=The Literary World.=--"This book is free from the least suspicion of dulness, and is replete with the liveliest anecdotes we have seen for many a day. There is a good story on almost every page."

=Daily News.=--"A book which is an interesting addition to Post-office literature, and it will be read with pleasure by thousands who know nothing of the internal working of the postal service."

=Scotsman.=--"A book of singular interest, and excellence.... The carelessness with which in some cases the mails were conveyed, the means taken to preserve them from robbers, the length of time occupied in their transmission from one place to another, the difficulty in dealing with particular portions of them,--all these are described in the earlier chapters of Mr Hyde's book, and are described with singular power and ease of narrative. The book, in short, is far more interesting than most of the modern novels, and it will enable the country to understand better than it could otherwise understand the vast and complicated machinery by which one of the most ordinary and yet imperative requirements of modern life is carried out. Mr Hyde must have hearty commendation for the manner in which he has done his work."

=Glasgow Weekly Citizen.=--"Positively the most interesting book I have seen for an age. It is certain to have an immediate and very wide popularity. It reads like a novel, and shows in many cases how true is the old maxim, that 'Truth is stranger than fiction.' To everybody this volume will be of the greatest interest. And many subjects of great and universal interest are treated in the most lively and entertaining manner. The volume abounds in capital stories."

=North British Daily Mail.=--"It is brimful of the most curious out-of-the-way facts ill.u.s.trative of the early struggles of the postal service, and also contains some very amusing and romantic stories of the old stage-coach days. The work is written in such an easy unpretentious chatty style, and is so admirably arranged, that when taken up few will lay it down until they have read it through to the end. It is, moreover, capitally ill.u.s.trated."

=Newcastle Daily Journal.=--"This is a thoroughly instructive and amusing book. Mr Hyde approaches his subject in the character of a chronicler. The book is a most entertaining one."

=Liverpool Daily Post.=--"His volume is replete with interesting facts, anecdotes, and ill.u.s.trations, and it is written on a subject which has an interest for every one.... His pages will repay perusal."

=Dundee Advertiser.=--"A perusal of Mr Hyde's clever book will show the difference between the postal service of a century ago and that of the present time. To the credit of the author be it said, that he succeeds in doing this without being tiresome, a consummation not always achieved by those who undertake such a mission."

=Aberdeen Journal.=--"Every page is full of interest, and the whole book shows the man accustomed to put the greatest amount of information in the fewest and most appropriate words. From beginning to end of the book the reader finds himself in the company of one that speaks what he knows."

=Bristol Times and Mirror.=--"In this work, Mr J. Wilson Hyde has gathered together a perfect budget of information pertaining to our postal service both in the past and present days. The book is neatly bound, and is decidedly a valuable addition to the literature of the season."

=Manchester Examiner and Times.=--"'The Royal Mail' is singularly interesting. The writer has unearthed from ancient doc.u.ments, old newspapers, and official reports, a curious collection of incidents and facts which give a vivid idea of the difficulties of the postal service in its youth, and of the immense improvements which have been made in recent years. The book is both entertaining and instructive. The reader will find a good deal that is strange and even romantic in the account."

=Quiz.=--"A delightful book, by the Superintendent of the Edinburgh General Post-office.... A book, full of contemporary curiosities and old-world romances, which, while it gives an entertaining account of the inner workings of the Post-office of to-day, transports you to the grand idyllic epoch of sleepy Britain, the times of pack-horses and postboys, of wayside inns and county hostelries, of masked cavaliers, and great snows and impracticable roads. A glance at the contents of Mr Hyde's volume is sufficient to indicate the extent and variety of the materials he has gathered together."

=Birmingham Daily Mail.=--"A book which may be looked upon in the light of a historical work.... Its aim, while historic, seems to be to deal with the lighter features of the great department of the State, the Post-office. 'The Royal Mail' ... will be found very entertaining, and sometimes very strange and romantic reading."

=Practical Teacher.=--"A book which, albeit not a novel, has all the charm and interest of the most exciting romance. Altogether it would be difficult to speak too highly of Mr Hyde's delightful volume."

=Yorkshire Post.=--"Mr J. W. Hyde of Edinburgh has collected and arranged an altogether admirable array of historical and ill.u.s.trative matter bearing on our postal system."

=Courant.=--"He has made a wonderfully good book. By some curious instinct he has divined what is most interesting in the subject he writes about, and there is not a dull page from the first to the last.

No previous writer on the Post-office has given us so graphic a picture of its daily life, and of the adventures it undergoes from hour to hour.

He has in truth written a romance of the Post-office abounding in truths stranger than fiction."