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+
+<div lang="en" class="tei tei-text" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 2.00em" xml:lang="en">
+  <div class="tei tei-front" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 2.00em">
+    <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      <div id="pgheader" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em">The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cheap Postage by Joshua Leavitt</p></div><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
+          and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
+          give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
+          Gutenberg License <a href="#pglicense" class="tei tei-ref">included with this
+          eBook</a> or online at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license" class="tei tei-xref">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a></p></div><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">Title: Cheap Postage
+
+Author: Joshua Leavitt
+
+Release Date: November 7, 2008 [Ebook #27196]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEAP POSTAGE***
+</pre></div>
+    </div>
+    <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      
+    </div>
+
+    <hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.73em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHEAP POSTAGE</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.44em"><span style="font-size: 144%">REMARKS AND STATISTICS</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%">ON THE SUBJECT OF</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.73em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHEAP POSTAGE AND POSTAL REFORM</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%">IN</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.44em"><span style="font-size: 144%">GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.73em"><span style="font-size: 173%">BY JOSHUA LEAVITT,</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.20em"><span style="font-size: 120%">COR. SEC. OF THE CHEAP POSTAGE ASSOCIATION.</span></p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: center">“The well-ordering of the Postes is a Matter
+                                   of General Concernment, and of Great Advantage, as
+                                   well for the preservation of Trade and
+                                   Commerce as otherwise.”</span>—Statute of
+                                   Charles II.</p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">Boston</p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">Published for the Cheap Postage Association;</p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">By Otis Claps, Treasurer,</p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">No. 12, School Street.</p>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">1848</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Contents</span></h1>
+      <ul class="tei tei-index tei-index-toc"><li><a href="#toc1">PUBLISHING DIRECTION.</a></li><li><a href="#toc3">CHEAP POSTAGE.</a></li><li><a href="#toc5">APPENDIX.</a></li><li><a href="#toc7">Footnotes</a></li></ul>
+    </div>
+
+  </div>
+<div class="tei tei-body" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page002">[pg 002]</span><a name="Pg002" id="Pg002" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="toc1" id="toc1"></a>
+<a name="pdf2" id="pdf2"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">PUBLISHING DIRECTION.</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Subjoined are the proceedings under which the following sheets were prepared
+and are now published:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“At a meeting of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Board of Directors</span></span> of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Cheap Postage Association</span></span>, on
+the 31st of March, 1848, Dr. Howe, Dr. Webb, and Mr. Leavitt were appointed a
+Committee of Publication. And on motion of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, it was</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Voted</span></span>, That the Publishing
+Committee be authorized to procure the compilation
+of a pamphlet on the subject of Cheap Postage and Postal Reform.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“At a meeting of the Board, on the 25th of
+April, 1848, Mr. Leavitt, the Corresponding
+Secretary, on behalf of the Publishing Committee, reported the copy of a
+pamphlet on the subject prescribed. And on motion of Mr. Moses Kimball, it was</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Voted</span></span>, That the pamphlet be
+printed for general circulation, under the direction
+of the Publishing Committee.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">J. W. James</span></span>,<br />
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Chairman of the Board</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Charles B. Fairbanks</span></span>,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Recording Secretary</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Boston</span></span>, April 26, 1848.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+BOSTON:<br />
+PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND BOLLES,<br />
+DEVONSHIRE STREET.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page003">[pg 003]</span><a name="Pg003" id="Pg003" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="toc3" id="toc3"></a>
+<a name="pdf4" id="pdf4"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CHEAP POSTAGE.</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+For more than eight years, the people of Great Britain have enjoyed
+the blessing of Cheap Postage. A literary gentleman of England,
+in a letter to his friend in Boston, dated London, March 23,
+1848, says—<span class="tei tei-q">“Our Post Office Reform is our greatest measure for
+fifty years, not only political, but educational for the English mind
+and affections. If you had any experience of the exquisite convenience
+of the thing, your speech would wax eloquent to advocate
+it. With your increasing population, a similar measure must soon
+pay; and it will undoubtedly increase the welfare and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">solidarité</span></span> of
+the United States.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Mr. Laing, a writer of eminence, said four years ago, <span class="tei tei-q">“This measure
+will be the great historical distinction of the reign of Victoria I.
+Every mother in the kingdom, who has children earning their bread
+at a distance, lays her head upon her pillow at night with a feeling of
+gratitude for this blessing.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+An American gentleman, writing from London, in 1844, says, <span class="tei tei-q">“It is
+hardly possible to overrate the value of this [cheap postage] in regard
+to the exertion of moral power. At a trifling expense one can carry
+on a correspondence with all parts of the kingdom. It saves time,
+facilitates business, and brings kindred minds in contact. How long
+will our enlightened government adhere to its absurd system?”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The London Committee, who got up a national testimonial for Mr.
+Rowland Hill, speak of cheap postage as <span class="tei tei-q">“a measure which has
+opened the blessings of free correspondence to the teacher of religion,
+the man of science and literature, the merchant and trader, and the
+whole British nation, especially to the poorest and most defenceless
+portion of it—a measure which is <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">the greatest boon conferred in
+modern times on all the social interests of the civilized world</span></em>.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The unspeakable benefits conferred by cheap postage upon the
+people, are equalled by its complete success as a governmental measure.
+The gross receipts of the British Post-office had remained about
+stationary for thirty years, ranging always in the neighborhood of two
+millions and a quarter sterling. In the year 1839, the last year of the
+old system, the gross income was £2,390,763. In the year 1847,
+under the new system, it was £1,978,293, that is, only £413,470
+short of the receipts under the old system. A letter from Mr. Joseph
+Hume, M. P., to Dr. Thomas H. Webb, of Boston, dated London,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page004">[pg 004]</span><a name="Pg004" id="Pg004" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+March 3, 1848, says, <span class="tei tei-q">“I am informed by the General Post-office,
+that the gross revenue this year will equal, it is expected, the gross
+amount of the postage in the year before the postage was reduced.”</span>
+Mr. Hume also encloses a tabular statement of the increase of letters,
+together with a copy of the Parliamentary return, made the present
+year, showing the fiscal condition and continued success of the Post-office.
+He sends also, a copy of a note which he had just written
+to Mr. Bancroft, our Minister at the Court of St. James, as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+(COPY.)
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Bry. Square, 2d March, 1848.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">My Dear Sir</span></span>,
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I have the pleasure to send you the copy of a paper I have prepared, at the
+request of Mr. Webb, of Boston, to show the progress of increase of the number of
+letters by the post-office here, since the reduction of the postage, and I hope it may
+induce your government to adopt the same course.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I am not aware of any reform, amongst the many reforms that I have promoted
+during the last forty years, that has had, and will have better results towards the
+improvement of this country, morally, socially and commercially.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I wish as much as possible that the communication by letters, newspapers and
+pamphlets, should pass between the United States and Great Britain as between
+Great Britain and Ireland, as the intercommunication of knowledge and kindly
+feelings must be the result, tending to the promotion of friendly intercourse, and to
+maintain peace, so desirable to all countries.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Any further information on this subject shall be freely and with pleasure supplied
+by, yours, sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+(Signed) JOSEPH HUME.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+His Excellency George Bancroft.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+MR. HUME'S TABLE.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Estimate of the number of chargeable Letters delivered in the
+United Kingdom in each year, from</span></span> 1839 <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">to</span></span>
+1847.<a id="noteref_1" name="noteref_1" href="#note_1"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">1</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="4"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Year.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Number of Letters.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Annual Increase.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Increase per cent.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">Millions.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Millions.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">on the No. for 1839.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1839.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">76<a id="noteref_2" name="noteref_2" href="#note_2"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">2</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1840.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">169</td><td class="tei tei-cell">93</td><td class="tei tei-cell">123</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1841.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">196-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">27-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">36</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1842.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">208-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">12</td><td class="tei tei-cell">16</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1843.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">220-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">12</td><td class="tei tei-cell">16</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1844.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">242</td><td class="tei tei-cell">21-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">28</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1845.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">271-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">29-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">39</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1846.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">299-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">28</td><td class="tei tei-cell">37</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1847.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">322</td><td class="tei tei-cell">22-½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">30</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The most important of the tables contained in the parliamentary
+return will be given in the appendix, either entire, or so as to present
+the material results in their official form. The contents of that document
+have not, to my knowledge, been in any manner brought before
+the people of the United States.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is humiliating to think, that while a system fraught with so many
+blessings has been so long in operation, and with such signal success
+as a financial measure, in a country with which our relations are
+so intimate, I should now begin to prepare the first pamphlet for publication,
+designed to give the American people full information on the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page005">[pg 005]</span><a name="Pg005" id="Pg005" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+subject; this publication being the first effort of the first regularly
+organized society, now just formed, for the purpose of securing the
+same blessings to the citizens of this republic, which the British Parliament
+enacted, after full investigation, nine years ago. If we look at
+the various political questions which have already in those eight years
+grown <span class="tei tei-q">“obsolete,”</span> after occupying the public mind and engrossed the
+cares of our statesmen, to the exclusion of the great subject of cheap
+postage, and consider their comparative importance, we shall be satisfied
+that it is now high time for a determined effort to satisfy the
+people of the United States with regard to the utility and practicability
+of cheap postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Prior to the year 1840 the postal systems of Great Britain and the
+United States were constructed on similar principles, and the rates of
+postage were nearly alike. Both were administered with a special
+view to the amount of money that could be realized from postage. In
+Great Britain, the surplus of receipts above the cost of administration
+was carried to the general treasury. In the United States, the surplus
+received in the North was employed in extending mail facilities to the
+scattered inhabitants of the South and West. In Great Britain, private
+mails and other facilities had kept the receipts stationary for
+twenty years, while the population of the country had increased thirty
+per cent., and the business and intelligence and wealth of the country
+in a much greater ratio. In the United States, there was a constant
+increase of postage, although by a less ratio than the increase of population,
+until the year 1843, when, through the establishment of private
+mails, the gross receipts actually fell off, and it became apparent that
+the old system had failed, and could never be reinvigorated so as to
+make the post-office support itself, without a change of system.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In Great Britain, the government, after full investigation, became
+satisfied that it was impossible to suppress the private mails except by
+under-bidding them, which they also ascertained that the government,
+by its facilities, could afford to do. They also became satisfied that
+no plan of partial reduction of postage could restore the energy of the
+system, but the only hope of ultimate success was in the immediate
+adoption of the lowest rate. And although the public debt presses so
+heavily as to put every administration to its utmost resources for revenue,
+they resolved to risk the whole net revenue then realized, equal
+to above a million and a half sterling, as the best thing that could be
+done. In the United States, the government, without extensive examination,
+resolved to do what the British government dared not attempt,
+that is, to put down the private mails by penal enactments. It also
+resolved to adopt a partial reduction of the rates of postage; and
+without regarding the mathematical demonstration of its futility, persevered
+in regarding distance as the basis of the rates of charge.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A few extracts from the Debates in Parliament, will show several of
+these points in a striking light:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Francis Baring, on first introducing the bill,
+July 5, 1839, declared his conviction that the loss of revenue at the outset would be
+</span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">very considerable indeed.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> He said the committee had considered that </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">two
+pence postage could be introduced without any loss to the revenue,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> but he differed
+from them, and found </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the whole of the authorities conclusively bearing in favor of
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page006">[pg 006]</span><a name="Pg006" id="Pg006" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+a penny postage.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> And he </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">conscientiously believed that the public ran less risk
+of loss in adopting it.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> Referring to the petitions of the people, he said, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The
+mass of them present the most extraordinary combination I ever saw, of representations
+to one purpose, from all classes, unswayed by any political motive whatever,
+from persons of all shades of opinion, political and religious, and from the commercial
+and trading communities in all parts of the kingdom.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Goulburn</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, then one of the leaders of the opposition,
+opposed so great a sacrifice of revenue, in the existing state of the country, but
+admitted that it would </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">ultimately increase the wealth and prosperity of the
+country.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> And if the experiment was to be tried at all, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">it would be best to make
+it to the extent proposed,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> for </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the whole evidence went to show that a postage
+of two pence would fail, but a penny might succeed.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Wallace</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> declared it </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">one of the greatest boons that
+could be conferred on the human race,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> and he begged that, as </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">England had the
+honor of the invention,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> they might not </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">lose the honor of being the first to
+execute</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> a plan, which he pronounced </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">essentially necessary to the comforts of
+the human race.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Sir </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Robert Peel</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, then at the head of the opposition, found
+much fault with the financial plans of Mr. Baring, but he </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">would not say one word in
+disparagement of the plans of Mr. Hill;</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> and if he wanted popularity, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">he would at
+once give way to the public feeling in favor of the great moral and social advantages</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">
+of the plan, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the great stimulus it would afford to industry and commercial
+enterprise,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> and </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the boon it presented to the lower classes.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">O'Connell</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> thought it would be </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">one of the most valuable
+legislative reliefs that had ever been given to the people.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> It was </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">impossible
+to exaggerate its benefits.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> And even if it would not pay the expense of the
+post-office, he held that </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">government ought to make a sacrifice for the purpose
+of facilitating communication</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">July</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> 12, the debate was resumed.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Poulette Thompson</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> showed the impossibility of making a
+correct estimate of the loss of revenue that would accrue. One witness before the
+committee stated that there would be no deficiency; another said it would be small; while
+Lord Ashburton declared that it would amount to a sacrifice of the whole revenue of the
+post-office.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Warburton</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> denied that the post-office had ever been
+regarded as a mere matter of revenue; the primary object of its institution was to
+contribute to the convenience of the people; its advantages ought to be accessible to
+the whole community, and not be made a matter of taxation at all.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Viscount Sandon</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, of the opposition, said he had long been of
+the opinion that the post-office was not a proper source of revenue, but it </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">ought
+to be employed in stimulating other sources of revenue.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">July</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> 22, another discussion came on.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Sir </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Robert Peel</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> admitted that </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">great social and commercial
+advantages will arise from the change, independent of financial considerations.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">August</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> 5, the bill was taken up by the peers.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Viscount Melbourn</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, in opening the debate, dwelt upon the
+extraordinary extent of the contraband conveyance of letters, as the effect of high
+postage, and said this made it necessary to protect both the revenue and the morals of
+the people by so great a reduction. The means of evasion were so organized, and resort
+to them was so easy, and had even become a habit, that persons would, for a very small
+profit, follow the contraband trade of conveying letters. It was therefore clearly
+necessary to make the reduction to such an extent as would ensure the stopping of
+the contraband trade.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+The </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Duke of Wellington</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> admitted </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the expediency, and indeed
+the necessity</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> of the proposed change. He thought Mr. Hill's plan </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the one most
+likely to succeed.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> He found fault with the financial plans of the administration, but
+for the sake of the reform of the post-office, he said, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">I shall, although with great
+reluctance, vote for the bill, and I earnestly recommend your lordships to do the
+same.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> His customary mode of expressing his opinions.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Lord Ashburton</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> expected the cost of the department, under the
+new system, would amount to a million sterling, which must be made up out of several
+pence before you could touch one farthing of the present income of a million and six
+hundred pounds. There could be no doubt that the country at large would derive an
+immense benefit, the consumption of paper would be increased considerably, and it
+was most probable the number of letters would be at least doubled. It appeared
+to him a tax upon communication between distant parties was, </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">of all taxes, the
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page007">[pg 007]</span><a name="Pg007" id="Pg007" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">
+most objectionable</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">. At one time he had been of the opinion that the uniform charge
+of postage should be two pence, but </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">he found the mass of evidence so strongly in
+favor of one penny</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, that he concluded the ministers were right in coming down to
+that rate.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+The </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">Earl of Lichfield</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, Postmaster-General, said the leading
+idea of Mr. Rowland Hill's book seemed to be </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the fancy that he had hit upon a scheme
+for recovering the two millions of revenue which he thought had been lost by the high
+rates of postage.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> His own opinion was, that the recovery of the revenue was totally
+impossible. He therefore supported the measure on entirely different grounds from
+those on which Mr. Hill placed it. In neither house had it been brought forward
+on the ground that the revenue would be the gainer. He assented to it on the simple
+ground that </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">THE DEMAND FOR IT WAS UNIVERSAL</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. So obnoxious was
+the tax upon letters, that he was entitled to say that </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the people had declared their
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">readiness to submit to any impost</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> that might be substituted in its
+stead.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The proof is thus complete, that the British system was actually
+adopted with sole reference to its general benefits, and the will of the
+people, and not at all in the expectation of realizing, in any moderate
+time, as much revenue as was derived from the old postage. The
+revenue question was discarded, from a paramount regard to the public
+good, which demanded the cheap postage, even if it should be
+necessary to impose a new tax for its support. The extravagant
+expectations of some of the over-sanguine friends of the new system,
+were expressly disclaimed, and the government justified themselves on
+these other considerations entirely—considerations which have been
+most abundantly realized. It will be easy to show that the benefits
+and blessings anticipated from the actual enjoyment of cheap postage,
+have fully equalled the most sanguine expectations of the friends of the
+measure, and have far exceeded in public utility, the pittance of income
+to the treasury, which used to be wrung out by the tax upon letters.
+The same examination will also show, that there is no substantial reason,
+either in the system itself, or in any peculiarity of our circumstances,
+why the same system is not equally practicable and equally
+applicable here, nor why we should not realize at least as great benefits
+as the people of Great Britain, from cheap postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Mr. Rowland Hill published his scheme in a pamphlet, in 1837.
+In 1838, it had attracted so much notice, that between three and four
+hundred petitions in its favor were presented to Parliament, and the
+government consented to a select committee to collect and report information
+on the subject. This committee sat sixty-three days, examined
+the Postmaster-General and his secretaries and solicitors, elicited many
+important tabular returns, and took the testimony of about ninety
+other individuals, of a great variety of stations and occupations.
+They also entered into many minute and elaborate calculations, which
+give to their results the value of mathematical demonstration. Their
+report, with the accompanying documents, fills three folio volumes of the
+Parliamentary Papers for 1838. Its investigations were so thorough,
+its deductions so cautious and candid, and its accumulations of evidence
+so overwhelming that they left nothing to be done, but to adopt
+the new system entire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In this country, no such pains were taken to collect facts, no means
+were used to spread before the people the facts and mathematical calculations
+and irrefragable arguments of the parliamentary committee;
+little study was bestowed on the subject even by our legislators but
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page008">[pg 008]</span><a name="Pg008" id="Pg008" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+with a prejudged conclusion that the reasonings and facts applicable to
+Great Britain could not apply here, on account of the length of our
+routes and the sparseness of our population, a partial reduction was
+resolved upon, which retained the complication and the cumbersome
+machinery of the old system, while affording only a small portion of the
+benefits of the new.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The effect has been, that while the British system has gone on gathering
+favor and strength, the American system, after less than three
+years' trial, has already grown old, the private mails are reviving, the
+ingenuity of men of business is taxed to evade postage, and a growing
+conviction already shows itself, that the half-way reduction is a failure,
+and it is time to make another change. That is to say, the partial
+reduction has failed to meet the wishes of the people, or the wants of
+the public interest, or the duty of the government in discharging the
+trust imposed by the constitution. Indeed, there ought not to be a
+great deal of labor required to prove that there is only one right way,
+and that the right way is the best way, and that it is better to adopt a
+scientifically constructed machine, which has been proved to be perfect
+in all its parts, than a clumsy contrivance, the working principle
+of which is contradicted by mathematical demonstration. I propose to
+present several of the main principles involved in the reduction of
+postage, illustrated by facts drawn from the parliamentary papers, and
+from other authentic sources.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Reduction of Price tends to increase of Consumption.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Our own partial reform in postage proves this. In a report of the
+committee on post-offices and post-roads, made to the House of Representatives,
+May 15, 1844, it is said,
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Events are in progress of fatal tendency to the Post-office Department,
+and its decay has commenced. Unless arrested by vigorous
+legislation, it must soon cease to be a self-sustaining institution, and
+either be cast on the treasury for support, or suffered to decline from
+year to year, till the system has become incompetent and useless.
+The last annual report of the Postmaster-General shows that, notwithstanding
+the heavy retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of
+the department, for the year ending June 30th, 1843, exceeded its
+income by the sum of $78,788. The decline of its revenue during
+that year was $250,321; and the investigations made into the operations
+of the current year, indicate a further and an increasing decline,
+at the rate of about $300,000 a year. Why this loss of revenue, when
+the general business and prosperity of the country is reviving, and its
+correspondence is on the increase?”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report of the Senate Committee at the same session, made Feb.
+22, 1844, says that <span class="tei tei-q">“the cause of this great falling off, in a season of
+reviving prosperity in the trade, business and general prosperity of the
+country, cannot be regarded as transient, but, on the contrary, is
+shown to be deep and corroding. The cause is the dissatisfaction felt
+generally through the country, but most strongly in the densely peopled
+regions to with the rates of postage now established by law, and the
+frequent resort to various means of evading its payment.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page009">[pg 009]</span><a name="Pg009" id="Pg009" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The result was the passage of the act, now in force, by which the
+postage was reduced one half, to begin on the first day of July, 1845.
+The last annual report of the Postmaster-General gives the result.
+He says:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“It is gratifying to find that, within so short a period after the great
+reduction of the rates of postage, the revenues of the department have
+increased much beyond the expectation of the friends of the cheap
+postage system, while the expenditures, for the same time, have diminished
+more than half a million of dollars annually, and that the department
+is in a condition to support itself, without further aid from the
+treasury.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The number of chargeable letters passed through the mails in
+1843, was stated in the Report at 24,267,552, yielding the sum of
+$3,525,268. The number for the year ending June 30, 1847, was
+52,173,480, yielding $3,188,957. Thus the reduction of price one
+half, has in two years more than doubled the consumption, and already
+yields nearly an equal product.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The experiment in Great Britain shows that a still greater reduction
+may be perfectly relied upon to give a rate of increase fully proportionable.
+The <span class="tei tei-q">“Companion to the British Almanac,”</span> for 1842, says,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“The rate of postage in the London district, (which includes the
+limits of the old two penny post,) averaged 2-⅓<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>
+per letter, before the late changes; at present it averages about
+1-¼<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>, and the gross revenue
+already equals that of 1835. The gross receipts in 1838, the last
+complete year under the old system, were £118,000; the gross
+revenue for 1840, the first complete year under the new system, was
+$104,000.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The parliamentary committee, in their report in 1838, state, as the
+result of all their inquiries, that the total number of chargeable letters
+passing through the post-office annually, was about 77,500,000;
+franks, 7,000,000; total of letters, 84,500,000. The average postage
+per letter was 7<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> The gross receipts annually, for six years,
+ending with 1820, were £2,190,597. For six years, ending with 1837, they
+averaged £2,251,424. For the year 1847, the number of letters was
+320,000,000, and the gross receipts nearly equal to the old system.
+Here a reduction of the price three-fourths, has increased the consumption
+fourfold. Some other cases of similar bearing, may be worth
+stating, taken chiefly from the parliamentary documents.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Before the reduction of the duty on newspapers in England, the
+price was 7<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>, and the number sold in a year was 35,576,056,
+costing the public £1,037,634. On the reduction of the duty, the price was
+reduced to 4-¾<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>, and the public immediately paid £1,058,779, for
+53,496,207 papers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Under the high duty on advertisements, when the price was 6<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span>
+each, the number was 1,010,000, costing £303,000. By the reduction
+of the duty, the price fell to 4<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span>, and the number rose to
+1,670,000, costing £334,000.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Formerly the fee of admission to the Armory of the Tower of London
+was 3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span>, at which rate there were in 1838, 9,508 visitors, who
+paid £1,426. In 1839, the fee was reduced to 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span>, and there were
+37,431 visitors, who paid £1,891. In 1840, the fee was reduced to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page010">[pg 010]</span><a name="Pg010" id="Pg010" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+6<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>, and the number of visitors in nine months was 66,025,
+who paid £1,650. During the entire year ending January 31, 1841, there
+were 91,897 visitors, who paid £2,297.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The falling of the price of soap one-eighth, increased the consumption
+one-third; the falling of tea one-sixth, increased consumption
+one-half; the falling of silks one-fifth, doubled the consumption; of
+coffee one-fourth, trebled it, and of cotton goods one-half quadrupled
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A multitude of similar facts could be collected in our own country,
+showing the uniform and powerful tendency of diminished cost to
+increased consumption. A gentleman who is interested in a certain
+panorama said that, in a certain case, the exhibiter wrote to him that
+the avails, at a quarter of a dollar per ticket, were not sufficient to
+pay expenses. <span class="tei tei-q">“Put it down to twelve and a half cents,”</span> was the
+reply. It was done, and immediately the receipts rose so as to give a
+net profit of one hundred dollars a week.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+These facts prove that there is a settled law in economics, that in
+the case of any article of general use and necessity, a reduction in the
+price may be expected to produce at least a corresponding increase of
+consumption, and in many cases a very largely increased expenditure.
+So that the amount expended by the people at low prices will be fully
+equal to the amount expended for the same at high prices. The people
+of England expend now as much money for postage, as they did
+under the old system, but the advantage is, that they get a great deal
+more service for their money, and it gives a spring to business, trade,
+science, literature, philanthropy, social affection, and all plans of
+public utility.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+II. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Nothing but Cheap Postage will suppress Private Mails.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is true that, in this country, private mails are not of so long
+standing, nor so thoroughly systematized as they were in Great Britain
+before the adoption of cheap postage. But on the other hand, the
+state of things in this country affords much greater facilities for that
+business, and renders their suppression by force of law much more
+difficult and more odious than in Great Britain.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On this head, the report of the Parliamentary Committee contains a
+vast mass of information, which made a deep and conclusive impression,
+upon the statesmen of that country. They found and declared that,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“with regard to large classes of the community, those classes principally
+to whom it is a matter of necessity to correspond on matters of
+business, and to whom also it is a matter of importance to save, or
+at least to reduce the expense of postage, the post-office, instead of
+being viewed as it ought to be, and as it would be under a wise administration
+of it, as an institution of ready and universal access, distributing
+equally to all, and with an open hand, the blessings of commerce
+upon civilization, is regarded by them as an establishment too expensive
+not to be made use of, and as one with the employment of which
+any endeavor to dispense by every means in their power.”</span> And
+among <span class="tei tei-q">“the commercial and trading classes, by dint of the superior
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page011">[pg 011]</span><a name="Pg011" id="Pg011" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+activity, had in a considerable degree relieved themselves from the
+pressure of this tax, without the interference of the legislature, by devising
+other means for the cheap, safe and expeditious conveyance of
+letters.”</span> Some specimens of these expedients, as developed by the
+evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, will be at once curious
+and instructive.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+M. B. Peacock, Esq., solicitor to the post-office, detailed the methods which the
+department had used to suppress the illicit sending of letters. By law, one half of
+the penalty, in cases of prosecution, went to the informer, but of late, informations
+were given much less frequently, and he thought the diminution of informations was
+owing to the fact that, about five years before, there had been a call in parliament
+for a return of the names of informers. He said the post-office had done all in its
+power to put a stop to the illegal sending, </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">but without success</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">. And he was
+decidedly of opinion, that the prevention is beyond the power of the post-office, and
+could only be done by reducing the rates of postage.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. G. R. Huddlestone, superintendent of the ship-letter office, gave an account of
+the illicit sending of letters from London to the outports to go by sea. He said they
+were customarily sent in bags from the coffee houses, and by the owners of vessels,
+in the same way as from the ship letter office, and no means had been devised which
+could put a stop to it. Of 122,000 letters sent from the port of Liverpool in a year,
+by the American packets, only 69,000 passed through the post-office. The number
+of letters received inwards, from all parts of the world, by private ships, was
+960,000 yearly; the number sent outwards through the post-office, was but 265,000.
+In the year ending October 5, 1837, there were forty-nine arrivals of these packets,
+bringing 282,000 letters. The number of letters forwarded from London by post to
+Liverpool for these lines, was 11,000; the number received in London from these
+lines, was 51,000 a year.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. Banning, postmaster at Liverpool, stated that, in return for 370,000 ship letters
+received at his office in a year, addressed to persons elsewhere than at Liverpool,
+only 78,000 letters passed through that office to be sent outwards. And yet
+the masters of vessels assured him that the number of letters they conveyed outwards
+was quite equal to the number brought inwards.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. Maury, of Liverpool, said that on the first voyage of the Sirius steamship to
+America, only five letters were received at the post-office to go by her, while at least
+10,000 were sent in a bag from the consignee of the ship.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. Bates stated that the house of Baring &amp; Co. commonly sent two hundred
+letters a week, in boxes, from London to Liverpool, to go to America—equal to
+10,000 a year.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+These things were done under the very eye of the authorities, and
+yet no means had been found to prevent it. What police can our
+government establish, strict enough to do what the British government
+publicly declared itself unable to do?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The correspondence, of the manufacturing towns, it appeared, was
+carried on almost entirely in private and illicit channels. In Walsall,
+it was testified that, of the letters to the neighboring towns, not one-fiftieth
+were sent by mail. Mr. Cobden said that not one-sixth of
+the letters between Manchester and London went through the post-office.
+Mr. Thomas Davidson, of Glasgow, stated the case of five
+commercial houses in that city, whose correspondence sent illegally
+was to that sent by post in the ratio of more than twenty to one; one
+house said sixty-seven to one.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In Birmingham, a system of illicit distribution of letters had been
+established through the common-carriers to all the neighboring towns,
+in a circuit of fifteen miles, and embracing a population of half a
+million. The price of delivering a letter in any of these places was
+1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>, and for this the letters were both collected and delivered.
+Women
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page012">[pg 012]</span><a name="Pg012" id="Pg012" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+were employed to go round at certain hours and collect letters. They
+would collect them for 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. per hundred, and make a living by it.
+The regular postage to those towns was 4<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., besides the trouble
+of taking letters to the post-office. Hence there was both economy and convenience
+in the illicit arrangement. The practice had existed for
+thirty years, and when it was brought in all its details to the notice of
+parliament, no man seems to have dreamed that it was in the power of
+the government to suppress it by penal enactments.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+An individual, whose name and residence are, for obvious reasons, suppressed,
+gave the committee a full description of these private posts. He said that, in the
+year 1836, he kept an account of his letters; that the number sent by the post-office
+was 2068, and those sent by other means were 5861. Of these, about 5000 were to
+places within twenty miles, all of which were sent for 1</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. each.
+Some carriers made it their sole business to carry letters. Some of them travelled on
+foot; others went by the stage coach to the place, and then distributed their letters.
+He found the practice prevailing when he began his apprenticeship in 1807. The population
+of the district thus accommodated was from 300,000 to 500,000. The practice was
+notorious, and used by all persons engaged in business. The object of a great deal
+of the correspondence was to convey orders, notes of inquiry, and other information
+to and from the small manufacturers, to whom it would be a tax of twenty-five per
+cent. on their earnings, if the letters were sent through the post-office at
+4</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. The letters were commonly wrapped up in brown paper, or tied
+with a string, some directed and some not. Very few persons thought about the practice
+being illegal. He had never heard of an attempt by the post-office to institute legal
+proceedings. It would absorb the whole revenue of the post-office to carry on the
+prosecutions that would be required to stop it, and without any effect, as most of the
+carriers were worth nothing. To suppress it by law, would be very injurious to the trade
+of the place. The only way to supersede it is to reduce the postage to
+1</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. Were this done, the post-office would be preferred, for its
+greater certainty, even though the carriers would go for a halfpenny. The post-office
+would unquestionably receive more money by the change.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">E. F.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">, a manufacturer, described what he called the
+</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">free-packet</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> system. Those manufacturers who did much business
+with London, in forwarding parcels through the stage coaches, were allowed by the coach
+proprietors to send a </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">free-packet,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> without any charge, except
+4</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. for booking; and this package contained
+not only the letters and patterns of the house itself, but of others, who thus evade
+the postage.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">G. H.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> had been a carrier, from a town in Scotland to other towns. There
+were six carriers, and they all carried letters, generally averaging fifty a day, and
+realizing from 6</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">s</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. to 7</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">s</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. per day, although
+there were four mails a-day running from the town. The business was kept in a manner
+secret. Reducing the postage to 2</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. would not stop the practice,
+because the carriers would still take the letters for 1</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">.; but a
+penny postage would bring all the letters into the post-office, and then
+the post-office would beat the smuggler.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. John Reid, of London, formerly an extensive bookseller in Glasgow said his
+house used to send out twenty to twenty-five letters a day, and scarcely ever through
+the post. Of 20,000 times of infringing the post-office laws, he was never caught
+but once, and then the government failed in proof, and he had the matter exposed as
+a grievance in the house of commons. He had seen a carrier in Glasgow have more
+than 300 letters at a time, which he delivered for 1</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. Nearly all
+the correspondence between Glasgow and Paisley, was by carriers. There were 200 carriers
+came to Glasgow daily. There was as regular a system of exchanging bags, as in the
+post-office. There was not much attempt at concealment; sometimes we got frightened,
+and sometimes we laughed at the postmasters. Of his own letters, about one in
+twenty of those sent, and one in twelve of those received, passed through the
+post-office. The only way to put an end to the smuggling of letters was to remove the
+inducement. He said he could send letters to every town in Scotland. He could
+do it in more ways than one. He declined to state in what ways he would
+do it, because the disclosure would knock up some convenient modes he had
+of ending his own letters, and those of others. He said he would never use
+the post-office in an illegal manner, as by writing on newspapers and the like,
+because that would be dishonestly availing himself of the post-office, without
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page013">[pg 013]</span><a name="Pg013" id="Pg013" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+paying for it. But he considered </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">he had a right to send his letters as he
+pleased</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">.
+He did not feel it his duty to acquiesce in a bad law, but thought every good man
+should set himself against a bad law, in order to get it repealed. Some of the
+methods of evading postage, practised in Scotland, are amusing. One was through
+what he called </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">family boxes.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> When a student from the country comes to Glasgow
+to attend the college, he usually receives a box, once or twice a week, from his
+family, who send him cheese, meal, butter, cakes, &amp;c., which come cheaper from
+the farm-house than he can purchase them in town. Probably, also, his clean linen
+comes in this way. The moment it was known that any family had a son at the
+university, the neighbors made a post-office of that farm-house.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The committee, in their report, concur in the opinion expressed by
+almost all the officers of the department, that it was not by stronger
+powers to be conferred by the legislature, nor by rigor in the exercise
+of those powers, that illicit conveyance could be suppressed. The
+post-office must be enabled <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">to recommend itself to the public mind</span></em>.
+It must secure to itself a virtual monopoly, by the greater security,
+expedition, punctuality, <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">and cheapness</span></em>, with which it does its work,
+than can be reached by any private enterprise.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With this nearly all the witnesses also agree, although some of
+them thought it possible that a less extreme reduction of the rate
+of postage might have kept out the private mails, if it had taken
+place earlier, before these illicit enterprises had obtained so firm a
+footing.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Lord Ashburton, who was examined before the committee, said that had a uniform
+rate of 2</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">., or even 3</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. been adopted
+heretofore, most persons would sooner pay it than look out for the means of evading it.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. Cobden, of Manchester, said a 6</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. rate between Manchester and
+London would increase but slightly the number of letters, since the sending of letters
+clandestinely has become a trade, which would not be easily broken down. The railroads
+which are now opening to all parts of the country will so increase the facilities
+for smuggling, as </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">to counteract any reduction</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> of from twenty to fifty per
+cent. on the postage. No small reduction will induce the people to write more. A
+reduction to one half of the present rates would certainly be a relief to his trade, as
+far as it went, that is, to all such as now pay the full rate; but he thinks it would not
+induce the poorer classes to use the post-office. It would occasion a loss to the revenue
+of fifty per cent.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Mr. W. Brown, merchant of Liverpool, was sure a reduction to half the present
+rates would give satisfaction to the public, but would not meet the question, and
+would not prevent smuggling.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+I. J. Brewin, of Cirencester, one of the Society of Friends, considered the effect of
+a two penny rate would be, that the post-office would get the long jobs, but not the
+short ones.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Lieutenant F. W. Ellis, auditor of district unions in Suffolk, under the poor law
+commissioners, said that 2</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. would not have the effect of
+1</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">. in bringing correspondence
+to the post-office, because by carriers, and in other ways, letters are now conveyed
+for 1</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The evidence seems to have produced a universal and settled conviction,
+that as far as the contraband conveyance of letters was an
+evil, either financial or social, there was no remedy for it but an absolute
+reduction of the postage to 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. There were large portions of the
+country in which the government could control the postage at a higher
+rate, 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. or even 3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.; but in the densely
+populated districts, where the greatest amount of correspondence arises, and where are
+also the greatest facilities for evading postage, no rate higher than
+1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. would secure the whole correspondence to the mails. They
+therefore
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page014">[pg 014]</span><a name="Pg014" id="Pg014" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+left the penal enactments just as they were, because they might be of
+some convenience in some cases. Mr. Hill declared his opinion that it
+would be perfectly safe to throw the business open to competition, for
+that the command of capital, and other advantages enjoyed by the
+post-office, would enable it to carry letters more cheaply and punctually
+<em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">than can be done</span></em> by private individuals. And the result shows
+that he was right; for the contraband carriage of letters is put down.
