As has been intimated, passengers purchased their tickets of the stage company in whose stage they embarked, and the tolls were included in the price of the ticket. A paper resembling a waybill was made out by the agent of the line at the starting point. This paper was given to the driver and delivered by him to the landlord at each station upon the arrival of the coach. This paper contained the names and destinations of the passengers carried, the sums paid as fare and the time of departure, and contained blank squares for registering time of arrival and departure from each station. The fares varied slightly but averaged about four cents a mile. CHAPTER V MAILS AND MAIL LINES The most important official function of the Cumberland Road was to furnish means of transporting the United States mails. The strongest constitutional argument of its advocates was the need of facilities for transporting troops and mails. The clause in the constitution authorizing the establishment of post roads was interpreted by them to include any measure providing quick and safe transmission of the mails. As has been seen, it was finally considered by many to include building and operating railways with funds appropriated for the Cumberland Road. The great mails of seventy-five years ago were operated on very much the same principle on which mails are operated today. The Post Office Department at Washington contracted with the great stage lines for the transmission of the mails by yearly contracts, a given number of stages with a given number of horses to be run at given intervals, to stop at certain points, at a fixed yearly compensation, usually determined by the custom of advertising for bids and accepting the lowest offered. When the system of mailcoach lines reached its highest perfection, the mails were handled as they are today. The great mails that passed over the Cumberland Road were the Great Eastern and the Great Western mails out of St. Louis and Washington. A thousand lesser mail lines connected with the Cumberland Road at every step, principally those from Cincinnati in Ohio, and from Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. There were through and way mails, also mails which carried letters only, newspapers going by separate stage. There was also an "Express Mail" corresponding to the present "fast mail." It is probably not realized what rapid time was made by the old-time stage and express mails over the Cumberland Road to the Central West. Even compared with the fast trains of today, the express mails of sixty years ago, when conditions were favorable, made marvelous time. In 1837 the Post Office Department required, in the contract for carrying the Great Western Express Mail from Washington over the Cumberland Road to Columbus and St. Louis, that the following time be made: