The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and RomanceHyde, James Wilson
History
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
Hyde, James Wilson
Postal service -- Great Britain
A CAUTION.
To all Coach-Masters, Carriers, Higlers, Ship Masters employed
Coastwise, Newsmen, Watermen and Others.
Having received repeated Information that Letters are illegally
collected, carried and delivered, to the great Injury of the Public
Revenue, and it being the wish of this Office rather to prevent than
punish, and that the unwary may be made acquainted with the Penalties
they are subject to; I am directed to give this Public Notice, that from
the Date hereof, every Effort will be used to detect and punish all
Persons so offending.--The Penalties for which are FIVE POUNDS FOR EVERY
LETTER SO COLLECTED, CARRIED, OR DELIVERED, WHETHER FOR HIRE OR NOT, AND
ONE HUNDRED POUNDS, FOR EVERY WEEK SUCH PRACTICE IS CONTINUED.
By Command of the Postmaster General,
Johnson Wilkinson, _Surveyor_.]
In August 1794, at the Warwick Assizes, a carrier between Warwick and
Birmingham was convicted of illegally collecting and carrying letters,
when penalties amounting to £1500 were incurred; but the prosecution
consented to a verdict being taken for two penalties of £5 each, with
costs of the suit. A report of the period observed that "this verdict
should be a warning to carriers, coachmen, and other persons, against
taking up letters tied round with a string or covered with brown paper,
under pretence of being parcels, which, the learned judge observed, was
a flimsy evasion of the law."
The very cheap postage which we now enjoy has removed the inducement in
a large measure to commit petty frauds of this kind on the Post-office
Revenue, and the commission of such things may now be said to belong to
an age that is past.
_Frauds on the Public._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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