+The Companion to the British Almanac, for 1842, says, <span class="tei tei-q">“The illicit
+transmission of letters, and the evasions practised under the old system
+to avoid postage, <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">have entirely ceased</span></em>.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+All this experience, and all these sound conclusions, are doubtless
+applicable in the United States, with the additional considerations, of
+the great extent of country, the limited powers of the government, the
+entire absence of an organized police, and the fact that the federal
+government is to so great a degree regarded as a stranger in the States.
+Shall a surveillance, which the British government has abandoned as
+impracticable, be seriously undertaken at this day by the congress of
+the United States?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+III. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Postage Law of 1845.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Postage Act, passed March 3, 1845, which went into operation
+on the 1st of July of that year, was called forth by a determination to
+destroy the private mails; and this object gave character to the act as
+a whole. The reports of the postmaster-general, and of the post-office
+committees in both houses of congress, show that the end which
+was specially aimed at was to overthrow these mails. The Report of
+the House Committee, presented May 15, 1844, says:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Events are in progress of fatal tendency to the post-office department, and its
+decay has commenced. Unless arrested by vigorous legislation, it must soon
+cease to exist as a self-sustaining institution, and either be cast on the treasury for
+support, or suffered to decline from year to year, till the system has become impotent
+and useless. The last annual report of the postmaster-general shows that, notwithstanding
+the heavy retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of the department
+for the year ending June 30, 1843, exceeded its income by the sum of $78,788.
+The decline of its revenue during that year was $250,321; and the investigations
+made into the operations of the current year, indicate a further and an increasing
+decline, at the rate of about $300,000 a year.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">This illicit business has been some time struggling through its incipient stages;
+for it was not until the year commencing the 1st July, 1840, that it appears to have
+made a serious impression upon the revenues of the department. It has now assumed
+a bold and determined front, and dropped its disguises; opened offices for the reception
+of letters, and advertised the terms on which they will be despatched out of
+the mail.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The revenue for the year ending June 30, 1840, was $4,539,265; for the last
+year it was $4,295,925; and indications show that for the present year it will not
+be more than $3,995,925.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The number of chargeable letters in circulation, exclusive of dead letters, during
+the year ending June 30, 1840, may be assumed at 27,535,554. The annual number
+now reported to be in circulation, is 24,267,552. Thus, 3,268,000 letters a
+year and $543,340 of annual revenue, are the spoils taken from the mails by
+cupidity.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page015">[pg 015]</span><a name="Pg015" id="Pg015" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Report of the Senate Committee has this remark:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">We have seen in the outset that something </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">must</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> be done; that the revenues
+of the department are rapidly falling off, and a remedy must in some way be found for
+this alarming evil, or the very consequences so much dreaded by some from the
+reduction proposed, will inevitably ensue; namely, a great curtailment of the service,
+or a heavy charge upon the national treasury for its necessary expenses. It is
+believed that in consequence of the disfavor with which the present rates and other
+regulations of this department are viewed, and the open violations of the laws before
+adverted to, that not more than, if as much as one half the correspondence of the
+country passes through the mails; the greater part being carried by private hands,
+or forwarded by means of the recently established private expresses, who perform
+the same service, at much less cost to the writers and recipients of letters than the
+national post-office. It seems to the committee to be impossible to believe that there
+are but twenty-four or twenty-seven millions of letters per year, forwarded to distant
+friends and correspondents in the United States, by a population of twenty millions of
+souls; whilst, at the same time, there are </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">two hundred and four millions</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> and
+upwards of letters passing annually through the mails of Great Britain and Ireland,
+with a population of only about twenty-seven millions.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Senate Report recommended the reduction of the rates of postage
+to five and ten cents, an average of seven and a half cents,
+with a very great restriction of the franking privilege, on which it was
+confidently estimated that the revenues of the department, for the first
+year of the new system, would be $4,890,500; and that the number
+of chargeable letters would be sixty millions. The House Report
+recommended stringent measures to suppress the private mails, with
+the abolition of franking, without any reduction of postage, except to
+substitute federal coin for Spanish. It estimated the increase of letters to
+be produced by reducing the rates to five and ten cents, at only thirty
+per cent. in number, thus reducing the postage receipts at once to
+two and a half millions of dollars. It will be seen that each of these
+calculations has been proved to be erroneous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The great postage meeting in New York, held in December, 1843,
+had asked for a uniform rate of five cents. After stating the advantages
+of the English system, their committee still hung upon the length
+of the routes in this country as a reason against the adoption of the
+low rate of postage. They said,
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">It is plain that a similar system may be introduced with equally
+satisfactory results in the United States. On account, however, of the vast distances to
+be traversed by the mail-carriers, and the great difficulties of travel in the unsettled
+portions of our country, our petition asks that the rate be reduced to five cents for
+each letter not more than half an ounce in weight—which is more than double the
+uniform postage in Great Britain. It is a rate which would not only secure to the
+post-office the transport of nearly all the letters which are now forwarded through
+private channels, but it would largely increase correspondence, both of business and
+affection.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Above all, the </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">franking privilege</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> should be abolished. Unless this is
+done, nothing can be done. It will be impossible, without drawing largely upon the
+legitimate sources of the national revenue, to sustain the post-office by any rates
+whatsoever, if this franking privilege shall continue to load the mails with private
+letters which everybody writes, and public documents which nobody reads.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The bill was passed, but the franking privilege was continued, and
+yet the Postmaster-General has told us that the current income of the
+department is equal to its expenses. The predictions to the contrary
+were very confident. Some of the gloomy forebodings then uttered,
+are worthy of being recalled at this time.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page016">[pg 016]</span><a name="Pg016" id="Pg016" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The post-office department estimates that the deficiency in the revenue of the
+department, under the new law, will be about $1,500,000, this
+year.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Boston Post.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">An additional tax of $1,500,000, to be raised to meet the deficiencies of the
+department, in a single year, must principally come from the pockets of farmers,
+(who write few letters, and are consequently less benefited by the reduction of postage,)
+in the shape of additional tariff duties upon articles which they
+consume.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">New Hampshire Patriot.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">A Caution.</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—Some people may be deceived on the subject
+of cheap postage, unless they take a </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">sober second thought.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> A part of those who are
+so strenuous for cheap postage are not quite so disinterested as would at first appear.
+They are seeking to pay their postage bills out of other people's pockets. Look at this
+matter. I am an industrious mechanic, for example, and I have little time to write
+letters. My neighbor publishes school-books, and he wishes to be sending off letters,
+recommendations, puffs, &amp;c., by the hundred and by the thousand. This is his way of
+making money. Now, he wishes the expenses of the post-office department to be
+paid out of the treasury, and then I shall have to help him pay his postage, while he
+will only pay his national tax, according to his means, as I do mine. If he is
+making his money by sending letters, he should pay the whole cost of carrying those
+letters. I ought not to pay any part of it, in the way of duties on sugar, &amp;c. Let
+every man pay his own postage. Is not this fair? But this will not be the case if
+the post-office department does not support itself. The cheap postage system may
+injure the poor man, instead of helping him.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Philad. North
+American.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">As for the matter of post-office reform, and reduction of the rates of
+postage, there are not </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">one thousand</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> considerate and reflecting people, in
+the Union, who desire or demand anything of the kind.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The commercial and mercantile classes have not desired </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">reform;</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> and the rural
+and agricultural classes, the planters of the South, and the corn and wheat growers
+of the West, the mechanics and laboring classes, are not disposed to be
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">taxed</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> enormously to support a post-office department to gratify the avarice
+and cupidity of a body of sharpers and
+speculators.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Madisonian.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">The New Postage Law.</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—The following
+statement has been furnished us of the amount of postage chargeable on letters forwarded
+by the New York and Albany steamboats:</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+The last thirteen days of June, $99.66</span><br /><span style="font-size: 90%">
+First thirteen days of July, (same route,)  53.90</span><br /><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Decrease, $45.76.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Albany Argus.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">I inquired at the post-office to-day for information. One of the gentlemanly
+clerks of that establishment said to me, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Well, Mr. Smith, I can't give you all the
+information you desire, but I can say thus much. I this morning made up a mail for
+Hudson; it amounted to </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">seventy cents</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">; the same letters under the old law,
+and in the same mail, would have paid </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">seven dollars</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">. Now you can make your
+own deductions.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> I then inquired of the same gentleman, if the increase of letters
+had been kept up since the 1st of July. He replied </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">no</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> but added,
+</span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">the increase of numbers is somewhat encouraging, but not sufficiently so to justify
+the belief that the new law will realize the hopes of its
+advocates.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> ”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">N. Y. Correspondent of Boston Post.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">From the city post-office we learn that the number of letters, papers, and packages,
+passing through their hands, unconnected with the business of the government,
+has increased about 33 per cent., when compared with the business of the month of
+June. The gross amount of proceeds from postage on these has fallen off nearly 66
+per cent., while the postage charged to the government for its letters, &amp;c., received
+and sent, is enormous. For the post-office department alone, it is said to reach near
+$40,000 for the month just past.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Washington Union, Aug.
+2.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">We observe in the Eastern papers some paragraphs about the working of the
+new law, in which they suppose it will work well. Unquestionably it will work
+well for those who have to pay the postage; but as to the </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">revenue</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, it will
+not yield even as much as the opponents of the system supposed. We do not believe the
+receipts will equal one half received under the old system. We are told that the
+experience of the first week in Cincinnati does not show more than </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">one
+quarter</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> the receipts.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Private correspondence is increased a little; but the falling off in the
+mercantile increase is immense. It cannot be otherwise; for many letters now pay 10 cents
+which formerly paid a dollar. Double and treble letters pay no more than single
+letters. In large cities three-fourths of the postage is paid by </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">business
+letters</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">. These
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page017">[pg 017]</span><a name="Pg017" id="Pg017" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+letters are nearly all double and treble. A double letter from Cincinnati to New
+York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, or New Orleans, before, paid 50 cents;
+now it pays 10 cents. The largest portion of postage is reduced to </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">one-fifth</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">
+part of the former postage.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">We are well pleased, however, that it will turn out as it will. The law
+will be too popular with the people to be repealed; and it will oblige Mr. James K.
+Polk's administration to provide ways and means out of the tariff to meet a deficiency of
+two millions in the postage. This will work favorably to the tariff.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">All things will come right in the end. The lower the postage the more economical
+the post-office department must be, and the more money the government must
+raise from the tariff.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Cleveland Herald.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Mr. McDuffie is reported to have made the following correct and just remarks,
+showing he understands well the operations of that Department. If the bill shall
+become a law, our word for it, that in less than six months one-fourth the offices in
+the Union will be discontinued, because nobody will be found who will keep them.
+But let the bill go into operation, and in less than twelve months the very clamorers
+for low rates of postage will become so sick of it, that they will be the first to unite
+in demanding its repeal. If we supposed our advice would have any influence, we
+would recommend to the Department and all Postmasters to hold on to the old books,
+arrangements and fixtures, even if the bill does pass, because in two weeks after
+Congress shall meet next year, it will be repealed and the old order
+restored.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Kentucky Yeoman.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“ </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Mr. McDuffie rose, evidently much excited, and after
+expressing his regret that bodily infirmity disabled him to give the strength of his
+convictions in regard to the evils which would flow from the bill, he protested against
+its passage, as a measure more radical and revolutionary than anything that had ever been
+done by Congress. He denounced it as most unjust. It removes the burden from those who
+ought to have it, the manufacturers and merchants of the North, and throws it upon the
+farmers of the South and West, who are already oppressed by the tariff, and who will
+have to pay the expense by a tax on their necessaries.</span></span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“ </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">You will sacrifice the intelligence of the people to the rapacity of the
+manufacturers. He could not imagine that the agriculturist anywhere could feel postage as
+a burden; it is but a moderate compensation for services rendered by the government.
+A poor man pays $10 duty on his sugar, salt and iron, and now you make
+him pay the postage. You will break up one half of the smaller offices, you will in
+ten years make the post-office the greatest organ of corruption the country has ever
+seen, and the man who wields its patronage can command the sceptre. By throwing
+it on the treasury, you destroy the responsibility of the head of the department, and
+in ten years you will have it cost you ten millions of dollars.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> ”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Instead of a revenue of nearly four millions, it is therefore probable that the revenue
+of the first year of the experiment will not much exceed a million and a half.
+It will be remembered that Congress appropriated $750,000 to make up the
+expected deficiency; but this will fall far below the necessities of the service; and
+it is very probable that this sum will be consumed in the payments of the contracts
+for the two first quarters. They are very busy at the Department sending off letter
+balances, the postage of which will of course constitute a charge on the Treasury;
+and as the postage on each of these packets will amount to about three times as
+much as the first cost of the balances, the Department will make money out of this
+transaction.—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Charleston Mercury.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">I voted against this act. It is probable that a reduction might have been made in
+the rates of postage which would not have diminished the amount of revenue; but the
+reduction made by this act is too great, and will have the effect of throwing the
+Post-Office Department as a heavy charge on the general treasury, which has not been
+the case heretofore. The post-office tax was the only one in which the North and
+the East bore their share equally with the South and the West. We would all
+like to have cheap postage; and if that were the only consideration involved, I
+would have voted for the act; but there were others which influenced me to oppose
+it. The reduction of postage will cause a diminution in the post-office revenue,
+which must be supplied by the </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">general treasury</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">. The treasury collects the
+revenue which must supply this deficiency, by a duty levied on imports; so that the tax
+taken off of the </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">mail correspondence</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> will have to be collected on
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">salt</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">iron</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">sugar</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">,
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">blankets</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, and other articles which we buy from the stores. The manufacturing
+States profit by this, because it aids the </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">protective</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> policy. I might add
+other objections, but deem it unnecessary at present.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">—</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Letter
+of Hon. D. S. Reid, of ——, to his constituents.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page018">[pg 018]</span><a name="Pg018" id="Pg018" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Postmaster-General, in his report made Dec. 1, 1845, says:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">So far as calculations can be relied on, from the returns to the department, of the
+operation of the new postage law, for the quarter ending 30th September last, the
+deficiency for the current year will exceed a million and a quarter of dollars; and
+there is no reasonable ground to believe that, without some amendment of that law,
+it will fall short of a million of dollars for the next year.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The actual deficiency for the year ending June 30, 1846, was only
+$589,837; and for the second year above alluded to, ending June 30,
+1847, it was but $33,677. And the Postmaster-General's report for
+December, 1847, estimates the resources of the department for the
+year ending June 30, 1848, at $4,313,157, and the expenditures at
+$4,099,206, giving an actual surplus of $213,951. If this expectation
+should be realized, (and there is hardly a possibility but that it should
+be exceeded), the income will exceed the annual average receipts for
+the nine years before the reduction of postage, $51,467. The Postmaster-General
+ascribes the increase solely to <span class="tei tei-q">“the reduction in the
+rates of postage,”</span> while nearly a million of dollars are saved in the
+expenditures by the provision of the law of 1845, directing the contracts
+to be let to the lowest bidder, without reference to the transportation
+in coaches. So far, therefore, the triumph of the law of
+1845 has been complete. It has proved that the same economic law
+exists here as in England, by which reduction of price leads to increase
+of consumption.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On the other point, however, of meeting the wants of the people, so
+as to bring all the correspondence of the country into the mails, its
+success is very far from being equally satisfactory. The five and ten
+cents' postage does not have the effect of suppressing the private mails
+and illicit transportation of letters.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report of the House Committee in 1844, showed beforehand
+that such a reduction could not have the effect here, just as the parliamentary
+report had shown in 1838, that nothing but an absolute
+reduction to 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> could suppress the private mails in England.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Individuals can prosecute on all the large railroad and steamboat routes
+between the great towns, as now, a profitable business in conveying
+letters at three and five cents, where the government would ask the five
+and ten cents postages.”</span> Hill's New Hampshire Patriot said, shortly
+after the act went into operation:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Private expresses </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">have not</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> been discontinued in this quarter. Far from
+it. They are now doing as large a business as ever, carrying letters at half the
+government rates. And, strange as it may appear, they appear to be sustained by public
+opinion. The new postage act did not abate what is called </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">private enterprise,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">
+and the act itself, it is thought, will soon be found to be insufficient.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report of the Postmaster-General in 1845, speaks of a practice
+of enveloping many letters, written on very thin paper, in one enclosure,
+paying postage by the half-ounce, and thus reducing the postage
+on each to a trifle.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">An incident recently occurred which will forcibly illustrate the injurious effects
+of such a practice upon the revenues of the department. A large bundle of letters
+was enveloped and sealed, marked </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">postage paid, $1.60.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> By some accident in the
+transportation, the envelope was so much injured as to enable the postmaster to see
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page019">[pg 019]</span><a name="Pg019" id="Pg019" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+that it contained one hundred letters to different individuals, evidently designed for
+distribution by the person to whom directed, and should have been charged ten dollars.
