From Nikolai Leskov’s short story The Sentry:

In those days there were neither telegraphs nor telephones, and in order to transmit the orders of the authorities as expeditiously as possible, the “forty thousand couriers” immortalized by Gogol in his Government Inspector used to gallop head-long in all directions.

This, of course, was not as quick as the telegraph or the telephone, but at least it lent considerable animation to the town and bore witness to the unremitting vigilance of the authorities.