There departed this life at Bristol, in November, 1904, a somewhat notable individual in the person of Richard Griffiths, who was born at Westminster, in the year 1811, and entered the service of the Post Office as a Mail Guard on the 17th November, 1834. At the commencement of his service he was employed as Guard to the London and Norwich, _via_ Newmarket Mail Coach, upon which duty he remained until the coach ceased running on the 5th January, 1846, when he was transferred to the London and Dover Railway, and acted as Mail Train Guard thereon. When a Travelling Post Office was established in 1860 on the Dover line of railway, and the necessity for a Guard to the Mail bags thus removed, Griffiths was ordered to the South Wales Railway, where he remained as Mail Train Guard until superannuated on the 25th August, 1870. He lived at Eastville, in Bristol, under the care at last of Mrs. Barrett, a kind old dame, who made him very comfortable, and on his demise, after being on pension for 34 years, he bequeathed his old battered Mail Coach horn to her (_see illustration_). It is probable that the horn was used on the last Norwich Coach out of London. The maker's name on it is "J.A. Turner, 19 Poultry."
On November 9, 1822, attention was drawn to the "Musical Coachman" thus:--"The blowing of the horn by the coachman and guards of our mail-coaches has usually been considered a sort of nuisance: now, by the persevering labours of these ingenious gentlemen, converted into an instrument of public gratification. Most of the guards of the stage-coaches now make their entrance and exit to the tune of some old national ballad, which, though it may not, perhaps, be played at present in such exact time and tune as would satisfy the leader of the opera band, is yet pleasant in comparison to the unmeaning and discordant strains which formerly issued from the same quarter."
[Illustration: AN OLD MAIL COACH GUARD'S POST HORN.]
April, 1832:--"The Tipsy Member" finds mention thus: "An M.P. applied to the Post Office to know why some of his franks had been charged; The answer was, 'We supposed, sir, they were not your writing; the 'hand' is not 'the same.' 'Why, not precisely; but the truth is I happened to be a _little tipsy_ when I wrote them.' 'Then, sir, you will be so good in future as to write 'drunk' when you make 'free.'"