Black-mail or blackmail was a certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or the like, anciently paid, in the north of England and in Scotland, to certain men who were allied to robbers, to be protected by them from pillage. Blackmail was levied in the districts bordering the Highlands of Scotland until the middle of the eighteenth century. The term later became associated with the extortion of monies by threats or pressure, especially in respect to threatening to reveal a secret unless monies are paid. Research Black-Mail
The term coach is now generally applied to a chartered or long distance, usually single-decker bus. However, traditionally coach was a general name for all covered carriages drawn by horses and intended for the rapid conveyance of passengers.
The earliest carriages appear to have been all open, if we may judge from the figures of Assyrian and Babylonian chariots found on the monuments discovered amidst the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, At Rome both covered and uncovered carriages were in use. After the fall of the Roman Empire they went out of use again, and during the feudal ages the custom was to ride on horseback, the use of carriages being considered effeminate. They do not appear to have become common until the 10th century, and even then were regarded exclusively as vehicles for women and invalids. Later on they became, especially in Germany, part of the appendages of royalty.
Coaches seem to have been introduced into England about the middle of the 16th century, but were for long confined to the aristocracy and the wealthy classes. Hackney-coaches were first used in London in 1625. They were then only twenty in number, and were kept at the hotels, where they had to be applied for when wanted. In 1634 coaches waiting to be hired at a particular stand were introduced, and had increased to 200 in 1652, to 800 in 1710, and to 1000 in 1771.
Stagecoaches were introduced into England about the same time as hackney-coaches. The first stage-coach in London appears to have ran early in the 17th century, and before the end of the century they were started on three of the principal roads in England. Their speed was at first very moderate, about 3 or 4 miles an hour. They could only run in the summer, and even then their progress was often greatly hindered by floods and by the wretched state of the roads generally. In 1700 it took a week to travel from York to London; in 1754 a body of Manchester merchants started a conveyance, the Flying Coach, of an improved kind, which did the journey to London in the unusually short period of four days and a half, and thirty years later a Mr. Palmer of Bath, after a considerable amount of opposition, succeeded in inducing the government to put in practice certain suggestions which he made, by which he showed that great saving both of time and money in the conveyance of passengers and letters would be effected. The result was the establishment of the system of mail-coaches, which continued to be the means of travelling in England until their place was taken by the railways. The first mail-coach started between London and Bristol on the 8th of August, 1784. The manufacture of elegant carriages was a proof of much wealth and mechanical skill in a place, many different workmen being employed in their construction, and both the materials and the workmanship requiring to be of the best. British-built carriages, especially those made in London, held the first place for a combination of strength and elegance. Research Coach
Datapost is a Royal Mail fast postal service for packages weighing up to 27.5 kg. The same-day door-to-door service by radio-controlled motorcycles and vans is more expensive than the overnight service, which guarantees next-day delivery to any point in Britain. There is also a Datapost International Service, which operates to many countries. Research Datapost
The Franking Privilege was a privilege in the USA formerly enjoyed by the President, Vice-President, the Cabinet officers, the members of Congress, the delegates from the Territories and a few others, of sending mail matter free. To each of the first four Presidents this privilege was voted for the remainder of his life, and it was voted to the widows of ex-Presidents. The privilege as regards individuals was abolished in February, 1873, but there was still a provision permitting packages and business letters to be sent free from the departments for some time after. Research Franking Privilege
The 'Tamworth Two' was a name given to two juvenile Tamworth pigs which escaped from Newman's Abattoir on Monday the 6th of January 1998 and went on the run. The pair, a brother and sister, belonged to a road cleaner, Armaldo Diiulio, who had intended to sell them for 40 pounds each to the abattoir to be slaughtered and butchered. The escaping pigs swam across the River Avon and hid in a thicket on a wooded hillside near MalmesburyAbbey. The story was reported by Wendy Best of the 'Western Daily Press', a local newspaper, and then the national newspapers heard about the story and the 'Daily Mail' dispatched a freelance reporter to find the pigs, who they christened 'Butch' and 'Sundance', and rescue them. The story gripped public attention for a week while the search for the pair continued until they were caught, and bought by the 'Daily Mail' for an alleged sum of 15,000 pounds. The newspaper then housed the two pigs at a Rare Breeds Centre in Kent where they were cared for and six years later were still living, fully
grown by then and very content. Research Tamworth Two
The armadillo (genus Dasypus), is an edentate mammal peculiar to South America, consisting of various species, belonging to a family intermediate between the sloths and ant-eaters. They are covered with a hard bony shell, divided into belts, composed of small separate plates like a coat of mail, flexible everywhere except on the forehead, shoulders, and haunches, where it is not movable. The belts are connected by a membrane, which enables the animal to roll itself up like a hedgehog. These animals burrow in the earth, where they lie during the daytime, seldom going abroad except at night. They are of different sizes; the largest, Dasypus gigas, being about one metre in length without the tail, and the smallest only 25 cm. They subsist chiefly on fruits and roots, sometimes on insects and flesh. They are inoffensive, and their flesh is esteemed good food. There is a genus of isopodous Crustacea called Armadillo, consisting of animals allied to the wood-lice, capable of rolling themselves into a ball. Research Armadillo
Chlamydophorus is a genus of small quadrupeds of the order Edentata. The only species, Chlamydophorus truncdtus, or pichiciago, resembles the mole in its habits; it is about five inches long, and its back is covered over with a coat of mail, consisting of twenty-four rows of tough leathery plates. Its internal skeleton in several respects resembles that of birds. It is a native of South America, and nearly allied to the armadillo. Research Chlamydophorus
The File-fish (Trigger-fish) are bony fishes found mostly in tropical and warm seas, distinguished by their hard mail-like scales, powerful jaws, and teeth adapted for biting through the shells of molluscs and stripping off pieces of coral to get at the soft parts for food. They are also called trigger-fish from the way the first spine of the dorsal fin snaps back when elevated. Research File-fish
Sir Alfred Charles William Harmsworth was an Irish publisher. He was born in 1865 and died in 1922. Alfred Harmsworth had an insight into what the public wanted, and revolutionished British newspapers by producing the first tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail, in 1896 which included gossip and pictures rather than the dry court reports and the like of the established and unpopular newspapers. In 1903 he started the Daily Mirrornewspaper as a paper for women and later bought The Times and lowered its retail price to increase sales. His concept of low cost, large volume sales, was applied to a set of affordable encyclopaedias published in 1906 as The Harmsworth Encyclopaedia, and later re-issued as The Harmsworth Universal Encyclopaedia in about 1922. Research Alfred Harmsworth
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Black-Mail