+The continuance of this practice would, in a short time, deprive the department
+of a large proportion of its legitimate income. The department has no power
+to suppress it, further than to direct the postages to be properly charged, whenever
+such practices are detected. This has also introduced a species of thin, light paper,
+by which five or six letters may be placed under one cover, and still be under the
+half-ounce.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+He adds:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The practice of sending packages of letters through the mails to agents, for
+distribution, has not entirely superseded the transmission of letters, over post roads,
+out of the mails, by the expresses. The character of this offence is such as to render
+detection very uncertain, full proof almost impossible, conviction rare. The penalties
+are seldom recovered after conviction, and the department rarely secures enough to
+meet the expenses of prosecution. If the officers of the department were authorized
+in proper cases to have the persons engaged in these violations of the law arrested,
+their packages, trunks, or boxes, seized and examined before a proper judicial officer,
+and, when detected in violating the law, retained for the examination of the
+court and jury, it is believed that the practice could be at once suppressed.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In his last report, December, 1847, he also says that, <span class="tei tei-q">“Private
+expresses still continue to be run between the principal cities, and
+seriously affect the revenues of the department, from the want of adequate
+powers for their suppression.”</span> The complaint is continually, of
+a want of adequate powers to suppress the practice. The law of 1845
+has gone as far as could be desired in the severity of penalties and the
+extent of their application, involving in heavy fines every person who
+shall send or receive letters; and every stage-coach, railroad car,
+steamboat, or other vehicle or vessel—its owners, conductors and
+agents, which may knowingly be employed in the conveyance of letters,
+or in the conveyance of any person employed in such conveyance,
+under penalty of $50 for each letter transported. What the post-office
+department would deem <span class="tei tei-q">“adequate powers”</span> for the suppression
+of illicit letter-carrying, may be seen in the following extract of a bill,
+which was actually reported by the post-office committee of the House
+of Representatives, and <span class="tei tei-q">“printed by order of the House:”</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">And it shall be lawful for the agents of the post-office, or other officers of the
+United States government, upon reasonable cause shown, to arrest such person or
+persons, and seize his or their boxes, bags, or trunks, supposed to contain such
+mailable matter, and cause the same to be opened and examined before any officer of
+the United States; and if found to contain such mailable matter, transported in violation
+of the laws of the United States, shall be held to bail in the sum of five thousand
+dollars, to appear and answer said charge before the next United States Court
+to be held in said State, or district of said State; and upon conviction thereof, shall
+be fined as aforesaid, one hundred dollars for each letter, newspaper, or printed sheet
+so transported as aforesaid, and shall be held in the custody of the marshal until the
+fine and costs are paid, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report of 1845 thinks there is <span class="tei tei-q">“no just reason why individuals
+engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate
+revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the
+same extent, as persons guilty of smuggling goods; nor why the same
+means of detection should not be given to the Post-office Department
+which are now given to the Treasury.”</span> That is, the power of detention
+and search in all cases of suspicion by the agent, that a person is
+carrying letters. What would be the effect of carrying out this system,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page020">[pg 020]</span><a name="Pg020" id="Pg020" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+in breaking up the practice complained of, or what would be the
+amount of inconvenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough
+determination in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of
+it, all can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have
+seen, dared not entertain such a proposition. I have no hesitation in
+saying, that such a system of coercion can never be successfully executed
+here. It is better to meet the difficulty, as the British government
+did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular
+vehicle of transmission, and the greatest blessing which the government
+can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said,
+years ago:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Congress yields, and passes such a law. What then? Is Hydra dead? By no
+means, its ninety-nine other heads still rear their crests, and bid defiance to the
+secretary and his law. In Pearl street, there will yet hang a bag for the deposit of
+the whole neighborhood's letters,—at Astor House, and at Howard's, at the American,
+and at the City Hotels, still every day will see the usual accumulation of
+letters,—all to be taken by some </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">private,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> trustworthy, obliging wayfarer,
+and by him be deposited in some office at Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, Baltimore.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I have no doubt that the cheap transmission of letters, out of the
+mails, is now becoming systematized and extended between our large
+cities, and an immense amount of correspondence is also carried on
+between the large cities and the towns around. The Boston Path-Finder
+contains a list of 240 <span class="tei tei-q">“Expresses,”</span> as they are called, that is,
+of common carriers, who go regularly from Boston to other towns,
+distant from three miles to three hundred. Most of these men carry
+<span class="tei tei-q">“mailable matter”</span> to a great extent, in their pockets or hats, in the
+shape of orders, memorandums, receipts, or notes, sometimes on slips
+of paper, sometimes in letters folded in brown paper and tied with a
+string, and not unfrequently in the form of regularly sealed letters. If
+we suppose each one to carry, on an average, ten in a day, a very low
+estimate, there are 750,000 letters brought to Boston in a year by this
+channel alone. Everything which calls public attention to the subject
+of postage, every increase of business causing an increase of correspondence
+between any two places, every newspaper paragraph
+describing the wonderful increase of letters in England, will awaken
+new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify themselves
+irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is seasonably applied.
+In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there
+are many lines of business of which the whole profits are made up of
+extremely minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material;
+and such concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when
+they can get them taken, carried and delivered for two cents. The
+causes which created illicit penny posts in England are largely at work
+here, with the growth and systematization of manufactures and trade;
+and they are producing, and will produce the same results, until, on
+the best routes, not one-sixth of the letters will be carried in the mail,
+unless the true system shall be seasonably established. The evils of
+such a state of things need not be here set forth. One of the greatest,
+which would not strike every mind, is the demoralization of the
+public mind, in abating the reverence for law, and the sense of gratitude
+and honor to the government.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page021">[pg 021]</span><a name="Pg021" id="Pg021" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in
+furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspondence which
+the duty of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful
+conveyances, and in winning the patriotic regards of the people to
+the post-office, as to every man's friend, the act of 1845 has entirely
+failed. It has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard to
+its productiveness, on the one hand, but it has even convinced the
+highest official authority that it has failed to prove itself to be <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">the</span></em>
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">CHEAP POSTAGE</span></span>, which the country needs and will support. In his
+last annual report, the Postmaster-General says:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The favorable operation of the act of 1845, upon the finances of this
+department, leads to the conclusion that, by the adoption of such modifications as have
+been suggested by this department for the improvement of its revenues, and the
+suppression of abuses practised under it, the present low rates of postage will not only
+produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a considerable surplus
+annually to be applied to the extension of the mail service to the new and rapidly
+increasing sections of our country, or would justify a still further reduction of the
+rates of postage. In the opinion of the undersigned, with such modifications of the act
+of 1845 as have been suggested, an uniform less rate might, in a few years, be made to
+cover the expenses of the department; but by its adoption the department would be
+compelled to rely upon the treasury for a few years. At this time, during the existence
+of a foreign war, imposing such heavy burdens upon the treasury, it might not
+be wise or prudent to increase them, or to do anything which would tend to impair
+the public credit; and, </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">ON THIS ACCOUNT</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> alone, recommendation
+for such a reduction is not made.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon the
+intelligence, knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social feelings; and in the
+opinion of the undersigned, should be reduced to the lowest point which would
+enable the department to sustain itself. That principle has been uniformly acted on
+in the United States, as the true standard for the regulation of postage, and the
+cheaper it can be made, consistently with that rule, the better.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">As our country expands, and its circle of business and correspondence enlarges,
+as civilization progresses, it becomes more important to maintain between the different
+sections of our country a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing,
+energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged,
+and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind;
+by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community,
+and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are
+cherished and preserved, and the Union itself more closely bound together.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Nothing can be more true than the position, that <span class="tei tei-q">“postage is a
+tax,”</span> and that it is the duty of the government to make this <span class="tei tei-q">“tax”</span> as
+light as possible, consistent with its other and equally binding duties.
+Nothing more sound than the doctrine that it is utterly wrong to charge
+postage with <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">anything more</span></em> than its own proper expenses. Nothing
+more just than the estimate here given of the benefits of cheap postage.
+The blessings he describes are so great, so real, so accordant
+with the tone and beneficent design of civil government itself, and
+especially to the functions and duties of a republican government, that
+I do not think even the existence and embarrassments of a state of war,
+such as now exists, are any reason at all for postponing the commencement
+of so glorious a measure. If it could be brought about under
+the administration of an officer who has expressed himself so cordially
+and intelligently in favor of cheap postage, and whose ability and
+fidelity in the economical administration of affairs are so well known,
+it would be but a fitting response to the statesmanlike sentiments
+quoted above.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page022">[pg 022]</span><a name="Pg022" id="Pg022" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I am now to show that, on the strictest principles of justice, on the
+closest mathematical calculation, on the most enlarged and yet rigid
+construction of the duty imposed on the federal government by our
+constitution, two cents per half ounce is the most just and equal rate
+of postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+IV. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">What is the just Rule to be observed in settling the Rates of
+Postage?</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The posting of letters may be looked at, either as a contract between
+the government and the individuals who send and receive letters, or as
+a simple exercise of governmental functions in discharging a governmental
+duty. The proper measure of the charge to be imposed should
+be considered in each of these aspects, for the government is bound to
+do that which is right in both these relations.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Viewed simply as a contract, or a service rendered for an equivalent,
+what would be the rate to be charged? Not, surely, the amount it
+would cost the individual to send his own particular letter. The saving
+effected by the division and combination of labor is a public benefit,
+and not to be appropriated as an exclusive right by one. In this view,
+the government stands only in the relation of a party to the contract,
+just as a state or a town would do, or an individual. No right or
+power of monopoly can enter into the calculation. We can illustrate
+the question by supposing a case, of a town some thirty miles from
+Boston, to which there has hitherto been no common-carrier. The
+inhabitants resolve to establish an express, and for this purpose enter
+into negotiations with one of their neighbors, in which they agree to
+give him their business on his agreeing to establish a reasonable tariff
+of prices for his service. If the number of patrons is very small, they
+cannot make it an object for the man to run his wagon, unless they
+will agree to pay a good price for parcels. And the more numerous
+the parcels are, the lower will be the rate, within certain limits, that is,
+until the man's wagon is fairly loaded, or he has as much business as
+he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that all the
+business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate or
+contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount
+of business, there should be an equitable apportionment of this advantage,
+a part to go to the carrier for his additional trouble and fair
+profits, and a part to go towards reducing the general rate of charge.
+If, however, the carrier has an interest in a place five miles beyond,
+which he thinks may be built up by having an express running into it
+from Boston, although the present amount of business is too small to
+pay the cost, and if, for considerations of his own advantage, he
+resolves to run his wagon to that place at a constant loss for the present,
+looking to the rise of his property for ultimate remuneration, it would
+not be just for him to insist, that the people who intend to establish an
+express and support it for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or
+exorbitant price for their own parcels, in order to pay him for an
+appendage to the enterprise, for which they have no occasion, and
+as such he himself undertakes for personal considerations of is own.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page023">[pg 023]</span><a name="Pg023" id="Pg023" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+And if he should be obstinate on this point, they would just let him take
+his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded
+to make a new bargain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate
+them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage.
+And if an appeal should be made to their sympathy or charity,
+to help the growing hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give
+charity out of their pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels;
+for then those would give who were able and willing, and would
+know how much they gave. This covers the whole case of arranging
+postage as a matter of equal contract. The just measure of charge is,
+the lowest rate at which the work can be afforded by individual enterprise
+on the best self-supporting routes. Plainly, no other rate can be
+kept up by open competition on these routes. And if these routes are
+lost by competition, you must charge proportionably higher on the rest,
+which will throw the next class of routes into other hands, and so on,
+until nothing is left for you but the most costly and impracticable portions
+of the work.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is
+an extensive and complicated combination of interests, among which
+the general convenience and even economy will be promoted by establishing
+a uniformity of prices, without reference to an exact apportionment
+of minute differences.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It can be easily shown, that all these considerations would be harmonized
+by no rate of postage on letters, higher than the English 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>,
+or with us two cents for each half ounce. Considered as a business
+question, unaffected by the assumed power of monopoly by the government,
+the reasonings of the parliamentary reports and the results of
+the British experiment abundantly establish this rate to be the fair
+average price for the service rendered. A moderate business can live
+by it, if economically conducted, and a large business will make it
+vastly profitable, as is seen in the payment of four or five millions of
+dollars a year into the public treasury of Great Britain, as the net
+profits of penny postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+If we look at the post-office in the more philosophical and elevated
+aspect of a grand governmental measure, enjoined by the people for
+the good of the people, we shall be brought to a similar conclusion.
+The constitutional rule for the establishment of the post-office, is as
+follows:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Congress shall have power to—</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Establish post-offices and post-roads.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the United
+States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility
+of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper
+mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable
+ability of the government. This is one point of the <span class="tei tei-q">“general
+welfare,”</span> for which we are to look to congress, just as we look to
+congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army
+and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the
+other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable
+wants of the people, and the reasonable ability of the government.
+It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page024">[pg 024]</span><a name="Pg024" id="Pg024" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repeated rule,
+which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office
+must support itself. Still less, does it authorize congress to
+throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase
+its usefulness as a public convenience, because it cannot carry all
+those loads. The people must have mails, and congress must furnish
+them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground
+that the alternative may be the discontinuance of public mails, the
+privation of this privilege to the people, and the winding up of the
+post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government
+ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government
+itself will soon wind up, or rather, will be taken in hand and wound
+up by the people, and set a-going again on better principles. The sole
+inquiry for congress is, what is the best way to meet the reasonable
+wants of the people, by means within the reasonable ability of the
+government?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its administration,
+are well set forth in the Report of the House Committee in
+1844: <span class="tei tei-q">“To content the man, dwelling more remote from town,
+with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of
+intercommunication; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home
+on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever
+severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and
+love; to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly,
+pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered
+to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state;
+to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government,
+worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges
+as a sovereign constituent of the government; to diffuse, throughout
+all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and
+national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and
+binding them together in patriotic affection.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+These are the objects for which congress is bound to maintain the
+post-office, and it is impossible that congress should ever seriously consider
+whether they will not abandon them. The maintenance of convenient
+mails for these objects is therefore to be regarded as a necessary
+function of the government of the United States. In the infancy
+of that government, while the government itself was an experiment,
+when the country was deeply in debt for the cost of our independence,
+and when its resources for public expenditure were untried and
+unknown, there was doubtless a propriety in the adoption of the principle,
+that the post-office department should support itself. But that
+state of things has long gone by, and our government now has ample
+ability to execute any plans of improvement whatever, for the advancement
+of knowledge, and for binding the Union together, provided
+such plans come within the acknowledged powers conferred by the
+constitution.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The post-office being, then, like the army and navy, a necessary
+branch of the government, it follows that the charge of postage for the
+conveyance of letters and papers is of the nature of a tax, as has been
+well expressed by the present Postmaster-General, in his last annual
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page025">[pg 025]</span><a name="Pg025" id="Pg025" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+report, quoted above. <span class="tei tei-q">“<em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">Postage is a tax</span></em>, not only on the business
+of the country, but upon intelligence and knowledge, and the exercise
+of the friendly and social affections.”</span> The question before us is,
+How heavy a <span class="tei tei-q">“tax”</span> ought the government of a federal republic to
+impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human
+improvement answers spontaneously, that nothing but a clear necessity
+can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax
+should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate.
+The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of
+correspondence produced by cheap postage, and the immense revenue
+accruing therefrom, demonstrate that <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">TWO CENTS</span></span> is not below the
+rate which the government can afford to receive. Let the people
+understand that all beyond this is a mere <span class="tei tei-q">“tax,”</span> not required by any
+necessity, and they will soon demand that the government look for its
+resources to some more suitable subjects of taxation than these.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Another rule of right in regard to this <span class="tei tei-q">“tax”</span> is well laid down in
+the Report of the House Committee, for 1844: <span class="tei tei-q">“As the post-office is
+made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it should
+derive aid and support from everything which it conveys. No man's
+private correspondence should go free, since the expense of so conveying
+it becomes a charge upon the correspondence of others; and the
+special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being extended
+to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither
+should the public correspondence be carried free of charge where such
+immunity operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen.
+There is no reason why the public should not pay its postages as well
+as citizens—no sufficient reason why this item of public expenses
+should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax paid into the
+treasury.”</span> These remarks are made, indeed, with reference to the
+franking privilege, which the committee properly proposed to abolish
+on the grounds here set forth. But it is plain that the principle is
+equally pertinent to the question of taxing the correspondence of the
+thickly settled parts of the country for the purpose of raising means
+to defray the expense of sending mails to the new and distant parts of
+the country. There is no justice in it. The extension of these mails
+is a duty of the government; and let the government, by the same
+rule, pay the cost out of its own treasury. <span class="tei tei-q">“Postage,”</span> says the same
+report, <span class="tei tei-q">“in the large towns and contiguous places, is, in part, a
+<em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">contribution</span></em>.”</span> It is a forced contribution, levied not upon the
+property of the people, but upon their intelligence and affections.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Our letters are taxed to pay the following expenses:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents,
+which few people read at all, and most of which might as well
+be sent in some other way—would be seen the moment they should
+be actually subjected to the payment of postage by those who send or
+receive them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the
+new or thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own
+expenses. I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous
+than the government ought to establish; but then the government
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page026">[pg 026]</span><a name="Pg026" id="Pg026" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+ought to support them out of the general treasury. Many of them are
+necessary for the convenience of the government itself. For many of
+them the treasury is amply remunerated, and more, by the increased
+sale of the public lands, the increase of population, and the consequent
+increase of the revenue from the custom-house. And the rest are
+required by the great duty of self-preservation and self-advancement,
+which is inherent in our institutions.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal
+number of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at
+existing rates, would amount to at least $175,000 a year, and the
+greater part of which would be saved under the new postal system.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Why should these burdens be thrown as a <span class="tei tei-q">“tax upon correspondence,”</span>
+or made an apology for the continuance of such a tax? It is
+unreasonable. All these expenses should be borne, <span class="tei tei-q">“like all others,
+by the general tax paid into the treasury.”</span> This would leave letters
+chargeable only with such a rate of postage as is needed for the prevention
+of abuses, and to secure the orderly performance of the public
+duty. And a postage of two cents would amply suffice for this.
+Some have suggested that <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">one cent</span></em> is all that ought to be required.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+There is another view of the matter, which shows still more strongly
+the injustice of the present tax upon letters. <span class="tei tei-q">“It is not matter of
+inference,”</span> says Mr. Rowland Hill, <span class="tei tei-q">“but matter of fact, that the
+expense of the post-office is practically the same, whether a letter is
+going from London to Burnet (11 miles), or from London to Edinburgh
+(397 miles); the difference is not expressible in the smallest
+coin we have.”</span> The cost of transit from London to Edinburgh he
+explained to be only one thirty-sixth of a penny. And the average
+cost, per letter, of transportation in all the mails of the kingdom, did
+not differ materially from this. Of course, it was impossible to vary
+the rates of postage according to distance, when the longest distance
+was but a little over one-tenth of a farthing. The same reasoning is
+obviously applicable to all the <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">productive</span></em> routes in the United States.
+And we have seen the injustice of taxing the letters on routes that are
+productive or self-supporting, to defray the expense of the unproductive
+routes which the government is bound to create and pay for.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Another view of the case shows the futility of the attempt to make
+distance the basis of charge. The actual cost of transit, to each letter,
+does not vary with the distance, but is inversely as the number of letters,
+irrespective of distance. The weight of letters hardly enters into
+the account as a practical consideration. Ten thousand letters, each
+composed of an ordinary sheet of letter paper, would weigh but one
+hundred and fifty-six pounds, about the weight of a common sized
+man, who would be carried from Boston to Albany or New York for
+five dollars. The average cost of transportation of the mails in this
+country, is a little over six cents per mile. For convenience of calculation,
+take a route of ten miles long, which costs ten cents per mile,
+and another of one hundred miles long at the same rate. There are
+many routes which do not carry more than one letter on the average.
