In 1784, when Palmer proposed the abolition of these slow-moving and far from trustworthy mail-carriers,[58] and the substitution in their place of the existing stage-coaches,[59] great were the scorn and indignation of the postal authorities. Seven miles an hour instead of three and a half! And coaches instead of post-boys! Were ever such mad proposals heard of! The officials were “amazed that any dissatisfaction, any desire for change should exist.” Not so very long before, they had plumed themselves on the gratifying fact that “in five days an answer to a letter might be had from a place distant 200 miles from the writer.” And now, even in face of that notable advance, the public wanted further concessions! One prominent official “could not see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England.” Another was sure that if travelling were made quicker, the correspondence of the country would be thrown into the utmost confusion. But he thought—and perhaps the parentage of the thought was not far to seek—that to expedite the mails was simply impossible. The officials, indeed, were “unanimously of opinion that the thing is totally impracticable.”[60] And, doubtless, Palmer was set down as “a visionary” and “a revolutionist”—names to be bestowed, some fifty-three years later, upon another persistent reformer. A second Committee, formed to consider Palmer's proposals, reported that it had “examined the oldest and ablest officers of the Post Office, and they had no confidence whatever in the plan.” “It is always,” said Brougham, when, in the Upper House, he was advocating adoption of the later reform, “the oldest and ablest, for the Committee considered the terms synonymous.”[61] Thus does history repeat itself. As it was with Palmer, so, before him, it was with Witherings and Dockwra; and, after him, with Rowland Hill. The unforgivable offence is to be wiser than one's opponents, and to achieve success when failure has been predicted. But worse things than prophecy of failure accompany reforms, attempted or accomplished, and act like a discordant chorus striving to drown sweet music. Prophecy of dire results, such as ruin of society, disruption of the Empire, etc., are sometimes raised, and carry dismay into the hearts of the timid. My father, who was born less than forty-three years after “the change of style,” as a child often heard old people, in all seriousness, lament the loss of “our eleven days,” and declare that since it was made everything in this country had gone wrong.[62] I too, when young, have heard aged lips attribute the awful cholera visitation of 1832 to our sinfulness in passing the Catholic Emancipation Bill; and the potato disease and consequent Irish famine in the mid 'forties to interference with the sacred Corn Laws. We laugh at this sort of thing to-day, but are we much wiser than our forebears?