"I have had occasion formerly to observe to you that a very great evasion of the Post Revenue has taken place--particularly in the north of Scotland--from the privilege granted to soldiers, under cover of which not only a very general opportunity is taken by the common people there to have their letters carried by soldiers to be freed by their officers, and having them again in return under soldiers' addresses; but even in several instances which I observed and detected, persons in higher ranks have availed themselves of this circumstance." Nor were people of quality above the habit of committing similar frauds upon the Post-office revenue, as will be observed from the following remarks penned by an official on the 9th April 1812. The statement runs thus:--"On the 31st ultimo, having gone into the mail-coach office at Glasgow, soon after the arrival of the coach from Ayr, and observing several parcels which had arrived by it, one in particular took our attention by its appearing to contain a loaf of bread of the supposed value of 6d. or 8d., addressed to the Honble. Mrs ----, of Glasgow; and as this parcel was charged 10d., it created the idea of some mistake having happened in sending it in that way, by which the carriage exceeded the value, besides the original cost of it. "In a few minutes after this, however, two ladies called for the parcel, one of them believed to be Mrs ----herself, and the other her sister, and inquired for the parcel; and my curiosity leading me to notice the issue of this supposed hoax, I was not a little surprised to find, after the lady had cut up the cover, that two or three letters were enclosed with the loaf, one of which she gave to the other lady, and sent the loaf home by the porter." The Post-office has also been exposed to frauds in other ways. Thus it was a common device to take a newspaper bearing the newspaper frank, prick out with a pin certain words in the print making up a message to be sent, and the newspaper so prepared served all the purposes of a letter as between the sender and receiver. Or a message would be written on the cover of a newspaper with the first of all fluids known to us--milk--which, when dry, was not observed, but developed a legible communication subsequently when held to the fire. The following anecdotes of the evasions of postage are told by the late Sir Rowland Hill:--