This handkerchief gives an interesting statement of postal rates and routes at the beginning of this century. Around the edge is a floral border, with the arms of the United States, the front and reverse of the dollar of 1815, a quartette of ships of war, and portraits of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and "Maddison" intertwined.
Its title is "A Geographical View of All the Post Towns in the United States of America and Their Distance from Each Other According to the Establishment of the Postmaster General in the Year 1815." By an ingenious arrangement of the towns on the main coast line and those on the cross post-roads, the distance from one of these points to any other could easily be ascertained. The "main line of post towns" extended "from Passamaquoddy in the District of Maine to Sunbury in the State of Georgia."
The object in publishing such a table as this was to make a durable record by which it was possible for the people to compute easily and with a handy helper what the cost of postage on letters would be. The following "rates of postage" are given on the old handkerchief:--
"Single Letter conveyed by land for any distance not exceeding 10 miles, 6 cents.
Over 10, not exceeding 60 miles, 8 cents. " 60 " " 100 " 10 " " 100 " " 150 " 12 " " 150 " " 200 " 15 " " 200 " " 250 " 17 " " 250 " " 350 " 20 " " 350 " " 450 " 22 " For 450 " 25 ""
Double letters are charged double; and triple letters, three times these rates, and a packet weighing one ounce avoirdupois at the rate of four single letters.
Let us compare conditions in these matters in America with those in Scotland. While England had, in the first half of the eighteenth century, coaches in enough number that country folk knew what they looked like, Scotland was barren not only of coaches but of carriages. In 1720 there were no chariots or chaises north of the Tay. Not till 1749 was there a coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow; this journey of forty-six miles could, by the end of the century, be done in twelve hours. In 1754 there was once a month a coach from Edinburgh to London; it took twelve to sixteen days to accomplish this journey, and was so perilous that travellers made their wills before setting out. There were few carts and no such splendid wagons as our Conestogas. Cadgers carried creels of goods on horseback; and sledges, or creels borne on the backs of women, were the means of transportation in northern Scotland until the end of the eighteenth century. These sledges had tumbling wheels of solid wood a foot and a half in diameter, revolving with the wooden axletree, and held little more than a wheelbarrow.