Until 1748 there were but three posts a week between London and Birmingham. In that year the number was doubled. The notice making known this improvement contains denunciations of the people who were in “any way concerned in the illegal collecting or delivery of Letters or Packets of Letters.” The fines for the offence were “£5 for every letter, and £100 for every week this practice is continued.” But fines could not arrest the smuggling, because the practice was remunerative to the smugglers, and popular among those who employed them, and who thus enjoyed cheap rates of postage. Therefore the illegal traffic went on growing, till by the time the old system came to an end it had assumed vast proportions. Publishers and other business men wrote letters on one large sheet of paper for different people living in the same district. On reaching its destination the sheet was divided into its separate parts, each of which being then delivered by hand or local post. A similar practice in respect of money payments prevailed.[44] One publisher and bookseller said he was “not caught” till he had thus distributed some 20,000 letters. Several carriers made the collection and distribution of letters their only business, and in the collecting process women and children were employed. In one district the illegal practice was more than fifty years old, and in at least another, as we see by the notice quoted in the preceding paragraph, its age must have exceeded a century. In one then small town the daily average of smuggled letters amounted to more than 50, and on one occasion rose above 150. The Mr Brewin of Cirencester already mentioned said he knew two carriers who conveyed four times as many letters as did the mail.[45] One carrier confessed to having smuggled about 60 letters a day. On another carrier's premises a bag was seized containing 1,100 letters. Twelve walking carriers between Birmingham and Walsall were employed exclusively in conveying letters at a charge of a penny apiece. Five Glasgow merchants illegally transmitted letters at the rate severally of three, eighteen, sixteen, eight, and fifteen to one that went legally. Five-sixths of the Manchester letters contributed nothing whatever to the postal revenue.[46] Nor does the list of delinquencies end here. Letters were also smuggled in warehousemen's bales and parcels; among manufacturers' patterns and other things which coach proprietors, on payment of a trifle for booking, carried free of charge; in weavers' bags, in farmers' “family boxes,” and in other ways.[1] Even the mail-coach drivers and guards engaged in the unlawful traffic, though in many instances letters were sent in coach parcels not so much to save postage as to facilitate transmission and ensure early delivery.