Holy
Scripture--Daniel in the lion's den. He found in Holy Writ, the only
book of ancient date he had to refer to, that posts and letters were of
respectable antiquity. They would find recorded in Kings II. this
passage in connection with the account of that pathetic incident of the
little Israelitish maiden suggesting the means whereby Naaman might be
cured--"Go to," said the King of Syria, "I will send a letter to the
King of Israel." In the wisdom of Solomon were the words, "My days are
like a shadow that passeth away, and like the post that hasteth by." So
they saw in those ancient days it was all hurry for the postman. He
would skip a few thousand years and come to 1496. It was recorded that
the means of communication in this country were almost non-existent, and
news was carried to and fro by means of travelling merchants, pedlars,
and pilgrims. In 1637 letter posts were established by Charles I. King
Charles stopped in the building that stood on the site of their local
St. Martin's-le-Grand, but little could he have thought that the day
would come when it would be possible for a man to stand on that spot and
speak to a friend and recognise his voice, as far away as Wexford. Sir
Francis Freeling had been named. He became secretary to the Post Office.
He served in the Bristol office two or three years before being
translated to London to become the associate of Palmer, of mail-coach
renown. The old city of Bristol had been under a cloud. In the year 1793
they had only one postman, and two or three years later two. Now they
had 500. In the last 60 years the letters posted and delivered in
Bristol increased from 66 millions to 134 millions in the year. This was
an enormous increase, and showed that Bristol was going to forge ahead
again. It