But it was the extent of his local knowledge that constituted Allen's chief qualification for the task he had set himself to perform. This knowledge, acquired probably during the struggle to introduce his plan, may appear almost marvellous. There was hardly a town in England, and certainly no town of importance, with the trade and manufactures of which, and even with the character and disposition of its postmaster, he was not acquainted. At the present day it is the district surveyor who in Post Office matters affecting the provinces takes the initiative. In Allen's time the initiative came from Bath. In a single letter he would treat of some thirty or forty towns, and not only prescribe the order in which they were to be taken and the roads by which they were to be reached, but give the minutest instructions as to what was to be said and done on arrival there. In respect to only one town, a town without a Post Office, does Allen appear to have been uninformed, and that was Stowmarket. "When in that neighbourhood," he wrote to one of his surveyors, as though half ashamed of his own ignorance, "go over to Stowmarket and ascertain and let me know the distance of that town from Ipswich and from Eye, and also the nature and extent of its trade." Lest we should be thought to exaggerate the difficulties with which Allen had to contend, Allen himself shall be our witness. The postmasters were strictly enjoined to stamp the bye and cross-post letters. This was their first duty, for without stamping no check was possible. "I need not tell you," Allen writes to one of his surveyors, "the mischief which has already attended the omission of this necessary part of their duty, nor the difficulty which I have hitherto met with to get this order observed; but when they find that their neglect will for the future hurt themselves, this evil will be stopped." Hardly less difficult did he find it to make the postmasters send in their vouchers with even decent regularity. We will give a few instances out of many. Of Bodmin and St. Columb he writes, "Both these deputies are exceeding backward in transmitting their vouchers. Order them strictly to send them hither for the future within a week after every quarter." Richmond, Yorkshire, "instead of sending me his vouchers at the end of every month sends them considerably over the quarter and then in so great disorder as to be of little use to me in fixing my cheque account." Gosport, again, "persistently neglects to send his vouchers, without which, as you know, it is not in my power to state an exact account nor to fix the cheques which are necessary to prevent abuses." Grantham is little better, and as for Wolverhampton, Allen writing in April says, "He has sent me no vouchers since last Michaelmas, and by this obstinacy destroys my cheque and puts my affairs into great disorder."