weather serving" is an amusing qualification, as pointed out by Mr. Chambers, considering that there was only one ferry of six or seven miles, and another of two miles, to cross. In 1661, we find the Edinburgh postmaster useful in another capacity, for in that year the Privy Council grant a warrant to him "to put to print and publish _ane diurnal weekly_, for preventing false news which may be invented by evil and disaffected persons." We must now pass over many years, as not offering any incidents of any moment. In the year 1730 we find that the Scotch establishment yielded the sum of 1,194_l._ as the whole gross revenue. From about the year 1750, the mails began to be carried from stage to stage, as in England, by relays of fresh horses and different post-boys, though not entirely to the exclusion of the post-runners, of whom we have previously spoken. In 1723, the Edinburgh Post-Office occupied the first-floor of a house near the cross, above an alley which still bears the name of the Post-Office Close. It was afterwards removed to a floor on the south side of the Parliament Square, which was fitted up shop-fashion, and where the letters were given out from behind an ordinary shop counter, one letter-carrier doing all the out-door work. The Post-Office was removed to its present situation in 1821. Towards the close of 1865, it is expected, the handsome building now rising up near the old office will be finished and opened for postal purposes.[49] Even less interest attaches to the early annals of the Irish Post-Office. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was certainly more remunerative than the Scotch, though much less remunerative than the English departments. Previous to the introduction of mail-coaches, all mails were conveyed, or supposed to be conveyed, by the postmasters, to whom certain special allowances were made for each particular service. "There were no contracts, and no fixed rules as to time. Three miles and a half (per hour) seems to have been the pace acknowledged to have been sufficient. The bags were usually conveyed by boys. In the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis, some sort of cart was used, but with this exception the bags were carried either on ponies or mules, or on foot."[50] The same authority tells us further that, "at this time, the bags were carried to Cork, Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford, six days a week; and three days a week to Galway, Wexford, and Enniskillen. There were three posts to Killarney; but for this the Government refused to pay anything. The postmaster had a salary of 3_l._ a-year, but the mail was carried by foot-messengers, who were maintained at the cost of the inhabitants and of the news-printers in Cork. Carrick-on-Shannon was the only town in county Leitrim receiving a mail, and this it did twice a week. Now it has two every day. Except at the county-town, there was no post-office in the whole county of Sligo;