SOME INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF MOSES JAMES NOBBS, THE LAST OF THE MAIL COACH GUARDS. Told by Himself . With a Preface by the Controller of the London Postal Service. Price Sixpence ....

By the operation of the new Order in Council regulating Civil Service superannuations, under which officers who have attained the age of sixty-five have— nolens volens —to take their pensions, there will be, at the end of this year 1891, quite an exodus of many who through the survival of the strongest and fittest are still serving Her Majesty, although they have reached the Psalmist’s allotted span of three score years and ten. The loss of our veterans in this manner will be accompanied by many

On retiring from the Service of the Post Office after fifty-five years spent in harness, it has been suggested to me that some account of my experience of Post Office work in the days before the railways were established might be of interest to many who have no knowledge of “the good old coaching days,” except what they have acquired by hearsay or from books.  I will, therefore, set down a few of the incidents that stand out most clearly in my memory.  They will show, at any rate, that life on a

The great snow-storm of Christmas, 1836, was long remembered as one of the most severe on record, and Mr. Nobbs’ coach was only one of many that had to be abandoned owing to the depth of the snow-drifts.  All over England, and in Scotland as well, most of the roads were rendered impassable.  Some coaches, after proceeding for miles on their journey, were forced to return; thus the Brighton Mail from London had to put back after getting as far as Crawley, and the Dover Mail got no further than Gr

Mr. Nobbs’ graphic account of the Lugg Bridge accident recalls the more calamitous one which befell the Glasgow and Carlisle coach on the 25th October, 1801.  The circumstances were alike in both cases, but the results of the earlier disaster were much more grave.  The bridge was one spanning the river Evan, between Elvanfoot and Beattock; it had collapsed under stress of a flood following a sudden thaw, and at about ten o’clock at night the coach plunged into the rocky bed of the stream.  Two o

If Mr. Nobbs had been on the road some twenty or thirty years earlier he might have acquired a larger experience of the manners and customs of highwaymen—or perhaps we should say mail robbers,—for the picturesque highwayman of romance is conspicuously absent from Post Office annals.  In this connexion it may be interesting to give the text of two or three Post Office Notices issued early in the century.  This one is typical of many others circulated about the same time:— General Post Office, Tue

Mr. Nobbs’ reference to the skill of the present Duke of Beaufort’s father as a “whip,” a skill which seems to be hereditary in that family, reminds us of the fact that the same nobleman, while Marquess of Worcester, habitually drove the “Beaufort” coach on the Brighton Road.  The “Age” coach, on the same road, was driven by Sir Vincent Cotton, and the Hon. Fred. Jerningham acted as coachman to the Brighton day mail.  It would appear, therefore, that in the days when stage coaching was a serious