The method used to ensure a rapid transmission of the mails by the coaches was as follows: Time bills were issued to the guards of the different coaches. On these bills were printed the speed that should be made from stage to stage, and it was the guard's duty to fill in the time made by the coach on which he rode. Penalties were inflicted for any mistakes which he might make or any failure on his part to leave the bill in the office at the end of his route. On some of the time bills it was set forth that a fine of one shilling was payable by the proprietor for each minute that the coach was late and he might recover it from the guard or coachman if the delay was due to the negligence of either of them. The coachmen were ordered to make up any time lost on the road and to report the horse keepers if they were at fault.[418] [418] _Rep. Commrs._, 1837, xxxiv, 7th rep., app., nos. 40-45. The chief cause for delay was the lack of close connection between the mail coaches and the packets to and from Ireland. In 1837 the London mail arrived in Holyhead at 11 P.M., but the packet did not leave for Kingstown until 8 A.M., a change having been made in the time of sailing.[419] Letters from England were detained in Dublin eleven hours before their departure for the rest of the island.[420] More than one third of the Irish letters for England left Kingstown by the day packet at 9 A.M., remaining in Holyhead from 3 P.M. to 4 A.M., with the exception of the letters for Chester and Manchester, which were forwarded by a special coach.[421] [419] _Ibid._, 1837, xxxiv, 7th rep., app., no. 11. The packet leaving Holyhead at 6.30 P.M. carried letters from Birmingham, brought by the coach from that place, but took no London letters (_Acc. & P._, 1841, ix, p. 9). [420] _Rep. Commrs._, 1831-32, xvii, p. 325. [421] _Ibid._, 1837, xxxiv, 7th rep., app., no. 11. The packets from Liverpool started shortly before the arrival of the London mail. The Commissioners proposed that they should be detained until it had arrived, but this was not done until ten years later.[422] The packets at Portpatrick always waited for the mails from Glasgow, and as these were nearly always late, letters from Carlisle and Northern England were necessarily detained.[423] The station at Milford had always given the most trouble. From a financial point of view it was the least satisfactory, and English letters for the south of Ireland often went through Holyhead. The packet left Waterford[424] for Milford at 12 P.M., arriving in Milford about noon, but the mail did not leave for London until 7.30 P.M.[425] English letters for Ireland via Milford were detained from ten to thirteen hours in Waterford.[426] [422] _Ibid._, 1831-32, xvii, pp. 5-9; _Acc. & P._, 1841, xix. [423] _Rep. Commrs._, 1831-32, xvii, pp. 5-9. [424] Sometimes the packet left Dunmore. See _Rep. Commrs._, 1831-32, xvii, pp. 373-4. [425] _Ibid._, 1831-32, xvii, pp. 5-9, 373-74. [426] _Ibid._, p. 325.