traced to the messengers;
and deliveries took place ten times in the vicinity of the Exchange and
Inns of Court, and four times in the suburbs daily. All persons were
requested to post their communications before six o'clock in the winter,
and seven in the summer, on Saturday nights, "that the many poor men
employed may have a little time to provide for their families against
the Lord's Day." And it was moreover intimated that upon three days at
Christmas, and two at Easter and Whitsuntide, as likewise upon the 30th
of January, the post would not be delivered.

From the first this scheme promised success, the manner in which it was
carried out being wholly admirable; yet there were many who raised their
voices against it persistently. Porters and messengers declared it
took away their means of subsistence; whilst those of higher grade were
confident it was a contrivance of the papists, which enabled them
to carry out their wicked schemes with greater security. But these
illusions vanished with time; and the penny post became such a success
that Government laid claim to it as a branch of the General Post Office,
and annexed its revenues to the Crown. [In the year 1703 Queen Anne
bestowed a grant on Elizabeth, Dowager countess of Thanet, to erect a
penny post-office in Dublin, similar to that in existence in London.]

Another innovation in this interesting reign were stage-coaches,
described as affording "admirable commodiousness both for men and women
of better rank, to travel from London and to almost all the villages
near this great city, that the like hath not been known in the world,
wherein one may be transported to any place, sheltered from foul weather
and foul ways, free from endamaging one's health or body by hard jogging
or over-violent emotion, and this not only at a low price, as about a
shilling for every five miles in a day; for the stage-coaches called
flying coaches make forty or fifty miles in a day, as from London to
Cambridge or Oxford, and that in the space of twelve hours, not counting
the time for dining, setting forth not too early, nor coming in too
late."

Likewise were divorce suits introduced whilst Charles II. sat upon the
throne for the first time--if the case of Henry VIII. be excepted--when
my Lord Rosse, in consequence of the misconduct of his lady, had a bill
brought into the House of Lords for dissolving his marriage and enabling
him to wed again. There being at this period, 1669, a p