“The Christmas postal traffic on the Great Western Railway necessitated the running of the Night Mail train in two portions between London and Penzance, the first part taking the passengers, and the second being reserved exclusively for the Mails. Strangely enough, the despatch of the Mails from Paddington Station was superintended by the only Mail Coach Guard now in the service, Mr. James Nobbs, who for over fifty years has most faithfully looked after Her Majesty’s Mails. He well recollects that on Christmas Eve, 1839, just prior to the introduction of the Penny Post, he was the Guard to the Mail Coach running between Cheltenham and Aberystwith. What a contrast! His Christmas night’s load of Mails in 1839 did not exceed a hundredweight. In 1889 he saw off from Paddington twenty tons of Mail matter in the day, in the most prosaic manner, with no blowing of musical horn, and no carrying of deadly blunderbuss, as of yore. The still hale and hearty old gentleman, in the picturesque costume of the Mail Guard of the past, is a prominent figure at Paddington Station, and long may he so remain.” Mr. F. E. Baines, C.B., Inspector-General of Mails, in his well-known humorous style, gave in “_Blackfriars_” the following account of a coach trip taken to Brighton by the chiefs of the Post Office Department, to inaugurate a Parcel Post Service by road with “London-super-Mare”:— “Mr. Moses James Nobbs, the last (I think) surviving Mail Guard, began work June 27th, 1836, and still does duty as Mail Officer at Paddington. He could remember a good deal in his fifty-three years of service. Old memories must have revived as he went down from London to Brighton, two or three years ago, as Guard in charge of the special trip of the new Brighton Parcel Coach. He was fully equipped, as of yore, for that perilous journey, a timepiece from Jamaica serving to complete the outfit. We maintained (within an hour or two) a moderate punctuality, but the tropic sun, or a luncheon at Red Hill, I know not which—perhaps both—disturbed the due action of the watch. ‘Thrice armed the Guard who hath his timepiece just.’ All the same, a blunderbuss from Exeter was handed in at the last moment to make our armament fourfold; and, I grieve to state, had, amidst the delighted and (I fear) ironical cheers of a crowded courtyard, to be tied on to the hind seat with official string.”