+The letter would cost the department one dollar for carrying it ten
+miles. On the route of one hundred miles we will suppose there are
+one thousand letters to be carried, which will cost the government for
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page027">[pg 027]</span><a name="Pg027" id="Pg027" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+transportation just one mill per letter. How then can we make distance
+the basis of postage?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The matter may be presented in still another view. The government
+establishes a mail between two cities, say Boston and New York,
+which is supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds
+to establish a mail between New York and Philadelphia, which
+is supported by the postage between those places. Now, how much
+will it cost the government to carry in addition, all the letters that go
+from Boston to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Boston?
+Nothing. The contracts will not vary a dollar. In this manner, you
+may extend your mails from any point, wherever you find a route
+which will support itself, until you reach New Orleans or Little Rock,
+and it is as plain as the multiplication table, that it will cost the government
+no more to take an individual letter from Boston to Little
+Rock than it would to take the same letter from Boston to New York.
+The government is quite indifferent to what place you mail your letter,
+provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly running to it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+This brings us to the unproductive routes. An act was passed by
+the last Congress to establish mail routes in Oregon territory. An
+agent is appointed to superintend the business, at a salary of $1000 a
+year and his travelling expenses; contracts are made or to be made,
+mails carried, postmasters appointed and paid. This is doubtless a
+very proper and necessary thing, one which the government could not
+have omitted without a plain dereliction of duty. The honor and
+interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country
+was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall
+go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it
+was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the
+nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is
+just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New
+York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to
+Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A mail is run at regular periods to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for the
+accommodation of the persons employed about the copper mines on
+Lake Superior. Without questioning the certainty of the great things
+that are to be done there hereafter, it is no presumption to express the
+belief that the expenses of that mail are hardly paid by the postage on
+the letters now carried to and from Lake Superior. Nor, after making
+all due allowances for the liberal distribution of copper stock at the
+East, is it rational to believe that all the people who write letters here,
+are so directly interested as to make a tax upon letters the most equitable
+mode of assessing the expense.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+During the debates in Congress on the act of 1844, an incident was
+related by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, to this effect. He said
+he was travelling in the mail stage somewhere in the State of Tennessee.
+At a time of day when he was tired and hungry, the stage
+turned off from the road a number of miles, to carry the mail to a certain
+post-office; it was night when they reached the office, the postmaster
+was roused with difficulty, who went through the formality of
+taking the mail pouch into his hand, and returned it to the driver, saying
+there was not a letter in it, and had not been for a month. I will
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page028">[pg 028]</span><a name="Pg028" id="Pg028" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+not inquire whose letters ought to be taxed to sustain that mail route,
+but only remark, that whatever consideration caused its establishment,
+ought to carry the cost to the public treasury, and not throw it as a
+burden upon our letters.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Postmaster-General, in his late report, says that <span class="tei tei-q">“the weight
+and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation,
+and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the mass
+of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities in the Union
+to every part of the country;”</span> and <span class="tei tei-q">“justice requires that the expense
+of their transportation should be paid by the postage.”</span> I would add
+to this the qualifying phrase, <span class="tei tei-q">“or by the government, out of the public
+treasury,”</span> and then ask why the same principle of justice is not as
+applicable to long mail routes as to heavy mail bags. There is and
+can be no ground of apprehension, that mails will ever be overloaded
+or retarded by the weight of paid letters they contain. It was found
+by the parliamentary committee, that the number of letters, which was
+then nearly fifty per cent. greater than in all our mails, might be
+increased twenty-four fold, without overloading the mails, and without
+any material addition to the contracts for carrying the mails. They
+also found that the whole cost of receiving, transporting and delivering
+a letter was 76-100ths of a penny, of which the transit cost but
+19-100ths, and the receipt and delivery 57-100ths. The cost of
+transit, per letter, is of course reduced by the increase of correspondence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I have dwelt so long on this part of the subject, because I find that
+here is the great difficulty in the application of the principles and
+results of the British system to our own country—ours is such a
+<span class="tei tei-q">“great country,”</span> and we have so many <span class="tei tei-q">“magnificent distances.”</span>
+But disposing as I have of the unproductive mail routes, and showing
+as I have, the injustice of taxing letters with the expense of any public
+burthens, this whole difficulty is removed, and it is made to appear that
+two cents is the highest proper rate of postage which the government
+can justly exact for letters, on the score either of a just equivalent
+for the service rendered, or of a tax imposed for the purposes of the
+government itself.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were
+most intelligently and satisfactorily drawn—that <span class="tei tei-q">“the principle of a
+uniform postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing
+letters in the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred
+with reference to their receipt at and delivery from the office, and that
+the cost of transit along the mail roads is comparatively unimportant,
+and determined rather by the number of letters carried than the distance;”</span>
+that <span class="tei tei-q">“as the cost of conveyance per letter depends more on
+the number of letters carried than on the distance which they are conveyed,
+(the cost being frequently greater for distances of a few miles,
+than for distances of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in proportion
+to the cost, ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the number
+of letters conveyed,”</span> but it would be impossible to carry such a rule
+into practice, and therefore the committee were of opinion, that <span class="tei tei-q">“the
+easiest practicable approach to a fair system, would be to charge a
+medium rate of postage between one post-office and another, whatever
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page029">[pg 029]</span><a name="Pg029" id="Pg029" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+may be their distance.”</span> And the committee were further of opinion,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“that such an arrangement is highly desirable, not only on account of
+its abstract fairness, but because it would tend in a great degree to
+simplify and economize the business of the post-office.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Waterston's Cyclopedia of Commerce says, <span class="tei tei-q">“the fixing of <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">a low rate</span></em>
+flowed almost necessarily from the adoption of a <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">uniform</span></em> rate. It was
+besides essential to the stoppage of the private conveyance of letters.
+The post-office was thus to be restored to its ancient footing of an
+institution, whose primary object was public accommodation, not
+revenue.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The adoption of this simple principle, of Uniform Cheap Postage,
+was a revolution in postal affairs. It may almost be called a revolution
+in the government, for it identified the policy of the government
+with the happiness of the people, more perfectly than any one measure
+that was ever adopted. It prepared the way for all other postal
+reforms, which are chiefly impracticable until this one is carried. We
+also can have franking abolished, as soon as cheap postage shall
+have given the franking privilege alike to all. We can have label
+stamps, and free delivery, and registry of letters, and reduced postage
+on newspapers, and whatever other improvement our national
+ingenuity may contrive, to the fullest extent of the people's wants,
+and the government's ability, just as soon as we can prevail upon
+the people to ask, and congress to grant, this one boon of Uniform
+Cheap Postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+V. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Franking.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The unanimity and readiness with which the franking privilege was
+surrendered by the members of parliament—men of privilege in a
+land of privilege—is proof of the strong pressure of necessity under
+which the measure was carried. It is true, a few members seemed
+disposed to struggle for the preservation of this much-cherished prerogative.
+One member complained that the bill would be taxing him
+as much as £15 per annum. Another defended the franking privilege
+on account of its benefits to the poor. But the opposition melted
+away, like an unseasonable frost, as soon as its arguments were placed
+in the light of cheap postage. And the whole system of franking was
+swept away, and each department of the government was required to
+pay its own postage, and report the same among its expenditures.
+The debates in parliament show something of the reasons which
+prevailed.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">July 22, 1848.</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> The postage bill came up on the second reading:
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Sir Robert H. Inglis, among other things, objected to the abolition of the franking
+privilege. He could not see why, because a tax was to be taken off others, a tax
+was to be imposed on members. It would be, to those who had much correspondence,
+at least £15 a year, at the reduced rate of a penny a letter. To the revenue
+the saving would be small, and he hoped the house would not consent to rescind
+that privilege.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the sacrifice of the franking privilege
+would be small in amount. But at the same time, be it small or great, he thought
+there would be not one feature of the new system which would be more palatable to
+the public, than this practical evidence of the willingness of members of this house,
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page030">[pg 030]</span><a name="Pg030" id="Pg030" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+to sacrifice everything personal to themselves, for the advantage of the public
+revenue.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Sir Robert Peel did not think it desirable that members of this house should retain
+the franking privilege. He thought if this were continued after this bill came into
+operation, there </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">would be a degree of odium</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> attached to it which would
+greatly diminish its value. He agreed that it would be well to restrict in some way the
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">right of sending by mail the heavy volumes of reports</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">. He said there were
+many members who would shrink from the exercise of such a privilege, to load the mail
+with books. He would also require that each department should specially pay the postage
+incurred for the public service in that department. If every office be called upon to pay
+its own postage, we shall introduce a useful principle into the public service. There is
+no habit connected with a public service so inveterate, as the privilege of official
+franking.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On a former day, July 5, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said
+concerning the abolition of the franking privilege:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+Undoubtedly, we may lose the opportunity now and then, of obliging a friend;
+but on other grounds, I believe there is no member of the house who will not be
+ready to abandon the privilege. As to any notion that honorable gentlemen should
+retain their privilege under a penny postage, they must have a more intense appreciation
+of the value of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time, than I
+can conceive, if they insist on it.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+All the peculiarities which distinguish British institutions from our
+own, might naturally be expected to make public men in that country
+more tenacious of privilege than our own statesmen. In a land of
+privilege, we should expect mere privilege to be coveted, because
+it is privilege. This practical and harmonious decision of British
+statesmen, of all parties, in favor of abolishing the franking privilege,
+in order to give strength and consistency to the system of cheap postage,
+shows in a striking light the sense which they entertained of the
+greatness of the object of cheap postage. The arguments which convinced
+them, we should naturally suppose would have tenfold greater
+force here than there; while the arguments in favor of the privilege
+would have tenfold greater influence there than here. Can there
+be a doubt that, when the subject is fairly understood, there will
+be found as much magnanimity among American as among British
+legislators?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The moral evils of the franking system are far more serious than the
+pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard.
+It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an
+anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an
+oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought to be removed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The parliamentary committee ascertained, by three distinct calculations,
+(of which all the results so nearly agreed as to strengthen each
+other,) that, reckoning by numbers, one-ninth of the letters passing
+through the post-office in a year, were franked. And, reckoning by
+weight, the proportion was 30 per cent. of the whole. Of seven millions
+of franked letters and documents, nearly five millions were by
+members of parliament. If all the franks had been subject to postage,
+they would have yielded upwards of a million sterling yearly. This
+was after the parliamentary franks had been restricted to a certain
+number (ten) daily for each member, and limited in weight to two
+ounces. The amount of postage on parliamentary franks would be
+yearly £350,000, averaging about £310 to each member. But there
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page031">[pg 031]</span><a name="Pg031" id="Pg031" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+were a number of official persons, whose franks were not limited,
+either in number or weight. These franks were obtained and used, by
+those who could get them, without stint or scruple.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+The celebrated Dr. Dionysius Lardner, who then occupied a prominent place
+among men of letters in Great Britain, testified before the parliamentary committee
+in 1838, that he was in the practice of sending and receiving about five thousand
+letters a year, of which he got four-fifths without postage—chiefly by franks.
+While he lived in Ireland, his correspondence was so heavy, not only as to the number
+of letters, but their bulk and weight, that he was obliged to apply to the
+Postmaster-General of Ireland, Lord Rosse, who allowed them to go under his franks. From
+the year 1823, or soon after he quitted the university, until the year 1828, his letters
+went and came under the frank of Lord Rosse, who had the power of franking to
+any weight. Since he came to England, his facilities of getting franks were very
+great. Without such means, he would have found it very difficult indeed to send
+his letters by post. His heavy correspondence was chiefly sent through official persons,
+who had the power of franking to any weight; and his correspondents knew
+that they could send their letters under care to these friends; so that he received
+communications from them in the same way. He endeavored to save as much
+trouble as he could, by dividing the annoyance among them, and by enclosing a
+bundle of letters for the same neighborhood under one cover. He said that, to
+obtain these privileges a man must be connected or known to the aristocratic classes,
+and that it was certainly unfair, as it gave unfair advantages to those who happened
+to have friends or connections having that power. His foreign correspondence was
+carried on through the embassies; and in this way the letters came free. He got
+his letters from the United States free in that way. Any man who was a Fellow
+of the Royal Society, or who lived among that class, could avail himself of these
+means of obtaining scientific communications.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The number of franked letters posted, throughout the kingdom, in
+two weeks in January, 1838, is stated in the following table.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Week ending</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Country to London.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">London to country.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Country to country.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Total</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">15 January,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">41,196</td><td class="tei tei-cell">43,345</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">36,361</td><td class="tei tei-cell">122,902</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">29 January,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">46,371</td><td class="tei tei-cell">51,046</td><td class="tei tei-cell">37,894</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">135,311</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">———</td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">87,567</td><td class="tei tei-cell">96,391</td><td class="tei tei-cell">74,255</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">258,213</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Proportion,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">.339</td><td class="tei tei-cell">.373</td><td class="tei tei-cell">.287</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1.</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It was stated in the debates, that before the franking privilege was
+limited, it had been worth, to some great commercial houses, who had
+a seat in parliament, from £300 to £800 a year; and that after the
+limitation it was worth to some houses as much as £300 a year.
+The committee spoke of the use of franks for scientific and business
+correspondence, as <span class="tei tei-q">“an exemplification of the irregular means by
+which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management
+of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular
+instances. And like all irregular means, it is of most unfair and
+partial application; the relief depends, not on any general regulation,
+known to the public, and according to which relief can be obtained,
+but upon favor and opportunity; and the consequence is, that while
+the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more
+forbearing disposition pay the penalty of high postage.”</span> It also keeps
+out of view of the public, <span class="tei tei-q">“how much the cost of distribution is
+exceeded by the charge, and to what extent therefore the postage of
+letters is taxed”</span> to sustain this official privilege. The committee
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page032">[pg 032]</span><a name="Pg032" id="Pg032" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+therefore concluded in their report, that <span class="tei tei-q">“taking into the account the
+serious loss to the public revenue, which is caused by the privilege of
+franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in numerous cases
+where no public business is concerned, it would be politic in a financial
+point of view, and agreeable to the public sense of justice, if, on
+effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates, the privilege
+of franking were to be abolished.”</span> Only the post-office department
+now franks its own official correspondence; petitions to parliament
+are sent free; and parliamentary documents are charged at one-eighth
+the rate of letters. Letters <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">to</span></em> the Queen also go free.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In our own country, the congressional franking privilege has long
+been a subject of complaint, both by the post-office authorities and the
+public press. There are many discrepancies in the several returns
+from which the extent of franking is to be gathered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From a return made by the Postmaster General to the Senate, Jan.
+16, 1844, the whole number of letters passing through the mails in a
+year is set at 27,073,144, of which the number franked is 2,815,692,
+which is a small fraction over 10 per cent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The annual report of the Postmaster-General in 1837, estimates the
+whole number of letters at 32,360,992, of which 2,100,000, or a little
+over 6 per cent, were franked.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In February, 1844, the Postmaster-General communicated to Congress
+a statement of an account kept of the free letters and documents
+mailed at Washington, during three weeks of the sitting of Congress
+in 1840, of which the results appear in the following table.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="4"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Week ending</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Letters.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Public Doc.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Weight of Doc.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">May 2,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">13,674</td><td class="tei tei-cell">96,588</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">8,042 lbs.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">June 2,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">13,955</td><td class="tei tei-cell">108,912</td><td class="tei tei-cell">9,076</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">July 7,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">14,766</td><td class="tei tei-cell">186,768</td><td class="tei tei-cell">15,564</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">———</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">42,395</td><td class="tei tei-cell">392,268</td><td class="tei tei-cell">32,689</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Average,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">14,132</td><td class="tei tei-cell">140,756</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">10,896</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Session 33 weeks,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">466,345</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4,314,948</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">359,579</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Whole number of Letters and Documents in a session of thirty-three
+weeks, 4,781,293.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Average weight of Public Documents, 1-⅓ oz.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Of the 42,375 free letters, 20,362 were congressional, and 22,032,
+or 52 per cent. were from the Departments.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In the month of October, 1843, an account was kept at all the
+offices in the United States, of the number of letters franked and received
+in that month by members of Congress. The number was
+18,558, which would give 81,370 for 19 weeks of vacation. To these
+add 223,992 mailed in 33 weeks of session, and four-fifths as many,
+179,193, for letters received, and it gives a total of 484,555 letters
+received and sent free of postage by members of Congress in a year,
+besides the Public Documents. The postage on the letters, at the old
+rates, would have been $100,000.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From the same return of October, 1843, it appears that the number
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page033">[pg 033]</span><a name="Pg033" id="Pg033" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of letters franked and received by national and state officers, was
+1,024,068; and by postmasters, 1,568,928; total, 2,592,998, the
+postage on which, at 14-½ cents, would amount to $376,073.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+These calculations would give the loss on free letters, at that time,
+$476,073. This is besides the postage on the public documents,
+359,578 pounds, the postage on which, at 2-½ cents per ounce, would
+come to $147,581.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Total postage lost by franking, $623,654.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Document No. 118, printed by the House of Representatives of
+Massachusetts, 1848, gives $312,500 as the amount of postage on
+franked letters, and $200,000 for franked documents, making a total
+of $512,500.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report of the Post-office Committee of the House of Representatives,
+May 15, 1844, contains a return of the number of free letters
+mailed and received at the Washington post-office, during the week
+ending February 20, 1844, with the corresponding annual number,
+and the amount of postage, at the old rates—allowing the average
+length of a session of Congress to be six months. From this I have
+constructed the following table.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Departments</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Letters</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Letters</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Total No.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Postage.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">received</td><td class="tei tei-cell">sent</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Annually.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">House of Representatives</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,882</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,505</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Senate</td><td class="tei tei-cell">7,510</td><td class="tei tei-cell">10,271</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">——</td><td class="tei tei-cell">——</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total of Congress</td><td class="tei tei-cell">9,392</td><td class="tei tei-cell">11,776</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">550,368</td><td class="tei tei-cell">$114,697</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">President U. S.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">304</td><td class="tei tei-cell">174</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">24,856</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4,895</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Post Office</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,041</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,615</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">502,112</td><td class="tei tei-cell">102,474</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">State Department</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,989</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,253</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">220,584</td><td class="tei tei-cell">41,600</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Treasury Department</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,800</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,405</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">478,660</td><td class="tei tei-cell">100,949</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">War Department</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,592</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,626</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">271,336</td><td class="tei tei-cell">61,475</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Navy Department</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,709</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,082</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">197,132</td><td class="tei tei-cell">39,809</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Attorney-General</td><td class="tei tei-cell">52</td><td class="tei tei-cell">816</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">45,136</td><td class="tei tei-cell">10,678</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">——</td><td class="tei tei-cell">——</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">——</td><td class="tei tei-cell">——</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,290,184</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">$476,577</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Whole number of letters franked at Washington: 2,290,184<br />
+Add, franked by members at home: 111,348<br />
+Franked by postmasters: 1,568,928<br />
+Total of free letters: 3,970,450<br />
+Add, franked documents: 4,314,948<br />
+General total number: 8,285,398<br />
+The postage on all which, at the old rates, would be at
+least: $1,000,000
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The annual report of the Postmaster-General, December, 1847, estimates
+the number of free letters at five millions, the postage on which,
+at present rates, would be at least $375,000, to which the postage on
+the documents should be added.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the postage due on the
+free letters and documents, if reckoned according to the old rates,
+would be at least one million, and under the present rates above half a
+million of dollars annually; equal to 12 per cent of the whole gross
+income of the department.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page034">[pg 034]</span><a name="Pg034" id="Pg034" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+When our present postage law was under consideration, the committees
+of both Houses recommended the abolition of the franking
+privilege, for reasons of justice, as well as to satisfy the public mind.
