In the middle of the last century, and for about thirty years before and after, the mails were being continually stopped and robbed by highwaymen. The reward which the Post Office offered on these occasions for the apprehension of the robber was invariably £200, this being in addition to the reward of £40 prescribed by Act of Parliament; and if the robbery took place within five miles of London, there was a third reward of £100 by proclamation. Numerous and diverse as the robberies[52] were, there is only one of which we propose to speak; and in this case an exception may well be made on account of the important decision which it was the means of evoking from the Courts. A highwayman had stopped the Worcester mail at Shepherd's Bush and rifled it of its contents. Finding himself in possession of a large number of Bank of England notes he adopted a novel expedient for disposing of them. He hired a chaise and four and proceeded along the Great North Road as far as Caxton, passing the notes as he went; and in order to give himself a wider field of operations he took the precaution of going one way and returning another. To Caxton he went through Barnet, Hatfield, Stevenage, and Bugden, and he returned by way of Royston, Ware, and Enfield. Except at Barnet, which was probably thought to be dangerously near to London, there was hardly a postmaster along the whole line of road who had not one or more of the notes passed upon him. The question now arose who was to bear the loss,--the person by whom the notes had been sent by post or the postmasters who had changed them into cash. At the present time the law on the subject is so well ascertained that no doubt could exist as to the answer; but such was not then the case. In order to try the point, it was arranged that the notes should be stopped, and that the sender of them should bring an action against the Bank of England to recover their value. The trial came on before the King's Bench in 1758, and, after learned pleadings on both sides, the Lord Chief Justice pronounced the decision of the Court. This was that any person paying a valuable consideration for a bank note to bearer in a fair course of business is unquestionably entitled to recover the money from the Bank.