If records are not now forthcoming of all the robberies which have been committed upon the Post-office from the earliest times, we may be assured that an institution such as it is, maintaining agencies all over the country, and having to keep up communications between those agencies, would be exposed at all times and at all points to the risk of robbery, whether by the dashing boldness of the highwayman, or the less pretentious doings of the town house-breaker. To us who live in an age when the public roads are generally safe to travellers, it is difficult to realise the dangers that lurked in the highways at no more remote a period than last century; nor can we well realise a state of things under which mail-coaches in this our quiet England had to be protected by guards armed to the teeth. We have it handed down, however, as a historical fact, that when, in 1720, Belsize House, Hampstead, was opened as a place of public resort, the programme announcing its attractions contained the following item:--"And for the security of its guests, there are twelve stout fellows completely armed, to patrol betwixt London and Belsize, to prevent the insults of highwaymen or footpads which may infest the road." Yet that statement does not give the whole truth, for the road between these two places became so much more dangerous, that after a time "the patrol had to be increased from twelve to thirty stout fellows completely armed, independently of two tall grenadiers who mounted guard over the gate of the mansion." The following is from the 'Annual Register' of 1761:--"Murders, robberies--many of them attended with acts of cruelty and threatening letters--were never perhaps so frequent about this city [London] as during last month. One highwayman in particular, by the name of the Flying Highwayman, engrosses the conversation of most of the towns within twenty miles of London, as he has occasionally visited all the public roads round this metropolis, and has collected several considerable sums. He robs upon three different horses. He has leaped over Colnbrook turnpike a dozen times within this fortnight, and is now well known by most of the turnpike men in the different roads about London." Again, it is recorded that "even the toll-house keepers in London were so liable to be robbed, that they had to be furnished with arms, and enjoined to keep no money in their houses after eight o'clock at night. The boldness with which street robberies still continued to be committed was evinced so late as 1777, when the Neapolitan ambassador was robbed in his coach in Grosvenor Square by four footpads armed with pistols." But highway robbery had long been practised, even by individuals in the higher stations; and it is recorded of Sir John Falstaff, one of Shakespeare's heroes, that he was the terror of travellers on every road for a hundred miles out of London. The place chiefly identified with his exploits, however, was Gad's Hill, in Kent.