+The report of the House Committee has this passage:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">As the post-office is made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it
+should derive aid and support from everything it conveys. No man's private correspondence
+should go free, since the expense of so conveying it becomes a charge
+upon others; and the special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being
+extended to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither should
+the </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">public</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> correspondence be carried free of charge, where such immunity
+operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen. There is no just reason why
+the public should not pay its postages as well as citizens—no sufficient reason why
+this item of public expenses should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax
+paid into the public treasury.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report of the Senate Committee goes still more fully into the
+argument, leading to the same conclusion. In explaining the reasons
+for the dissatisfaction with the post-office, then so widely felt by the
+people, and the consequent diminution of its revenues, it argues thus:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">immediate</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> benefits of the post-office establishment accruing to that
+portion of the people only who carry on correspondence through it, and these enjoying
+those benefits in very unequal degrees, according to their various pursuits, habits, or
+inclinations, it has seemed to be required by the principles of equal justice that the
+expenses of the establishment should be defrayed by contributions collected equally
+from each person served by it, in proportion to the amount of service rendered.
+The obvious justice of this rule, admitting as it does of so near an approximation to
+exact justice in its practical application to the business of this department, has
+commended it to all: and, accordingly, the department has always been
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">professedly</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> governed by it: but, unfortunately, so wide has been the
+departure from this just and equitable rule in the actual practice, that it has become a
+word of promise, kept only to the ear, and broken to the sense. Far from exacting of all
+equal contributions towards meeting the necessary expenses of this department in
+proportion to the amount of service rendered to each, about one-eighth part numerically,
+and probably not less than one sixth part in weight and bulk of the whole correspondence,
+has been privileged to pass free of all charge—to say nothing of the immense amount
+of public documents conveyed under similar privilege, while the expense of the whole
+has been borne by high charges upon the non-privileged part of the correspondence.
+It may be said this privilege was granted, and has been extended, from time to time,
+for the public service, and in furtherance of the public interest. Admitted; but is
+it not perceived that it still involves a palpable violation of the principle of equal
+justice, before shown to be at the foundation of all our institutions, and an adherence
+to which is indispensable in the conduct of all our affairs? How can it be made
+to comport with any just conceptions of right, for the Government to levy so
+large a tax, for the common purposes of all, upon a portion only of its citizens? As
+well might the post-office be used as a source of general revenue, as to be taxed
+specially with the expenses of this branch of the public service—a mode of raising
+revenue for general purposes universally admitted to be so unequal and unjust that it has
+never been resorted to in this country but in a single instance of extreme necessity, and
+then only for a very short time. It is true, the post-office may be, and is in other
+countries, successfully resorted to as a means of extorting money from the people; but
+this must be where the principles of government are widely different from ours, and
+the leading policy being not the promotion of the happiness and welfare of the many,
+but the advancement of the few, justifies the use of any means which may subserve
+that end. There force and fear, not justice and mutual good will, are the controlling
+influences. According to the nature of our government, it might with much more
+propriety be asked, by those who use the post-office establishment, that its whole
+expense be borne by the general treasury, than that they should be required to
+defray the expense of the public service performed in this or any other department;
+because it may with truth be urged, that although the advantages of this department
+accrue </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">immediately</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> to them, yet mediately at least they inure to the great
+benefit of the whole country.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page035">[pg 035]</span><a name="Pg035" id="Pg035" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+These objections are of great weight, even under the old or the
+present postage. With cheap postage, they ought to be conclusive.
+In the language of the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, men who
+would then wish to retain the franking privilege <span class="tei tei-q">“must have a more
+intense appreciation of the value of money, and a greater disregard for
+the value of time, than I can conceive, if they insist on it.”</span> The only
+other reason for retaining the privilege would be, that honorable gentlemen,
+in the receipt of eight dollars per day for attending to the business
+of the nation, would be willing to spend their time in writing
+franks at two cents a-piece, for the sake of having their names circulate
+through the post-office with the letters M. C. attached to them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A serious objection to the franking system is, that it unavoidably
+tends to constant strife and altercation between members of congress
+and the department. The head of the department, naturally and
+properly careful of the income of the post-office, sees with pain the
+vast encroachment upon the revenue made by the franking system.
+He becomes rigid in the construction of the law; he deems every
+frank that does not come within its letter an abuse; he adopts the
+assumption that franks were only designed for the personal accommodation
+of the individual, and not for his family or friends. He watches
+to detect some unwarranted stretch, he finds a plenty; he examines a
+franked letter, he stops it; complaint is made to the member whose
+signature has been treated with disrespect, an explosion follows, the
+public service is hindered, and the honor of law is lowered. At this
+moment there is a bill pending in congress, to protect the franks of
+members, in consequence of a franked letter having been stopped, on
+the ground that the direction was not in the handwriting of him who
+gave the frank. Any espionage upon men's letters, is plainly an
+intolerable grievance in a republican government. The British government
+were compelled to allow franks of members to cover all that
+was under them, and they therefore restricted them in weight and
+number. The only available method for us is to abolish the privilege
+itself. The experience under the present postage law proves that it is
+impossible to abolish the privilege, except by establishing cheap postage.
+The act of 1844 attempted greatly to restrict the franking privilege,
+but in three years every material restriction has been practically
+done away. There is no middle ground between boundless franking
+and no franking. The bill above referred to has passed the senate, in
+spite of the most earnest remonstrances of the Postmaster-General, so
+that now the frank of a member of congress covers all that is under it,
+within the prescribed limit of two ounces weight. Those members
+who are so disposed can frank envelopes for their friends, in any number,
+and send them in parcels of two ounces, to be used anywhere,
+without any more meddling of the post-office clerks. The remedy will
+be, to reduce the rate of postage so low, that it will be worth no person's
+while to use the franking privilege, or to seek its benefits from
+those who hold it; or so that, if it is retained, those who use it will at
+least show that they <span class="tei tei-q">“have a more intense appreciation of money,
+and a greater disregard for the value of time,”</span> than ordinary persons
+can conceive!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It has been said that it will be impossible to secure the services of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page036">[pg 036]</span><a name="Pg036" id="Pg036" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+postmasters, without giving them the franking privilege. But it will
+be found that the cheap and uniform postage, always prepaid, will so
+greatly diminish the labor of keeping the post-office, as to remove the
+objection in most cases to taking the trouble. And for the rest, it is
+only for the department to demand that, if the people of any neighborhood
+wish a post-office they must furnish a postmaster, and this difficulty
+is annihilated.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With regard to the transmission of public documents, printed by
+order of the two houses of congress, it is undeniable that very much
+of the printing itself, and the circulation of them through the mail, is
+a sheer abuse and wanton waste. And it is probable that a great
+check would be given to these abuses, if there were an account required
+and a charge made on the public treasury of all this circulation, at the
+same rate with other pamphlet postage. The circulation, even if kept
+up at its present rate, would in fact cost no more than it does now;
+but the burden would be taken from the letter correspondence of the
+country, and placed where it ought to be, on the general treasury.
+The statement of 1844, that four millions of public documents are
+circulated in a single session, attracted much attention of the public
+press at the time. One influential paper, the New York Journal of
+Commerce, has the following remarks under the head of <span class="tei tei-q">“National
+Bribery:”</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">It has just been stated in congress, that the two houses had ordered
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">fifty-five thousand copies</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> to be printed, of the Report of the Commissioner
+of Patents: and that the cost to the country would be $114,000. This Report is a huge
+document, printed in large type, with a large margin, containing very little matter of
+the least importance, and that little so buried in the rubbish, as to be worth about as
+much as so many </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">needles in a hay-mow.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> Then, this huge quantity of trash, created
+at this large expense, is to be </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">franked</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> for all parts of the country, by
+way of </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">currying favor and getting votes next time</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, lumbering the mails, and
+creating another large expense. We have taken the trouble to weigh the copy of this
+document, which was forwarded to us, and find its ponderosity to be 2 lbs., 14 ozs., or,
+with the wrapper, about </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">three pounds</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">! The aggregate weight of the 55,000
+copies, is therefore </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">eighty-two and a half tons</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">! Eighty-two and
+a half tons of paper spoiled; and the nation taxed $114,000 for spoiling it; and then
+compelled to lug it to all parts of the Union through the monopoly post-office and the
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">franking</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> privilege! Poor patient people!</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Such taxes, to be defrayed by high postage on letters and newspapers, grow
+out of this </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">franking</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> privilege; and the power which congress reserve to
+themselves, of distributing free, as many documents as they choose to print at the public
+expense! These documents, it seems, are the grand means resorted to by many
+members, of </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">currying favor</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> with the influential, and thus
+</span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">getting votes next time!</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> ”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A late number of the Boston Courier contains the following humorous
+but not untruthful description of this franking business, written by
+a correspondent at Washington:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The object of assembling the representatives of the people is
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">discussion</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, not business; or at least, no other business to speak of. And
+this is labor enough for any man. Why, one gentleman of the house informed me that he had
+2700 names on his list of persons to whom he must send documents, and he is
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">not</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> a candidate for re-election.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Now, let us suppose that the average number of each member's
+</span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">document</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> constituency is but 2500, and that each gets </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">four</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">
+favors only from his servant in congress. This would throw upon the shoulders of each
+member the labor of procuring, and franking, and directing </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">ten thousand</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">
+speeches in the course of a session. What more
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page037">[pg 037]</span><a name="Pg037" id="Pg037" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+business than this should be expected of a man? especially, when we consider that the
+representative must receive and answer, at length, all sorts of letters, from all sorts
+of people, upon all sorts of topics, from Aunt Peg's pension to Amy Dardin's horse.
+If each member requires 10,000 speeches to his constituents, somebody has got to
+make them. And as there are something over 280 members of both branches there
+must be a supply of about </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">three millions</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> of this kind of </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">fodder.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> How
+can it be otherwise than that the congressional talking-mill must be kept constantly
+going? And what a famine would there be should it stop grinding? Going into a Western
+member's room the other day, and seeing him with his coat off in the middle of the
+apartment, up to his middle in documents, and speeches, and letters, laboring lustily
+with his pen, I alluded to his press of private business.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“ </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Stranger,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> said he, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">I never came to congress before, and I never want to
+come again. I tell </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">you</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> that this office of member of congress is not what it
+is cracked up to be. I calculated to have a good time here this winter, after racing all
+over my district, and making more than five hundred stump speeches in order to get
+elected. But the fact is you can see the way I enjoy myself. It is what I call the
+enjoyments horribly. Why, sir, I never began to work in this way before in all my
+life.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> I asked, </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">How comes on the loan bill in your branch?</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span> <span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">O, they are
+spouting away, sir, and here I am franking the speeches. The Lord only knows what is
+in them.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span> <span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">And the Ten Regiment Bill?</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span> <span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">I know nothing about it, and don't
+want to. Look at them thar letters,</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> pointing to a two bushel basket of private
+correspondence—</span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">not one half of them answered; look at these speeches, not a
+quarter of them franked. What attention can I give to loan bills and regiment
+bills? Sir, I must attend to my </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">constituents</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> And we left him to his
+labors. Our impression is, that it takes all day Saturday, and Sunday too, to bring up
+the franking and letter writing business of the week, for the members seldom get out to
+church.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+VI. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Letter Postage Stamps, for Prepayment.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In England, as a part of the system devised by Mr. Rowland
+Hill, the prepayment of letter-postage is greatly facilitated, and, of
+course, the tendency to prepayment is increased, while the management
+of the post-office itself, in all its departments, is simplified to
+the highest degree, by the use of adhesive postage-stamps. The
+stamp is a small oblong piece of paper, with a device upon it, (Queen's
+head) so skilfully engraved and printed as almost to defy counterfeiting,
+against which indeed the small value of each one, the danger of
+speedy detection, and the high penalty for counterfeiting a royal
+signet, are equally effective safeguards. The stamp is coated on the
+back with an adhesive gum, which securely fastens the stamp to the
+letter, by being slightly wet and pressed down with the finger.
+These are printed in sheets, and are sold at all post-offices, at precisely
+their postal value; 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.,
+or 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>., as the case may be. The
+postmasters purchase them for cash, of the general post-office, and are
+allowed a deduction of one per cent for their trouble. The small
+shop-keepers of all descriptions, who buy from the post-offices without
+discount, generally keep postage-stamps to sell for the accommodation
+of their customers and neighbors, just as they would give small change
+for a larger piece of money with the same view. Such a shop would
+lose favor by refusing to keep stamps to sell.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Each individual buys stamps for his own use, in as great or small
+numbers as he pleases, always at the same rate. You keep them on
+your writing-desk, along with wafers and wax. You carry a few in
+your wallet, ready for use at any place. You seal your letter, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page038">[pg 038]</span><a name="Pg038" id="Pg038" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+direct it, and then attach one of these stamps, drop it into the letter-box,
+or send it to the post-office, and that wonderful machinery takes
+it up, passes it about, finds the owner, and delivers it into his hand,
+without any additional charge. Nothing can exceed the simplicity of
+the process but the perfection of its working.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As the current value of these stamps is the same in every part of
+the country, and is precisely identical with that of the coin they represent,
+they serve as a currency to be used in payment of small sums at
+a distance. This is more useful in England than in the United States,
+because there they have no bank notes of small denominations. But
+even in this country, as soon as they are in general use, they will be
+found vastly convenient in making small payments at a distance.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Besides the label stamps, the English post-office manufactures and
+sells stamped envelopes, which will at once enclose the letter and pay
+the postage. The price of the envelope is half a farthing, in addition
+to the 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> for postage; that is, eight stamped envelopes are sold
+for 9<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>, or 24 for 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span>
+3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Stamped half sheets of paper are also furnished by the post-office, a
+farthing being charged for the paper, besides the 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> for postage.
+These are much used for printing circulars, for which they are
+very convenient. They are also bought by the poor to write brief
+letters on.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is a common practice, in writing to another person on your own
+business, to enclose a postage stamp to prepay the letter in reply.
+Some persons, who have much correspondence, procure their own
+address printed in script on the back of stamped envelopes, and then
+send these enclosed to bring back the expected return. Persons doing
+a great deal of business with each other, through the post-office, keep
+each other's envelopes on hand. The child at school or the son
+in college, is furnished with his father's envelopes, stamped and
+directed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The postage stamps are cancelled, by an obliterating stamp in the
+office where they are received, so that no postage stamp can ever be
+used a second time. Each post-office is furnished with a cancel
+stamp, and an ineffaceable ink for this purpose. There are five different
+forms of cancel stamps, one used for London letters, deliverable
+within the London District, one for letters mailed in London for places
+elsewhere, one for all other places in England and Wales, one for
+Scotland, and one for Ireland. Thus it is seen at a glance, from what
+section a letter comes. Sometimes the stamp denoting the place at
+which a letter is mailed, is not sufficiently plain. To meet this, and
+to serve some other conveniences, the cancel stamps have a blank in
+the centre, in which is inserted the number belonging to that office.
+Thus the shape tells the district, and the number the office from which
+each letter comes.
+The London stamp has a circular blank for letters that are mailed
+within the London circle, and deliverable also within it, and a
+diamond-shaped blank for letters going out of London.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page039">[pg 039]</span><a name="Pg039" id="Pg039" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The post-offices in each section are all numbered consecutively,
+and each office is permanently known in all other offices by its number
+as well as its name. Each office has its number engraved in the
+blank space of its cancel stamp, as in the first and last above, so that
+the place from which the letter comes is known at a glance.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The total number of Label Stamps issued in the year ending
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="3"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. Stamps.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. Stamps.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1841,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">74,856,960</td><td class="tei tei-cell">7,587,960</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1842,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">110,878,344</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,391,800</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1843,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">121,648,080</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,866,080</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">———</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">First three years,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">307,383,384</td><td class="tei tei-cell">13,845,840</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="2"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">321,229,224 stamps, nominal value,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£1,396,146</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Expense of manufacture and distribution,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">42,763</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td><td class="tei tei-cell">———</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Net proceeds,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£1,353,382</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Average yearly,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">451,127</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The present cost of Label Stamps is reported, July 16, 1846, thus:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="2"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Paper for a million labels,</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£5 11<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Printing and gumming,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">25 --</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Salaries, proportion of,</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">46 10<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Contingencies, poundage, &amp;c.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">46
+     10<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">—————</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">———</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Cost per million,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£79 --</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="4"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Year Ending.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Cost.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Sold for.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Profit.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1841,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£4,268</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£4,292</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1842,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,530</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,470</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1843,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,290</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,415</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1844,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,190</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,540</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1845,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,948</td><td class="tei tei-cell">7,261</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total, five years,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£28,229</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£28,978</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£749</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on six years.<br />
+The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.<br />
+The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page040">[pg 040]</span><a name="Pg040" id="Pg040" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+manufacture of envelopes, may be doubtful. Probably it will be
+judged that the Label Stamps would afford all needed convenience, so
+far as the government is concerned, and the rest would be left to private
+enterprise. From the returns of the actual expense of manufacturing
+envelopes, £359 per million—about a mill and three quarters
+apiece, it will be seen that there is yet room for individual competition
+among us, to bring down the current price to the rate of only a
+reasonable profit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The third assistant Postmaster-General remarks, in his late report, that
+the demand for Label Stamps has not been as great as was anticipated,
+the amount sold being but $28,330, which would only pay for about
+500,000 stamps. This is indeed a very great falling off from the
+number purchased in England, which must be not less than two hundred
+millions of stamps in the year. He says that <span class="tei tei-q">“many important
+commercial towns have not applied for them, and in others they are
+only used in trifling amounts. But it should be borne in mind, that
+people are more likely to invest a dollar in stamps, when they get fifty
+for their money, than when they only get ten or twenty. And when
+purchased, they are likely to use them up a great deal more freely,
+when they look at each one as only two cents. With so great a convenience
+afforded at so cheap a rate, it is not possible but that the
+demand must be immense, and the use abundantly satisfactory to the
+people and to the department.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+These stamps would obviate the practical difficulty apprehended in
+the administration of the cheap postage system, in those parts of the
+country where the use of copper coin is not common; as it will always
+be easy to purchase stamps with dimes. I do not believe any persons
+in this country would be so fastidious on this point, as to be unwilling
+to send five letters for the same money that it now costs to
+send one.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+VII. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The principles of cheap postage have been recognized from the
+beginning of our government, in reference to the postage on newspapers—the
+charge being regulated, neither by weight nor distance,
+but, with a single exception, by the rule of simple uniformity. The
+postage on newspapers is one cent for each paper, within 100 miles, or
+within the state where printed, and a cent and a half for greater distances.
