which demolishes all things, brought at last all his buildings under the fitful change of fashion "to pull down and build greater,"-when in digging up the yard for cellar foundations, they were surprised to find a grave-yard and its materials, not in any record of the city a thing in itself as perplexing to the moderns who beheld the bones, as it had been before, the trouble of the ancients. "He comes the herald of a noisy world; There is nothing in which the days of "Auld Lang Syne" more differ from the present, than in the astonishing facilities now afforded for rapid conveyances from place to place, and, of course, in the quick delivery of communications by the mail. Before the year 1755, five to six weeks were consumed in writing to, and receiving an answer from Boston. All the letters were conveyed on horse-back, at a snail-pace gaitslow, but sure. The first stage between Boston and New York commenced on the 24th of June, 1772, to run once a fortnight, as "a useful, new, and expensive undertaking;"" to start on the 13th, and to arrive either to or from either of those places on the 25th;"-thus making thirteen days of travel!* Now, * "Madam Knight's Journal," of the year 1704, shows that she was two weeks in riding with the postman, as her guide, it travels the same distance in 36 hours! The first stage between New York and Philadelphia began in 1756, occupied three days, and now it accomplishes it in ten hours! to us. pass Nor are those former prolonged movements peculiar It was even so with our British ancestors, not very long before us! We have a specimen of their sluggish doings in this matter, as late as the year 1712. "The New Castle Courant" of that year contains a stage advertisement, saying that "all who desire to from Edinboro' to London, or from London to Edinboro', let them repair to Mr. John Baillies, &c. every other Saturday and Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a stage coach, which performs the whole journey in thirteen days, without stoppage, (if God permit) having eighty able horses to perform the whole stage." Now, the same distance is performed in 46 hours! On the whole, it is manifest that the whole civilized world have learned to move every where with accelerated motion! The facts, as they were in the olden time, are to the follow. ing effect, to wit: In 1683, month of July, Wm. Penn issued an order for the establishment of a post-office, and granted to Henry Waldy, of Tekonay, authority to hold one, and “to supply passengers with horses from Philadelphia to New Castle, or to the Falls." The rates of postage from Boston to New York. In most of the towns, she saw Indians. She often saw wampum passing as money among the people; but 6d. a meal, at inns, &c. Tobacco was used and sold under the name of black junk. were, to wit:" Letters from the Falls to Philadelphia, 3d.-to Chester, 5d.-to New Castle, 7d.-to Maryland, 9d.-and from Philadelphia to Chester, 2d. -to New Castle, 4d.-and to Maryland, 6d." This post went once a week, and it was to be carefully published" on the meeting-house door, and other public places." These facts I found in the MSS. of the Pemberton family. A regular act for a post-office at Philadelphia, was first enacted in the year 1700. In 1748, when Professor Kalm arrived at Philadelphia from London, many of the inhabitants came on board his vessel for letters. Such as were not so called for, were taken to the coffee-house, where every body could make enquiry for them, thus showing, that then, the post-office did not seem to claim a right to distribute them as now. In 1753, the delivery of letters by the penny-post was first begun. At the same time began the practice of advertising remaining letters in the office. The letters for all the neighbouring counties went to Philadelphia, and lay there till called for-thus, letters for Newtown, Bristol, Chester, New Castle, &c. were to be called for in Philadelphia. Even at that late period, the northern mail goes and returns but once a week in summer, and once a fortnight in winter, just as it did twenty-five years before. But in 1754, month of October, a new impulse is given, so as to start for New York thereafter, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; and in the winter, once a week. This, therefore, marks the period of a new era in the mail establishment of our country. It owed this impulse, extending also to Boston, to the management of our Franklin, made postmaster general. In 1755, the postmaster general, Benjamin Franklin, publishes, that to aid trade, &c. he gives notice, that thereafter, the winter northern mail from Philadelphia to New England, which used to set out but once a fortnight, shall start once a week all the year round,— "whereby answers may be obtained to letters between Philadelphia and Boston, in three weeks, which used to require six weeks!" In 1758, newspapers, which aforetime were carried post free per mail, will, by the reason of their great increase, be changed thereafter to the small price of 9d. a year, for fifty miles, and 1s. 6d. for one hundred miles. This was, most probably, the private emolument of the rider; the papers themselves not having been mailed at all, it is probable. Finally, in 1774, which brings colonial things nearly to a final close, by the war of independence, soon after, we read that "John Perkins engages to ride post to carry the mail once a week to Baltimore, and will take along or bring back led horses or any parcels." My mother remembers well that just preceding the revolution, "the post boy"—a real boy, used to come into Front street on horseback, bringing the New York mail, and as he entered the town at Vine street, he blew cheerily his horn. A small affair then-now it requires a four horse stage! GAZETTES. "These mark the every day affairs of life." The early newspapers are by no means such miscellaneous and amusing things as our modern use of them might lead us to conceive. They are very tame, and the news, which is generally foreign, is told in very dull prose; very little like jest or mirth appear in any of them. Fruitful as Franklin was in amusing writings, it is really surprising how very devoid of Spectatorlike articles his paper is; but very little has been furnished by his pen. He must have deemed it out of place for his paper, and therefore confined his essays to his "Poor Richard's Almanac," which was so favourably received as to call for three editions in the same year. Reflections on men and manners of that day, to which he was so very competent, would have been very interesting and judicious; but I have found nothing. Probably "the even tenor of their way," in the days of his chief residence among us, excited no cause of remark, and that it was chiefly since the revolution that we began to deserve remarks on the changing character of the times and the people. But after every omission and neglect in such editors, old newspapers are still unavoidably a kind of mirror of their age, for they bring up the very age with all its bustle and every day occurrence, and mark its genius and its spirit, more than the most laboured description of the historian. Sometimes a single advertisement |