Note 130 — Chapter V

The first person to post a letter under the new system is said to have been Mr Samuel Lines of Birmingham, Rowland Hill's former drawing-master, whose portrait hangs in the Art Gallery of that city. He was warmly attached to his ex-pupil, who, in turn, held the old man in high esteem, and maintained an occasional correspondence with him till the artist's death. Determined that in Birmingham no one should get the start of him, Mr Lines wrote to my father a letter of congratulation, and waited outside the Post Office till at midnight of the 9th a clock rang out the last stroke of twelve. Then, knocking up the astonished clerk on duty, he handed in the letter and the copper fee, and laconically remarked: “A penny, I believe.”