The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

344 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1855-9
impracticability of defining a newspaper, and the
consequent necessity of extending the privileges now
applied for, if conceded at all, to much other matter ;
and I indicated the obstacles that would thence arise
to the rapid conveyance of the mails, through the
difficulty and danger of giving out or receiving heavy
bags without stopping the trains.
The Treasury, however, deciding in favour of the
memorialists, all that could be done was to devise
means to reduce the evil to a minimum ;
and in this,
as indeed in the whole transaction, I had Lord
Colchester's thorough support. The plan I devised
received the approbation of the Treasury, but the
whole matter was for the time set aside by the
change of Government which speedily followed. Lord
Colchester was followed by Lord Elgin, thus con-
tinuing the succession of excellent Postmasters-
General. Before this time, however, the Times,
generally so friendly to me, and so often affording
my plans a support on which I set a high value,
began a series of attacks on the Post Office, and
more particularly on myself, which continued, at
short intervals, for some months, and became the
source of much trouble. This evil, however, brought
its consolation. Letters of sympathy, not unmixed
with indignation, came in from various quarters,
amongst others from the Duke of Argyll, my late
official superior, and from that tried friend of truth
and justice, the late Lord Radnor.
It is with much regret that I say anything in disparagement
of the leading journal ; omission, however,
would impair the truth of this narrative, and
would so far leave others that may tread in my path
unwarned as to what, in like circumstances, they must
expect. As I have already said, the Times has much