“I am sorry to acquaint you that the postboy coming from Selby to this city was robbed of his mail, between six and seven o’clock this evening. About three miles this side Selby he was accosted by a man on foot with a gun in his hand, who asked him if he was the postboy, and at the same time seizing hold of the bridle. Without waiting for any answer, he told the boy he must immediately unstrap the mail and give it to him, pointing the muzzle of the gun at him whilst he did it. When he had given up the mail, the boy begged he would not hurt him, to which the man replied, “He need not be afraid,” and at the same time pulled the bridle from the horse’s head. The horse immediately galloped off with the boy, who had never dismounted. He was a stout man, dressed in a dark jacket, and had the appearance of a heckler. The boy was too much frightened to make any other remark upon his person, and says he was totally unknown to him. “The mail contained bags for Howden and London, Howden and York, and Selby and York. I have informed the surveyors of the robbery, and have forwarded handbills this night, to be distributed in the country, and will take care to insert it in the first paper published here. Waiting your further instructions,—I remain, with respect, Sir, “Your Obliged and Obedient Humble Servant, “THOS. OLDFIELD.” A reward of two hundred pounds was offered for the discovery of the highwayman, but without effect, and the matter was forgotten in the dusty archives of the G.P.O., until it was brought to notice again by the singular discovery of one of the stolen bags in the roof of the “Crown” when being demolished in 1876. Stuffed in between the rafters and the tiles, the workmen came upon a worn and rotten coat, a “sou’wester” hat, and a mail-bag marked “Selby.” Thus, nearly eighty years after the affair, and when every one concerned in it must long since have been no more, this incriminating evidence came to light. The Postmaster-General of that time claimed the bag, and it was, after some dispute about the ownership, handed over to him, and is now in the Post Office Museum. A number of skeletons were discovered in digging foundations for the new inn, and it was darkly conjectured that the old house had had its gruesome secrets, dating from the times when inns were not infrequently the nests of murderers; until local antiquaries pointing out that the name of the place was Church Hill, and that this was an ancient grave-yard, the excitement ceased. This view was borne out by the fact that in many cases the bodies had been enclosed in rude coffins, made of hollowed tree-trunks; and it was rightly said that murderers would not have buried their victims with so much consideration. XXXVI