Nor was the speed of the foot-posts--in some cases, at any rate--very much to boast of, these humble messengers being at times heavily weighted with the correspondence they had to carry. In the year 1805, before the Dumbarton to Inveraray mail service was raised to the dignity of a horse-post, the surveyor, in referring to the necessity for the employment of horses, thus deplores the situation: "I have sometimes observed these mails, at leaving Dumbarton, about three stones or forty-eight pounds weight, and they are generally above two stones. During the course of last winter, horses were obliged to be occasionally employed; and it is often the case that a strong Highlander, with so great weight on him, cannot travel more than _two miles an hour_, which greatly retards the general correspondence of this extensive district of country." In winter-time, and on occasions of severe storms, the post-runners have sometimes to endure great fatigue; and it is then that their loyalty to the service is put to the test. An instance of stern fidelity to duty on the part of one of these men, at the time of the snowstorm of 1836, formed the subject of a petition to the Postmaster-General from the inhabitants of Sheerness and the Isle of Sheppy. The document recites that a foot-messenger named John Wright continued for nine days, from the 25th December 1836, to carry the mails between Sheerness and Sittingbourne--a distance for the double journey of about twenty-four miles. At the end of this time he was so completely exhausted and overcome by the effects of cold and exposure, that he had to give up duty for a time. The memorial sets forth that "the road is circuitous and crooked, through marshes, and very exposed, without any protection from the drift (in many places very deep), and with a ditch on either side--the water of which was frozen just sufficient to bear the weight of the snow, thereby rendering the travelling extremely hazardous, inasmuch as the dangers were in a great measure unseen; and had the postman mistaken his road (which from the frequent drifting of the snow, and the absence of traffic at that time was often untracked), and fallen into one of these ditches, he must no doubt have perished." It appeared further, that between the two places there was a ferry which the postman had to cross, and that in making the passage on the night of the 25th December, the boat in which he was nearly swamped, and he "was compelled to escape through mud and water up to his waist." It is not an uncommon thing for messengers to lose their lives in the discharge of their duties, and a severe winter seldom passes without some fatality of this kind. In the winter of 1876-77, a sad accident befell a messenger employed in Northumberland. On a night of intense darkness and storm, this man turned off the usual road in order to avoid crossing a swollen stream; and subsequently losing his way, he sank down and died, overcome by exposure and fatigue.