Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

lake scenery of Killarney, and I "did" the route from Dublin to

Killarney, altogether completing nearly a quarter of the proposed

volume. The roll of MS. was sent to Albemarle Street,--but was never

opened. At the expiration of nine months from the date on which it

reached that time-honoured spot it was returned without a word, in

answer to a very angry letter from myself. I insisted on having

back my property,--and got it. I need hardly say that my property

has never been of the slightest use to me. In all honesty I think

that had he been less dilatory, John Murray would have got a very

good Irish Guide at a cheap rate.

Early in 1851 I was sent upon a job of special official work, which

for two years so completely absorbed my time that I was able to

write nothing. A plan was formed for extending the rural delivery

of letters, and for adjusting the work, which up to that time had

been done in a very irregular manner. A country letter-carrier

would be sent in one direction in which there were but few letters

to be delivered, the arrangement having originated probably at

the request of some influential person, while in another direction

there was no letter-carrier because no influential person had exerted

himself. It was intended to set this right throughout England,

Ireland, and Scotland; and I quickly did the work in the Irish

district to which I was attached. I was then invited to do the same

in a portion of England, and I spent two of the happiest years of

my life at the task. I began in Devonshire; and visited, I think

I may say, every nook in that county, in Cornwall, Somersetshire,

the greater part of Dorsetshire, the Channel Islands, part of

Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire,

Monmouthshire, and the six southern Welsh counties. In this way I

had an opportunity of seeing a considerable portion of Great Britain,

with a minuteness which few have enjoyed. And I did my business

after a fashion in which no other official man has worked at

least for many years. I went almost everywhere on horseback. I had

two hunters of my own, and here and there, where I could, I hired

a third horse. I had an Irish groom with me,--an old man, who has

now been in my service for thirty-five years; and in this manner I

saw almost every house--I think I may say every house of importance--in

this large district. The object was to create a postal network

which should catch all recipients of letters. In France it was, and

I suppose still is, the practice to deliver every letter. Wherever

the man may live to whom a letter is addressed, it is the duty of

some letter-carrier to take that letter to his house, sooner or

later. But this, of course, must be done slowly. With us a delivery

much delayed was thought to be worse than none at all. In some places

we did establish posts three times a week, and perhaps occasionally

twice a week; but such halting arrangements were considered to

be objectionable, and we were bound down by a salutary law as to

expense, which came from our masters at the Treasury. We were not

allowed to establish any messenger's walk on which a sufficient

number of letters would not be delivered to pay the man's wages,

counted at a halfpenny a letter. But then the counting was in our

own hands, and an enterprising official might be sanguine in his

figures. I think I was sanguine. I did not prepare false accounts;

but I fear that the postmasters and clerks who absolutely had the

country to do became aware that I was anxious for good results.

It is amusing to watch how a passion will grow upon a man. During

those two years it was the ambition of my life to cover the country

with rural letter-carriers. I do not remember that in any case a

rural post proposed by me was negatived by the authorities; but I

fear that some of them broke down afterwards as being too poor, or

because, in my anxiety to include this house and that, I had sent

the men too far afield. Our law was that a man should not be required

to walk more than sixteen miles a day. Had the work to be done been

all on a measured road, there would have been no need for doubt as

to the distances. But my letter-carriers went here and there across

the fields. It was my special delight to take them by all short

cuts; and as I measured on horseback the short cuts which they would

have to make on foot, perhaps I was sometimes a little unjust to

them.

All this I did on horseback, riding on an average forty miles a

day. I was paid sixpence a mile for the distance travelled, and it

was necessary that I should at any rate travel enough to pay for

my equipage. This I did, and got my hunting out of it also. I have

often surprised some small country postmaster, who had never seen

or heard of me before, by coming down upon him at nine in the

morning, with a red coat and boots and breeches, and interrogating

him as to the disposal of every letter which came into his office.

And in the same guise I would ride up to farmhouses, or parsonages,

or other lone residences about the country, and ask the people how

they got their letters, at what hour, and especially whether they

were delivered free or at a certain charge. For a habit had crept

into use, which came to be, in my eyes, at that time, the one sin

for which there was no pardon, in accordance with which these rural

letter-carriers used to charge a penny a letter, alleging that the

house was out of their beat, and that they must be paid for their

extra work. I think that I did stamp out that evil. In all these

visits I was, in truth, a beneficent angel to the public, bringing

everywhere with me an earlier, cheaper, and much more regular delivery

of letters. But not unfrequently the angelic nature of my mission

was imperfectly understood. I was perhaps a little in a hurry to

get on, and did not allow as much time as was necessary to explain

to the wondering mistress of the house, or to an open-mouthed farmer,

why it was that a man arrayed for hunting asked so many questions

which might be considered impertinent, as applying to his or her

private affairs. "Good-morning, sir. I have just called to ask a

few questions. I am a surveyor of the Post Office. How do you get

your letters? As I am a little in a hurry, perhaps you can explain

at once." Then I would take out my pencil and notebook, and wait

for information. And in fact there was no other way in which the

truth could be ascertained. Unless I came down suddenly as a summer's

storm upon them, the very people who were robbed by our messengers

would not confess the robbery, fearing the ill-will of the men. It

was necessary to startle them into the revelations which I required

them to make for their own good. And I did startle them. I became

thoroughly used to it, and soon lost my native bashfulness;--but

sometimes my visits astonished the retiring inhabitants of country

houses. I did, however, do my work, and can look back upon what I

did with thorough satisfaction. I was altogether in earnest; and

I believe that many a farmer now has his letters brought daily to

his house free of charge, who but for me would still have had to

send to the post-town for them twice a week, or to have paid a man

for bringing them irregularly to his door.

This work took up my time so completely, and entailed upon me so

great an amount of writing, that I was in fact unable to do any