Let us see what the postage between London, Bath, and Bristol was at different periods. The charges were regulated by distances, and one of the schedule measurements, "exceeding 80 miles and not exceeding 150 miles," just includes these two towns. We find, then, that it was possible to get a letter conveyed that distance in 1635 for 4_d._, while a bulky package weighing one ounce cost 9_d._ in transmission; not extravagant charges for that far-off time, even allowing for the greater purchasing power of money in the first half of the seventeenth century. Twenty-five years later the scale was altered, and one could despatch a note for a penny less, although it cost 3_d._ more for an ounce weight. From 1711 to 1765, the scale was-- Letter. One ounce. 4_d._ 1_s._ 4_d._ and from 1765 to 1784 the charges were again raised, to 5_d._ and 1_s._ 8_d._ respectively. Matters then went from bad to worse. In the beginning of 1797, the figures were 7_d._ and 2_s._ 4_d._; while the climax was finally reached at the beginning of this century, for on July 9, 1812, it cost 9_d._ to send a note between London, Bath, or Bristol, and 3_s._ for one ounce. A singular fact, in face of these repeated increases, was the growth of the Post Office revenues. In 1796, the net profit was £479,000; ten years later it had risen to considerably over one million sterling. The Bristol profit on Post Office business was £469 in 1794-5, and at that time the postmaster received a salary of £110 per annum. The Bath postmaster's billet was the best in the service, for he received £150, and, moreover, had the assistance of one clerk and three letter-carriers. [Illustration: PASSENGERS REFRESHED AFTER A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY. (_After Rowlandson._)] Meanwhile the stage-coaches had increased greatly. It was about 1800 that the "Sick, Lame, and Lazy"--a sober conveyance so called from the nature of its passengers, invalids, real and imaginary, on their way to Bath--was displaced by the new post coach that performed the journey in a single day; and thus the comfortable, _and_ expensive, beds of the "Pelican" at Speenhamland, where "the coach slept," began to be disestablished. III [Sidenote: _"GOD-PERMITS"_]