+The act of 1844 allowed all newspapers within 30 miles
+of the place where issued, to go free, but this militated so directly
+against every principle of equity, that it has been repealed. But cheap
+postage on newspapers, for the sake of the general diffusion of
+knowledge of public affairs, has always been the policy of our government.
+Even during the war of 1812, when it was attempted to raise
+a revenue by letter postage, the postage on newspapers was not
+raised. No proposition whatever, to increase the cost, or lessen the
+facility of the circulation of newspapers by mail, would be sanctioned
+by the people, under any conceivable exigency of the government.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page041">[pg 041]</span><a name="Pg041" id="Pg041" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+that the postage of newspapers was any help to the department,
+or even that it paid for itself. Many of the unproductive routes,
+which add so much to the expense, and so little to the income of the
+department, are demanded chiefly for the facility of getting the newspapers,
+rather than for letters. We are a nation, of newspaper readers.
+It is possible, indeed, that the prodigious increase in the number of
+newspapers circulated by mail, which has taken place within twenty
+years, and especially within ten years, may have reduced the average
+cost of each, so that now the newspapers may be productive, or at
+least remunerative. The Postmaster-General states the postage on
+newspapers and pamphlets, for the year ending June 30, 1847, at
+$643,160, which is an increase of $81,018, or 14-½ per cent. over the
+preceding year, and an increase over the annual average of the nine
+preceding years, of $114,181, or 21 per cent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The newspapers passing through the mails annually, are estimated
+at 55,000,000. In 1843, they were estimated at 43,500,000, of which
+7,000,000 were free. If the calculation is made on the whole number,
+the increase is 20 per cent. in four years. But if, as is probable,
+the 55,000,000 in 1847 are chargeable papers, the increase is 33-½ per
+cent. If anything can make the newspaper postage pay for itself, it
+will be the multiplication of newspapers, as it is well known that a
+great reduction of cost of individual articles is produced by the great
+number required. What fortunes are made by manufacturing cotton
+cloth, to be sold at six or eight cents per yard; and by making pins
+and needles, which pass through so many processes, and yet are sold
+at such a low rate. Each yard of cloth, each needle, each pin, is subjected
+to all those several steps, and yet the greatness of the demand
+creates a vast revenue from profits which are so small upon each individual
+article as to be incapable of being stated in money; the cheapness
+of production extending the sale, and the extent of sale favoring
+the cheapness of production. An establishment like the post-office
+requires a certain amount of expenditure and labor, to keep the machinery
+in operation, though the work be but little, not half equal to
+its capacity, and it can often enlarge its labors and its productiveness,
+without requiring, by any means, a corresponding increase of expense;
+and enlarged to a considerable extent, perhaps, without any increase
+at all. Thus the cost of the British post-office, which was £686,768 in
+1839, when the number of letters was only 86,000,000, was increased
+only to £702,310, but little more than 10 per cent. in the following
+year, when the number of letters was increased to 170,000,000.
+That is, the quantity of business was doubled, while the expense was
+only increased one-tenth. And in 1846, when the letters were
+322,000,000, or nearly fourfold the former number, the expense was
+only £1,138,745, an increase of but 65 per cent., and the greater
+part of this—almost the whole—was for increased facilities given,
+and not owing to the increased number of letters. Had the cost kept
+pace with the increase of business, it would have been, in 1847, nearly
+£3,000,000 sterling.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, arising
+from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report:
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page042">[pg 042]</span><a name="Pg042" id="Pg042" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<span class="tei tei-q">“The weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost
+of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable
+to the mass of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities
+of the Union to every part of the country.”</span> Some of these newspapers,
+he says, weigh over two and a half ounces each. For more than
+twenty years, the weight of newspapers has been a cause of complaint
+in the department, for which no remedy has yet been devised, neither
+has any man been bold enough to propose to exclude them from the
+mails. At one time, rules were made, allowing mail carriers to leave
+the newspaper bags, to be carried along at another time. But this
+produced too serious a dissatisfaction to be continued. The newspapers
+must go, and they must go with the letters, for people are quite
+as sensitive at the delay of their newspapers as at the delay of their
+letters. Seven or eight years ago, there was a clamor at the weight
+of certain mammoth sheets, as the New World and the Brother Jonathan,
+weighing each from a quarter to half a pound. But this extravagant
+folly of publishers has in a great measure cured itself, and the
+grievance has ceased. The law of 1845 undertook to make a discrimination
+against papers of exorbitant size, by charging extra postage
+on all that were larger than 1900 square inches. I cannot learn
+that any papers are taxed at this extra rate, and I venture to predict
+that, whenever the public convenience shall be found to require newspapers
+of a larger size than 1900 inches, the postage rule will have to
+be altered to meet the public demand. The people have so learned
+the benefits of uniformity and cheapness of postage on newspapers,
+that they will never relinquish it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In Great Britain no difference is made among papers on account of
+their weight, although their paper is almost twice as heavy as ours.
+And even when a supplementary sheet is issued, the whole goes as one
+newspaper, covered by one stamp. I have a copy of the London
+Herald, with three supplements, the whole weighing half a pound,
+which passed free in the mail, with only the principal sheet stamped.
+And the whole comes by the steamer's mail, the postage prepaid by a
+single 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. stamp. In that country, however, it is not compulsory
+to send newspapers or supplements by mail, and a very large proportion are not
+sent in that way, but for convenience by carriers. Their method of circulating
+newspapers, by sale instead of yearly subscription, has led to a
+difference in this respect. I believe there is no restriction upon the
+carriage of newspaper packages out of the mail, by the same contractors,
+and the same carriages that convey the mails. It is probable
+that the interests of the department would be promoted, rather than
+injured, by such a rule, liberally interpreted, in this country.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Twenty years ago, when our mails were all carried in coaches drawn
+by horses, there were some routes on which the weight of the newspaper
+mails was a serious incumbrance. But at present, so great has
+been the extension of steam power, that I question if there is a single
+route to which the number of newspapers sent would be a burden,
+unless, perhaps, it may be the route by the National Road, from Cumberland
+to Columbus.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+So great are the advantages of uniformity of rate, in facilitating the
+administration of the post-office, that there would be a greater loss
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page043">[pg 043]</span><a name="Pg043" id="Pg043" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+than gain in attempting to introduce any rule of graduation in the
+postage of newspapers. It is easily seen that the difference of distance
+is no ground for such graduation, for the same reasons which
+are conclusive in regard to letters. And as to the difference of
+weight, if you deduct from the one cent postage what it costs to
+receive and mail and deliver each paper, and to keep the accounts and
+make the returns, the difference in the actual expense is too small to
+be made of any practical account, between a newspaper weighing two
+ounces and one weighing half an ounce. The Journal of Commerce
+and papers of that size weigh less than two ounces. And the number
+of newspapers printed on a sheet weighing over two ounces, is too
+small to be of any account.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The only point respecting the postage on newspapers, on which the
+Cheap Postage Association are inflexibly fixed, is that the postage shall
+be uniform, irrespective of distance, and not exceed one cent per
+paper, prepaid. If not prepaid, the postage is to be doubled.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is supposed that a practical rule will obtain, like that which now
+prevails, of allowing regular subscribers to pay their postage quarterly
+in advance, at the office where they receive their papers. Only, the
+rule of prepayment will be enforced, because double postage is to be
+exacted in all cases where there is not actual prepayment.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It will follow that all occasional papers will pay two cents postage,
+that is the same as a letter, unless the postage is prepaid by the sender,
+at the office where the paper is mailed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the
+Stamp Office, for which they pay 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. each sheet. And all such
+stamped papers are carried in the mails postage free. Whatever be
+their date, or how many times soever they may have been mailed, they
+always go free by virtue of the stamp. Some attempts have been
+made by the post-office to limit the time after date, in which stamped
+papers are transmissible free of postage. But the restrictions have all
+been borne away by the public convenience and the public will. The
+amount received for newspaper stamps, in the year ending January 5,
+1844, was £271,180. This goes to the treasury, and not to the
+post-office, although the 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. stamp duty was retained solely with
+a view to the postage. This sum ought, therefore, in strictness, to be
+added to the gross annual receipts of the post-office; and indeed, to
+the net income of the post-office, for the whole expense of mailing,
+transporting and delivering is included in the yearly expenditures of
+the post-office, so that the amount of stamp duty is all gain to the
+treasury, saving the trifling cost of stamping.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The cost of stamping paper for the newspapers was stated before
+the Parliamentary Committee, by John Wood, Esq., Chairman of the
+Board of Stamps and Taxes. He says, <span class="tei tei-q">“A great deal of time is employed
+in attaching the stamp to each sheet of paper, because each has
+to be separated from the quire or bundle, and the stamp separately
+applied to it. I calculate that sheets of paper might be stamped and
+delivered in London, at an expense not exceeding 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. per
+thousand. In that I include what is called the telling out and telling in, the counting
+the paper before it is stamped, the stamping it, the counting it after it
+is stamped, and the packing and delivery of it in London.”</span> As to the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page044">[pg 044]</span><a name="Pg044" id="Pg044" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+question of the liability to forgery, he said that <span class="tei tei-q">“the newspaper proprietors
+are all registered at Somerset House, they are all under bond,
+and the use of the stamps is confined to comparatively a small number
+of persons, so that they are very much under our eye.”</span> This stamp
+duty is paid by the publisher, who of course charges a price accordingly
+to his subscribers. There is no law against sending newspapers
+through any other channel, and no rule requiring them to be sent only
+by mail.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is thought that a practice something like this might be introduced
+in this country. The plan proposed, is to allow any publisher of a
+newspaper to have the paper stamped before printing, for his whole
+issue, by paying therefor at the rate of half a cent per sheet. This
+would be but half the rate paid by subscribers, at the office of delivery.
+But as an offset to this, many sheets would be stamped which would
+never be carried by mail. In Boston there are above thirty millions of
+newspapers printed yearly. The stamps on all these, if paid in
+advance by the publisher, would come to $150,000. I do not suppose
+the Post-office Department realizes from all the Boston papers one
+hundred thousand dollars. The cost of stamping, even in the British
+mode, would be less than a quarter of a mill per sheet. And Yankee
+ingenuity would soon devise some labor-saving plan, to reduce the
+cost of stamping to ten cents per thousand, or one-tenth of a mill per
+sheet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+This plan would secure the department against losses. It would
+greatly increase the business of the post-office, and its income from
+newspapers. It would lessen the number of dead newspapers with
+which our offices are now lumbered. It would aid in inducing and
+helping the publishers of newspapers to get into the cash system of
+publication; and thus assist in training the whole community to the
+habit of prompt payment. All newspapers, weekly or daily, that have
+or expect any thing like a wide circulation by mail, would soon find it
+for their interest to fall in with this plan. A weekly paper would pay
+26 cents for each yearly subscriber. In what way could he do so
+much with the same money to extend and consolidate his subscription
+list? A daily paper would cost $1.55 a year for postage. Most daily
+papers would find their advantage in paying this, to have their papers
+go free, even though they might economize or retrench in something
+else. It would greatly facilitate the circulation of intelligence, the
+diffusion of knowledge, the settlement and harmonizing of public
+opinion, and all in a manner to produce no burden in any quarter
+which would be felt.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is demonstrable that the post-office, under its present regulations,
+receives but a small part of the papers which are printed. The
+Postmaster-general, in his last report, estimates the whole number of
+newspapers mailed yearly at 55,000,000, and of pamphlets 2,000,000,
+total 57,000,000, yielding to the department only the sum of $653,160.
+I have never seen any calculation of the cost of circulating newspapers,
+to determine whether the business is profitable to the department
+or not. If it pays to circulate newspapers at a cent apiece, surely two
+cents apiece is enough to pay on letters, which do not weigh on the
+average a quarter as much as newspapers. If it does not pay the cost
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page045">[pg 045]</span><a name="Pg045" id="Pg045" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to carry newspapers in the mail, then the loss on newspapers ought to
+be a tax upon the treasury, and not a tax upon correspondence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The following table of newspapers and periodicals issued annually
+from the Boston press, is given in Shattuck's <span class="tei tei-q">“Census of Boston,”</span>
+published by the city in the year 1846.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="4"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Class of Publications.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Number.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Square inches.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Value.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Daily subscription</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,075,320</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,786,029,240</td><td class="tei tei-cell">$106,076</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Daily penny</td><td class="tei tei-cell">11,408,000</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">7,018,617,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">110,400</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Semi-weekly</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,460,448</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,442,010,336</td><td class="tei tei-cell">58,748</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Weekly</td><td class="tei tei-cell">11,610,040</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">8,738,546,856</td><td class="tei tei-cell">334,895</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Semi-monthly</td><td class="tei tei-cell">458,400</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">216,314,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">31,700</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Monthly</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,583,600</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,522,477,200</td><td class="tei tei-cell">127,100</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Two months and quarterly</td><td class="tei tei-cell">37,200</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">143,076,800</td><td class="tei tei-cell">24,500</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Annual</td><td class="tei tei-cell">255,500</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">265,045,300</td><td class="tei tei-cell">31,565</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">————</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">————</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">————</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total</td><td class="tei tei-cell">32,890,508</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">24,132,117,132</td><td class="tei tei-cell">$825,074</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Here are 32,890,508 publications issued annually, averaging 109,098
+daily, and containing 3847 acres of printed sheets, or about twelve
+acres per day. The newspapers alone, daily, semi-weekly and weekly,
+are 29,555,808, producing $610,119 per annum. Add the semi-monthly
+issues, which are mostly newspapers, and you have thirty
+millions of newspapers issued in Boston alone, being nearly fifty-five
+per cent. of the whole number mailed throughout the union.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A newspaper of the common size, say 38 by 24 inches, or 912
+square inches, will weigh from 1-¼ to 1-⅓ oz. with the wrapper, in the
+damp state in which it is usually mailed. The New York Journal of
+Commerce, 28 by 46 inches, that is, 1288 square inches, weighs a little
+short of 2 oz. as mailed. A lot of 100 papers received in exchange
+by a publisher, weighed 1.2 oz., that is less than an ounce and a quarter.
