With this before me I cannot help asking myself whether it was not somewhat of a leap in the dark to reduce the postage at one bound from the existing high rates to one penny. If the railways had not been constructed with the celerity they were, there must have been great difficulty and increased expenses in conveying the mails, as it would have been impossible for the mail coaches to carry them and passengers as well. I suppose, however, we must conclude that Sir Rowland Hill had, with great foresight, and much consideration, assured himself that such would be the case with the railways, and that he might safely trust to their rapid development and co-operation for carrying out his great project. Though the result might not have been equally clear to others as to himself, he was only like the great engineer, George Stephenson, who, when examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, for the sake of humouring the distrust and nervousness of his interrogators, placed the speed at which he expected the trains to travel at ten miles an hour, though, at the same time he quite reckoned upon, at least, double that speed. The mail coaches working out of London had a gala day every year. On the King's birthday they all paraded, spick and span, with the coaches new or else freshly painted and varnished, the coachmen and guards wearing their new scarlet liveries, picked teams with new harness, and rosettes in their heads: blue and orange ones in old George the Third's day; but the orange, for some cause or other, was changed to red in the succeeding reign. In this form they formed up and paraded through several of the principal thoroughfares at the West End, returning to their respective yards preparatory to the serious business of the night. It was a very pretty pageant, but there was another scene connected with them, and which, to my mind, was quite, if not more interesting, which could be witnessed every week-day evening in St. Martin's-le-Grand, between the hours of half-past seven and eight. Soon after the former hour all the mail coaches--with the exception of seven or eight, which left London by the western roads, and received their bags at the "White Horse Cellar," or "Gloucester Coffee-house," to which places they were taken in mail carts--began to arrive at the General Post-Office to receive their bags. They turned into the yard, through the gateway nearest to Cheapside, and took up their places behind the building in a space which has been very much encroached upon since by buildings, and, as eight o'clock struck, they were to be seen emerging through the lower gateway, and turning off on their respective routes, spreading out like a sky rocket as they advanced into the country.