2-888-300 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Post-Office - painted by F. Goodall, 1850. Painting in the Exhibition of the British Institution, '...meant to indicate the arrival of an Indian Mail with the news of a dear-bought victory....It is a large picture, 4 ft. 5 in. in height by 5 ft. 10 in. in width, and represents the exterior of a country post-office, with a barber busy reading the Times aloud to a group of anxious listeners: a boy loiters with his tray of fish; the "boots" of an inn...ceases to polish a pair of top boots; and all gather round the consequential barber...a pretty girl is reading a letter she has just received to an old Chelsea pensioner. On the door-step of the office, another... girl, overcome with the news she has received, is hiding her head in grief; while, with admirable indifference to what is passing, the guard of the mail, who had brought the post-bag, is whistling aloud, as if to say, "This is stale news to me! I knew all this before I mounted my box".' From "Illustrated London News", 1850.