We have dwelt upon this matter at some length, because it was, in effect, a turning-point in the history of the Post Office. The enterprising spirit of the small towns, the independence of the judges, and the conspicuous fairness of the Attorney-General, make up no doubt a combination which it is pleasing to contemplate; and yet, if this were all, a shorter notice would have sufficed. It is because the Post Office was now to assume a new character, the character in which it is known to us at the present time, that we have thought it best not to omit any important particular. And how great the change was to be a moment's consideration will shew. Cotton and Frankland had, early in the century, done what little they could to make the Post Office popular. They had lost no opportunity of advocating cheap postage; they had lived among the merchants, and, as far as duty would allow, had consulted their wishes; and within the limits assigned to them had spared no efforts to promote the public convenience. But since then a different spirit had prevailed. By Cotton and Frankland's successors much had been done in restraint of correspondence and nothing, or next to nothing, in promotion of it. The Post Office had become, insensibly perhaps, but none the less surely, a mere tax-gatherer, and, like other tax-gatherers, its policy had been to exact as much and to give as little as possible. All this was now to be altered. An appeal had been made to the Courts; and the Courts in the most deliberate and solemn manner had affirmed this principle--a principle now so universally recognised and acted on as to excite our wonder that it should ever have been otherwise--that the Post Office was to wait upon the people, and not the people upon the Post Office. It might be supposed that the decision of the Courts would have been immediately followed by the appointment of letter-carriers throughout the country, or else by additions to the salaries of the postmasters in consideration of their undertaking to make a house-to-house delivery gratuitously. Such, however, was not the case. At the towns which had taken a foremost part in the fray--at Hungerford and Sandwich, at Bath, Ipswich, and Birmingham--as well indeed as at other towns which were spirited enough to assert their rights, letter-carriers were no doubt appointed; but there was no sudden and general alteration of practice. On the contrary, the obedience which the Post Office yielded to the law as laid down by the Courts was a tardy and grudging obedience. As much as ten or eleven years later we find the postmasters-general acknowledging indeed the obligation under which they lay to appoint letter-carriers at any towns that might demand it, and yet taking credit to themselves that, as a matter of fact, no such appointments had been made except where the inhabitants had refused to continue the accustomed recompense for delivery.