The postmasters-general had no choice but to refuse the request. To have granted it would have defeated the object with which the Treasury were maintaining an office of their own within the Post Office building. About this time, three or four years short of the middle of the century, the Post Office got into disgrace with travellers. Under the provisions of the numerous Turnpike Acts which had recently passed, the trustees of the roads were to measure distances and to erect milestones; and on these provisions being carried into effect the statute mile proved to be shorter, much shorter, than the reputed or Post Office mile.[48] So great indeed was the difference that the Post Office may be said to have been almost ridiculously out of its reckoning. Thus, from London to Berwick-upon-Tweed the distance, according to Post Office computation, was 262 miles; according to measurement, it proved to be 339 miles. To Holyhead the actual distance proved to be 269 miles; the Post Office had computed it at 208 miles. To Manchester the distance, according to the Post Office, was 137 miles; the actual distance was 165. Bristol, which proved to be 115 miles from London, had been reckoned as 94; Birmingham as 89 instead of 116; Warwick as 67 instead of 84; and so it had been throughout the kingdom. In every case the Post Office mile proved to be an unduly long one; and of course, as soon as milestones were erected authoritatively recording the statute miles, the postmasters charged accordingly. This change excited many murmurs. The traveller to Warwick who, at the rate of 3d. a mile, exclusive of a guide, had hitherto paid for the use of a horse 16s. 9d., had now to pay 21s. To Birmingham he had now to pay 29s. instead of 22s. 3d.; to Bristol, 28s. 9d. instead of 23s. 6d.; and so on. [48] This, although unknown probably to the postmasters until now, was no new discovery. As far back as 1674 John Ogilby had called attention to the erroneous reckonings in vogue. Ogilby had been commissioned by Charles the Second to survey and measure the principal roads of England, and having performed his task he published the result of his labours in a large folio volume. In the preface to an abridgment of this work, published in 1711, he thus wrote: "The distances are all along reckoned in measur'd miles and furlongs, beginning from the Standard in Cornhil, so that the reader must not be surprized when he finds the number of miles set down here exceed the common computation. For example, from London to York are computed but 150 miles, whereas by measure the distance is 192 miles. And computation being very uncertain, it must be granted that no exactness could be observed but [by] adhering constantly to the standard-mile of 1760 yards, which contains eight furlongs."