[Illustration: OLD ENGLISH "FLYING" MAIL COACH.] In the same year (1792) sixteen mail coaches worked in and out of London every day. There were fifteen cross-country mail coaches, as, for instance, the coach between Bristol and Oxford, or, as it was commonly called, Mr. Pickwick's coach. During winter, in frosty weather, at this period, some of the mail coaches did not run at all, but were laid up for the season, like ships during Arctic frosts. There is a model of an old mail coach at the General Post Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand, London, popularly supposed to be the model of the first mail coach which was built, but such is not the case, for, as already stated, the first mail coach ran between Bristol and London, and the model has upon it the inscription "Royal Mail from London to Liverpool." The expense of horsing a four-horsed coach running at the speed of from nine to ten miles an hour was reckoned at £3 a double mile. Mails were exempt from turnpike tolls. With the introduction of the mail coaches with well-armed, resolute guards, there was a cessation of mail robberies on the main roads. Pilfering, however, was occasionally carried on; for instance, in the early winter of 1794 one Thomas Thomas travelled day after day up and down on the London and Bristol coach. At last his opportunity came when the guard temporarily left his coach with the mailbox unlocked, and then Thomas Thomas looted the mails. On the cross roads the saddle horse and cart posts were frequently stopped and robbed (1796). One of the worst roads in this respect was that between Bristol and Portsmouth. Proposals for the postboys to be furnished with pistols, cutlasses, and caps lined with metal, like hunting caps, for the defence of the head, fell through on account of the expense which their supply would have entailed. There exists a popular belief that the mail coaches were driven up and down the steep Queen Street in Bristol now known as Christmas Steps. The belief is erroneous, for an inscription over the recessed seats at the top of the passage tells us that-- "This STREETE WAS STEPPERED DONE & Finished, September, 1669. The Right Worpfl Thomas Stevens, Esqr. Mayor. Named QVEENE STREETE." Probably, however, the postboys who carried the mails in earlier days rode up the steep incline. A gentleman now writing in the _Bristol Times and Mirror_ under the _nom-de-plume_ of "Old File," delving in the historical garden of _Felix Farley's Journal_, has unearthed the following very interesting announcements and advertisements, which throw light on the mail services of the time:-- "MILFORD AND BRECKNOCK MAIL COACH.