Our purpose will not allow of our describing all the attendant circumstances of the state of things existing at this early period, or more fully than we have already done the postal arrangements of the past. But there were the "_expresses_," which ought not to be forgotten. Designed to supply some sudden emergency, they were of great use where quick intelligence was urgently required. For this purpose they might be had from the post-office people at any hour, and generally they were procured through the night. A special mounted messenger might be despatched, under this arrangement, with a single letter, marked "Haste! post haste!" carrying with him a way-bill, to account for the time it had taken him to perform the journey. The charge for expresses was at the rate of a shilling a mile, the speed at which they travelled averaging ten miles an hour. Nor can we stay, much as we should like to do so, to picture the old mail-coach--its glittering appearance, its pawing horses; or to describe the royal-liveried guard, "grand and awful-looking in all the composure of a felt superiority." In the old times it used to pull up at the half-wooden inn near the post-office, and, during the half-hour allowed for postal business, was the observed of all observers. The half-hour was one of unusual bustle both at the office and at the inn; but, as soon as the time was up, the passengers would take their seats (the guard occupying a solitary one at the end of the coach), the mails were thrown as a small addition to the load of bags at the top, and off the cavalcade would start, to the tune, perhaps, of the "Blue Bells of Scotland," if the mail was going northwards, or, if southwards, may be "The Green Hills of Tyrol," from the clear silver key-bugle of his Majesty's mail-guard. Now, this is changed, and almost all postal arrangements prior to the days of Sir Rowland Hill are as so many things of the past. And into what a grand establishment the Post-Office itself is metamorphosed! The part now dedicated to the public might be part of a first-class banking establishment. Entering by a spacious doorway, with a lofty vestibule, there is accommodation for a score of people to stand in the ante-room and leisurely transact their business. Then there runs along the whole length of the first or public room a substantial mahogany counter, behind which the clerks stand to answer inquiries and attend to the ordinary daily business. There is a desk for the money-order clerk, and drawers in which postage-stamps are kept. Close by we see one or two ranges of boxes; one for callers' letters--"_the poste restante_"--and another for those who prefer to engage private boxes to having their letters delivered by letter-carriers.