[68] Of Edwin's kindness of heart many instances are remembered. Of these, two, characteristic of the man, shall be selected. The head gardener at Bruce Castle lived in the (then) village of Tottenham down a narrow entry at a corner of which stood one of the inevitable drink-traps which in this civilised country are permitted to be set up wherever the poor most do congregate. John simply could not pass that public-house. He was too good a man to be allowed to sink into a sot; and eventually my uncle bethought him of building a gardener's cottage in a corner of the Castle grounds. The plan succeeded: John lived to a hale old age, and some of his children did well in the world. One afternoon, when my uncle was walking along the Strand on his way home from Somerset House after an arduous day's work, he saw a shabbily-dressed child sobbing bitterly. Now, Edwin Hill could never pass a little one in distress, and therefore stopped to ask what was the matter. The child had wandered from home, and was lost. The address it gave was at some distance, and in quite an opposite direction from that in which my uncle was bound. Most men would have made over the small waif to the first policeman who came in sight. But not this man. He took the wearied mite in his arms, carried it home, and placed it in its anxious mother's arm. [69] “Matthew Davenport Hill,” p. 142. By his daughters, R. and F. Hill. [70] In the Ninth of which was embodied the Commissioners' examination of Rowland Hill made in February 1837. It is curious that even these able men, when discussing the plan with its author, spoke with most hesitation of that detail of whose wisdom so many officials were more than doubtful, yet which, from the first, never presented any real difficulty—the practicability of prepayment—“Life,” i. 274. [71] As we have seen, in the chapter on “The Old Postal System,” Sir Walter Scott has made a somewhat biting remark upon the “few pence” which the Post Office added to its revenue on letters which were sent a long round in order to meet Departmental convenience. [72] “Hansard,” xxxv. (2nd Series), 422. [73] “Raw material by the half-hundred-weight” and “by post” in non-prepayment days is suggestive of heavy demands upon my father's purse. But no demand was made. Mr Wallace's frank as an M.P. would cause the packages he sent to be carried free of charge. It was literally a _cabful_ of books which arrived, thus adding yet another item to the oft-quoted list of huge things which could “go free” when sent by a member of the privileged classes. One trembles to think what would have been the charge to one of the _un_privileged.