The public required little attention, and got but little. Being prior to the time of postage-stamps, and we may almost add of money-orders, not to speak of savings' bank business, few applications were ever made to the officers--consisting of a postmaster, his wife, and another clerk--for anything but stray scraps of information relative to the despatch of mails. The communication with the public was anything but close, being conducted in this town--and, in fact, in all others of our acquaintance--through a trap-door in a wooden pane in the office-window. Near to it was a huge slit, being a passage to a basket, into which letters and newspapers were promiscuously thrown. The principal labour incident to the old style of postage was in regulating the amount to be paid on the different letters. Those posted in the town for the town itself were delivered for a penny; twopence was charged into the country places surrounding; letters for the metropolis cost a shilling; and Scotch letters eightpence-halfpenny at least, the odd halfpenny being the charge as a toll for the letter crossing the Tweed. The delivery of the letters in the town took place at any time during the day, according to the arrival of the mails, and it was effected by a single letter-carrier.[160] Private boxes for the principal merchants in the town, and private bags for the country gentlemen, were almost indispensable to those who cared for the proper despatch and security of their correspondence. Many gentlemen who did not arrange to have private bags (at a great yearly expense) were compelled to make frequent journeys to the town to ascertain if any letters had arrived for them. Some letters for places within a few miles of the town would be known to be at the office for days and weeks unguessed at, till perhaps some one would hear, through one of many channels, that a letter was lying at the post-office for persons of their acquaintance, and inform them of the fact. Letter-delivering in the rural districts was then a private concern, and, in consequence, those letters destined for one particular road were laid aside till a sufficient number were accumulated to make it worth while to convey them at a charge of a penny the letter.[161] Owing to the wretched system then in force, many country places round a post-office were, to all intents and purposes, more remote than most foreign countries are at this hour. One letter-carrier sufficing for the wants of the town, we need scarcely say that the number of letters received was exceedingly small. Not more than a hundred letters were posted or delivered, on an average, each day, though the town was the seat of many brisk manufactories, and was, besides, in the heart of the colliery districts. _Now_, a single firm in the same town will cause a greater amount of daily postal business.