The route varied somewhat with the circumstances of the time, always including the residence of the Postmaster-General for the time being. Punctually at noon it started off, headed by a horseman, and with another horseman between each coach. Nearing St. James’s Palace, it was generally reduced to a snail’s pace, for the crowd always assembled densely there, on the chance of seeing the King; and the authorities of that period were not clever at clearing a route. Imagine now the front of Carlton House Palace, or St. James’s, and the Londoners of that age assembled in their thousands. The procession with difficulty approaches, and halts. Two barrels of porter--Barclay & Perkins’ best--are in position in front of the Royal residence, and to each coachman and guard is handed a capacious pewter pot--it is a sight to make a Good Templar weep. The King and Queen and the Royal family now appear at an open window, the King removing his hat and bowing, to a storm of applause--as though he had done something really clever or wonderful. Now the coachman of the Bristol Mail uncovers, and holding high the shining pewter, exclaims: “We drink to the health of His Gracious Majesty: God bless him!” and suiting the action to the words, dips his nose into the pot, which in an incredibly short time is completely inverted and emptied. Fifty-three other voices simultaneously repeat the same words, and fifty-three pint pots are in like manner drained in the twinkling of an eye. The King and his family now retire, and the procession prepares to move on; but the mob, moved by loyalty and the sight of the beer-barrels, grows clamorous: “King, King! Queen, Queen!” cry a thousand voices; while a thousand more yell, “Beer, beer!” When at length the King does return, to bow once more, he gazes upon two thousand people struggling for two half-empty barrels, which in the scuffle have upset, and speedily become empty. Meanwhile the coaches have moved off, to complete their tour to the General Post Office, and thence back to Millbank. These processions, from some cause or another not now easily to be discovered, were omitted in 1829 and 1830. May 17th, 1838, when twenty-five mails paraded, was the last occasion; for already the railway was threatening the road, and when Queen Victoria’s birthday recurred the ranks of the mails were sadly broken. This memorable year, 1837, then, was the last unbroken year of the mail-coaches starting from London. Since September 23rd, 1829, when the old General Post Office in Lombard Street was deserted for the great building in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, they had come and gone. The first ever to enter its gates, as the result of keen competition, had been the up Holyhead Mail of that date; the last was the Dover Mail, in 1844.