+The average weight of all the newspapers published in the
+country is believed to be one ounce and a half; which would give
+1066 newspapers to every 100 lbs. weight.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The number of newspapers sent by mail was estimated in 1837, by
+Postmaster Kendall, as follows:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="2"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Newspapers paying postage</td><td class="tei tei-cell">25,000,000</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Free and dead papers</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4,000,000</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">————</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">————</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Total</td><td class="tei tei-cell">29,000,000</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page046">[pg 046]</span><a name="Pg046" id="Pg046" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The report in 1847, by Postmaster Johnson, estimates the paying
+newspapers at fifty-five millions, dead papers two millions, and the
+pamphlets two millions, being fifty-nine millions in all; paying postage
+to the amount of $643,160, being an increase over the preceding
+year, of $81,018. The increase of newspapers in seven years, from
+1837 to 1844, by these estimates, was eighty-nine per cent., or at the
+rate of about eight and one half per cent. a year. The increase from
+1844 to 1847 was about twenty-four per cent. in three years, or eight
+per cent. a year. This may be considered the natural rate of increase
+of newspapers, without any increase of facilities. It may be reasonably
+calculated that the increased facilities offered by this plan will
+make the increase of numbers much more rapid.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+And this increase of numbers will by no means be attended with a
+corresponding increase of expense to the department. In 1837, when
+the number of papers was twenty-nine millions, there were 11,767
+post-offices, and mails were carried 36,228,962 miles. In 1844, the
+post-offices were 15,146, an increase of twenty-nine per cent., and the
+mail transportation was 38,887,899 miles, an increase of seven per
+cent., while the increase of newspapers was eighty-nine per cent.; and
+yet the expenditure was $3,380,847 in 1837, and $3,979,570 in 1847;
+an increase of less than eighteen per cent. Deducting the necessary
+additional expense of adding twenty-nine per cent. to the number of
+post-offices, and seven per cent. to the distance of transportation, and
+it will be fair to conclude that doubling the number of newspapers
+would not add above ten per cent. to the cost of transportation. Make
+any reasonable allowance, even fifty per cent. for the labor in the post-offices,
+and you have still a net profit of forty per cent. on all the
+newspaper postage that shall be added. And this in addition to the
+benefits of the diffusion of knowledge, increasing the mutual acquaintance
+of the people of this wide republic, and thus increasing the stability
+of our government, the permanence of our union, the happiness
+of the people, and the perfection of our free institutions.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+VIII. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Pamphlet and Magazine Postage</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The postage on pamphlets was regulated on the principles of cheap
+postage, with a special discrimination in favor of those pamphlets
+which were published periodically. This latter distinction was construed
+so liberally, that it was allowed to include among periodicals
+all pamphlets published annually, such as almanacs, college catalogues,
+reports of societies, and the like. The law of 1845 abolishes the distinction
+between periodical and occasional pamphlets, but makes a
+difference in favor of large pamphlets, by charging two and a half
+cents on all pamphlets weighing less than one ounce, and one cent for
+each additional ounce.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I have a letter from the proprietor of a quarterly review, stating the
+effect which this change in the mode of rating pamphlet postage had
+upon its own circulation. Before the act of 1845, the post-office
+charged 14 cents per number, or 56 cents a year. Now
+it is 10 cents per number, or 36 cents a year. The consequence is,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page047">[pg 047]</span><a name="Pg047" id="Pg047" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+that where he formerly sent 100 copies by mail, yielding $56 postage,
+he now sends 500 copies, paying $180, increasing the income of the
+department $124. As there has been a material reduction in the
+expenditure of the department, notwithstanding a great extension of
+the mail routes, it is plain that the expense to the department is not at
+all enhanced by this additional service. As the labor of management
+is much diminished in the case of such large pamphlets, it is possible
+that future experience may show the practicability of a still greater
+reduction in the case of such periodicals—perhaps allowing publishers'
+to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">prepay</span></span> at four cents for each half-pound.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In Great Britain, there has hitherto been no separate rate of postage
+for pamphlets, but they have been charged at the rate of letter postage,
+1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> per half-ounce. This is about double the present rate of
+pamphlet postage in the United States. The delivery of parcels by stage-coaches,
+railroads, and common carriers, is much more thoroughly
+systematized in that old country, with its dense population and limited
+extent, than it can be with us, on our vast territory, so new and so
+unfinished. Consequently, there is less necessity there for sending
+pamphlets by mail, and the thing is rarely done except in the case of
+small pamphlets, of an ounce or two weight, or in cases where despatch
+in transmission is important. Within the present year, however, a
+new rule has been introduced into the British post-office, by which
+<span class="tei tei-q">“any book or pamphlet, exceeding one sheet, and not exceeding two
+feet in its longest dimensions, may be transmitted by post between any
+two places in the United Kingdom, at the uniform rate of sixpence,
+prepaid in stamps affixed, for each pound weight and fraction of a
+pound. Except in the extreme length of two feet, and that, of course,
+no envelope shall contain more than one copy, there is no restriction
+whatsoever. Families residing in the remote parts of Scotland, Wales,
+and Ireland, where perhaps there is no good bookseller within forty or
+fifty miles, may henceforward procure for themselves, direct from London,
+Edinburgh, or Dublin, within four or five days at furthest, any
+work they may happen to require, from the largest sized Bible or
+Atlas, to the most trifling pamphlet or school-book. A delay of twenty-four
+hours in the despatch, after posting, is rendered indispensable
+by the possibility there is of an overplus of such bulky packages on
+particular occasions.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A rate of 6<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> per pound, is at the rate of .75, or ¾ of a cent
+per ounce, being prepaid in all cases. The rate I have proposed for large
+periodicals, prepaid, is one-fourth of a cent below this, or less by one-third
+of the English rate. It is doubtful whether a lower rate would
+be consistent with a due regard to the necessary speed of the mails,
+until railroad conveyance shall be more generally extended than it
+now is.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+There is one class of pamphlets of extensive circulation, which come
+within a liberal construction of a newspaper. But the Postmaster-General,
+always vigilant to take care of the pecuniary interests of the
+department, has ruled out most of them, to the inconvenience of the
+publishers, and the lessening of the income of the post-office. At the
+time when there was an attempt to compel the sending of all publications
+through the mail, a statement was made in regard to one of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page048">[pg 048]</span><a name="Pg048" id="Pg048" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+these periodicals, the Missionary Herald, that the postage on 2500
+copies which are regularly sent to New York, would be $1050 a
+year; while they are carried by Express for one dollar a month. At this
+rate the difference on all the routes would be more than $3000 a year.
+The rule was soon altered, and these periodicals were allowed to be
+carried through private channels. I think, considering the great numbers
+of these publications, and the many important interests connected
+with them, there ought to be a rule allowing all periodical pamphlets,
+published as often as once a month, and weighing not over three
+ounces, to be mailed, if prepaid by the publisher, for one cent each.
+This will include, I believe, that highly valuable publication, Littell's
+Living Age, and I hope give it a circulation as wide as it deserves.
+Almost all the religious denominations in the country have one or more
+magazines, cherished by them with much interest, which will obtain
+greatly increased circulation and influence in this way. I need not
+speak of the desire which every patriot must feel, to secure for our
+federal government, by whomsoever administered, the respect and affection
+of the religious portion of the people.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I do not know that any complaint is made against this rate of postage,
+as regards pamphlets in general. But the fraction of a cent is an
+absurdity, on account of the great additional labor it occasions in
+keeping accounts and making returns, and settling balances. Few
+persons can realize the labor and perplexity occasioned to clerks in the
+General Post-Office, by having a column of fractions in every man's
+quarterly return which they examine. The simplification of business
+would probably save to the department all they would lose by striking
+out this paltry fraction, so that the general pamphlet postage will stand
+at two cents for the first ounce, and one cent for each additional
+ounce. At this rate, the president's annual message, with the accompanying
+documents, weighing as sent out about four pounds, would be
+65 cents, and the 10,000 copies circulated by congress would bring
+the department, if the postage was paid as it ought to be, the pretty
+sum of $6500, for only one of the hundreds of documents now sent from
+Washington by mail, as a tax upon the letter correspondence of the
+country. The postage on the report of the patent-office, in 1845,
+mentioned on page 36, would have yielded $27,500 if the postage had
+been paid. This is to be added to the $114,000 which it cost to
+print the document.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+IX. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ocean Penny Postage.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+For the word and the idea here set down, the world is indebted to
+Elihu Burritt, the <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Learned Blacksmith</span></span>,”</span> and
+will be indebted to him
+for the inexpressible benefits of the thing itself, whenever so great a
+boon shall be obtained. Having visited our mother country, on an
+errand of peace, he soon saw the value of the blessing of cheap postage,
+as it is enjoyed there; and by contrast, through the object of his mission
+he say how great is the influence of dear postage, in keeping cousins
+estranged from each other, and in perpetuating their blind
+hatred, and thus hindering the advent of the days of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page049">[pg 049]</span><a name="Pg049" id="Pg049" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Universal Brotherhood.”</span> By putting all these things together, he
+wrought out the plan of <span class="tei tei-q">“Ocean Penny Postage,”</span> by which all ship
+letters are to pay 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> sterling, instead of paying, as they now
+do in England, 8<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> when sent by a sailing vessel,
+and 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span> when sent by a
+steam packet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+He proposes that each letter shall pay its postage penny in advance
+for the service it may receive inland, and a like sum, also in advance,
+for its transmission by sea, until it shall arrive at its port of destination.
+To this should be added, as fast as penny postage shall be propagated
+in other countries, an international arrangement for prepaying the
+inland postage of the country to which the letter is sent. Nothing can
+be more simple in theory than such an arrangement, nothing easier
+or more unerringly just in execution. It would make the postage
+stamps of the cheap postage nations an international currency, better
+than gold and silver, because convertible into that which gold and
+silver cannot buy, the interchange of thought and affection among
+friends.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In pressing his project first on the British nation, both because he
+happened to be then commorant in England, and because that government
+and not ours had already adopted cheap postage as the rule
+for its home correspondence, he is not chargeable with any lack of a
+becoming respect for his own country. I confess, however, that I feel
+strongly, what he has not expressed, the desire that my own country
+should have both the honor and the advantage of being the first to
+carry out this glorious idea.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Mr. Burritt states the number of letters to and from places beyond
+sea in 1846, through six of the principal seaports of England, at
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="2"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">8,640,458</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Number of newspapers</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,698,376</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Gross revenue from letters and papers,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£301,640</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Letters sent to and from the United States,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">744,108</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Newspapers</td><td class="tei tei-cell">317,468</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Postage on letters and papers,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£46,548</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Whole expense of packet service,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£761,900</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the cöoperation of
+a distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the letters, newspapers,
+magazines, pamphlets, &amp;c., transmitted from the United States in 1846, and which
+have been refused on account of the rates of postage, and are consequently lying
+dead in the English post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage charged
+upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that this return will startle the
+people and government with some remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount
+of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a
+farthing, because he asks too much for the job.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters
+by the mail steamers to the United States is now 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span> per half
+ounce; and on newspapers 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> each paper. On all letters and
+papers sent from Great Britain the postage must be prepaid. If not prepaid, they are
+not sent; but in the case of letters, it is the practice of the post-office
+to notify persons in this country to whom letters are addressed, that
+cannot be forwarded for the want of prepayment, that they can have
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page050">[pg 050]</span><a name="Pg050" id="Pg050" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+their letters on procuring the prepayment of the required shilling. I
+have more than once received a printed notice of this kind, designating
+the number by which my letter could be called for. No additional
+charge is made for this piece of attention. This fact is significant of
+the spirit of the cheap postage system. No provision is made by
+which postage can be prepaid in this country, and consequently, the
+whole expense of correspondence falls upon the parties in England.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Mr. Burritt enumerates some of the inconveniences of the present
+system, in addition to the positive evil of a burdensome tax upon the
+letter correspondence between the two countries—a tax which
+amounts to a suppression of intercourse by letter, to a sad extent.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+1. The present shilling rate of postage, being exacted on the English side, too,
+in all cases, and thus throwing the whole cost of correspondence upon the English
+or European correspondents, greatly diminishes the number of letters which would
+otherwise be transmitted to and from America, through the English mail.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+2. In consequence of the present high rate of postage on letters, newspapers,
+pamphlets, magazines, &amp;c., a large amount of mail matter conveyed across the
+ocean, lies </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">dead</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> in the English post-office—a
+dead loss to the department—the persons
+to whom it is addressed, refusing to take it out on account of the postal charges
+upon it.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+3. Under the present shilling rate, it is both legal and common for passengers to
+carry a large number of </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">unsealed</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> letters,
+which are allowed as letters of introduction,
+and which, at the end of the voyage, are sealed and mailed in England or America,
+to persons who thus evade the ocean postage entirely.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+4. In consequence of the present shilling rate, it is common, as it is legal, for
+persons to enclose several communications, addressed to different parties, under one
+envelope, which, on reaching America or England, are remailed to the persons
+addressed, thus saving to them the whole charge of Ocean Postage. Paper is manufactured
+purposely to </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">save postage</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">, and, for this quality, is called </span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Foreign
+Post.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the
+effect if <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">they</span></em> first adopt the Ocean Penny Postage. <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">Some</span></em> of
+the same considerations ought to have weight with American citizens and American
+philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producing
+the conviction, that it is better for the United States to lose no
+time in adopting this system.
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+1. It would put it into the power of every person in America or England to write
+to his or her relatives, friends, or other correspondents, across the Atlantic, as often
+as business or friendship would dictate, or leisure permit.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+2. It would probably secure to England the whole carrying-trade of the Mail
+matter, not only between America and Great Britain, but also between the New
+World and the Old, forever.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+3. It would break up entirely all clandestine or private conveyance of Mail matter
+across the ocean, and virtually empty into the English mail bags all the mailable
+communications, even to invoices, bills of lading, &amp;c.; which, under the old system,
+have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of emigrants, and in
+the bales of merchants.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+4. It would prevent any letters, newspapers, magazines, or pamphlets, from lying
+dead in the English post-office, on account of the rates of postage charged upon them,
+and thus relieve the department of the heavy loss which it must sustain, from that
+cause, under the present system.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+5. It would enable American correspondents to prepay the postage on their own
+letters, not only across the ocean, but also from Liverpool or Southampton to any
+post town or village in the United Kingdom; to prepay it also, to </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">England</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%">,
+by putting two English penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America directed to
+France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, and </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">vice versa</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">.
+</span></div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page051">[pg 051]</span><a name="Pg051" id="Pg051" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+7. It would not only open the cheapest possible medium of correspondence
+between the Old World and the New, but also one for the transmission of specimens
+of cotton, woollen, and other manufactures; of seeds, plants, flowers, grasses,
+woods; of specimens illustrating even geology, entomology, and other departments
+of useful science; thus creating a new branch of commerce as well as correspondence,
+which might bring into the English mail bags tons of matter, paying at the
+rate of 2</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">s.</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> 8</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">d.</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%"> per lb. for carriage.
+</span></div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+8. It would make English penny postage stamps a kind of international currency,
+at par on both sides of the Atlantic, and which might be procured without the loss
+of a farthing by way of exchange, and be transmitted from one country to the other,
+at less cost for conveyance than the charge upon money orders in England from one
+post-office to another, for equal sums.
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+One of the strongest recommendations of this measure, and a
+weighty reason also in favor of the immediate adoption of the whole
+system of cheap postage, is found in the present derangement of postal
+intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. These two
+great nations, the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood, are at this moment <span class="tei tei-q">“trying
+to see which can do the other most harm,”</span> by a course of mutual retaliation,
+which may be known in future history as the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">war of posts</span></span>.
+It is the opinion of some philosophers, that in wars in general, the party
+most to blame is the one which gives the heaviest blows; but in this
+case there arises a new problem, whether each particular blow does the
+most damage to the party which receives or to the one that gives it.
+The principal points in the contest I suppose to be these. The American
+government charges Great Britain five cents postage on all letters
+in the British packet mails, borne across our country at the expense of
+Great Britain, to and from the province of Canada. Great Britain in
+return, charges the United States the full rate of ship postage on all
+letters in the American packet mails, which touch at a British port on
+their way to and from the continent of Europe. Then the Postmaster-General
+of the United States suspends the agreement by which a mutual
+postage account is kept between his department and the post-office
+in Canada. And now a bill is before Congress, having actually
+passed the House of Representatives in one day, by which our own citizens
+are to pay 24 cents postage on every letter, and 4 cents on
+every newspaper, brought by the British mail steamers, as a tax to our
+own post-office, although the same postage has already been prepaid
+by the sender in England. The tax thus imposed on our own people,
+in the prosecution of this postal war, will amount to $178,586 a year,
+no small burden upon a subject of taxation so sensitive as postage, and
+no trifling obstruction to the intercourse between the two countries,
+and between the emigrants who find a refuge on our shores and the
+friends they have left behind. Such a stoppage is peculiarly to be
+regretted at this juncture, when the number of emigrants is so rapidly
+increasing, and all the interests of humanity seem to require the utmost
+freedom and facility of intercourse between the United States and the
+European world.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The proposed bill is intended as a retaliatory measure, and perhaps
+nothing can be devised more severe in the way of retaliation. It is
+worthy of inquiry, however, whether there may not be found <span class="tei tei-q">“a more
+excellent way,”</span> by means of cheap postage on the ocean as well as on
+the land. It does not appear but that Great Britain can stand the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page052">[pg 052]</span><a name="Pg052" id="Pg052" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+impost of double postage as easily and as long as we can. But let our
+government open its mails to carry letters by steam packet between
+Europe and America for TWO CENTS, and I do not see how Great
+Britain can stand that. She must succumb. A man who thought he
+had been injured and was meditating plans of revenge, happened to
+open his Bible and read the counsel of the wisest of human rulers,—<span class="tei tei-q">“If
+thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst, give him drink, for
+in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”</span> The man
+mused a few minutes, and then rose and clapped his hands, and said,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“I'll burn him.”</span> Without touching the merits of the controversy as
+to which did the first wrong, I must say that the course of the British government,
+in exacting 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s.</span></span> per letter on the mails of the American
+steamers bound to Germany, for barely touching at the port of Southampton,
+is the most <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">gouging</span></em> affair of any governmental proceeding
+within my knowledge. It seems to me that our own government
+would do itself honor by adopting almost any expedient, rather than
+imitate so bad an example, in this age of the world, as to lay a tax
+amounting to a prohibition, upon the interchange of knowledge and the
+flow of the social affections among mankind. It is submitted that the
+establishment of Ocean Penny Postage by our mail steamers, with an
+offer of perfect reciprocity to all other countries adopting the same
+policy, will be quite consistent with our national honor. With the
+interest which this subject has already acquired in the British nation,
+and the apparent disposition of that government to yield to the well-expressed
+wishes of the people, there can be no doubt that this would
+lead to an immediate adjustment of the pending controversy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The only remaining question respecting Ocean Penny Postage is the
+statesmanlike and proper one, <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">How is the expense to be paid?</span></em> In the
+first place, the government would not be required to pay any more
+money for the transportation of its mails than they pay now. This
+great boon can be given to the people without a dollar's additional
+cost. Our own experience under the postage act of 1845, proves this.
+While the number of letters is doubled, the whole expense of the post-office
+is diminished—especially that part which might most naturally
+be expected to increase, that is, the transportation of the mails. The
+freight of a barrel of flour, weighing 200 pounds, is about fifty cents.
+Of course, the equitable price of ten thousand letters added to any
+given mail, which would not weigh so much as a barrel of flour, would
+make no assignable difference in the cost upon a single letter. As
+both sailing ships and steam packets are becoming multiplied, individual
+competition may now be relied on to keep the price of transportation
+of mails from ever rising above its present standard. The
+increase of the number of letters makes but very little addition to the
+aggregate expense of the post-office. In the first year of the penny
+postage in England, there were ninety-three millions of letters added
+to the mails, and only £70,231 to the whole expenditure of the department,
+including the cost of introducing the new system, with all its apparatus.
+This amounts to 0.181<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span>; less than two-tenths of a penny
+each for the added letters. In 1844, there were 21,000,000 letters
+added to the circulation, and not a farthing added to the cost. These
+letters yielded about £90,000 in postage, every penny of which went
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page053">[pg 053]</span><a name="Pg053" id="Pg053" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+as net gain into the treasury. I have no means of stating how much
+of the £450,000 added to the yearly expenditure of the British Post-office,
+is chargeable to the great increase of facilities and accommodations,
+both of the public and of the department; but have understood
+that by far the greater part of it arises from this, and not properly
+from the mere increase of letters. It may be safely assumed that, for
+any number of letters now added to the mails in Great Britain, the
+additional expense will not exceed half a farthing each letter, and the
+rest will be clear profit to the post-office. As the plan of Ocean
+Penny Postage includes also the inland postage prepaid in each
+country, it follows that each country would realize from three-quarters
+to seven-eighths of a penny advantage on every letter added to the
+present ocean mails.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In addition to all this, there is just as much reason to expect Ocean
+Postage to increase, as to expect land postage to increase. And as it
+is proved that, on land, the reduction of price will increase the consumption,
+so as to produce an equal income, there can be no doubt
+that, in a little while, if the sea postage is reduced to the cheap standard,
+the letters and papers sent will increase sufficiently to yield an equal
+income. And if so, the consequent increase of inland postage and the
+profits on the same will be clear gain.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Add to the immense number of Europe-born people now living in
+the United States, the children of such, who will retain for two or
+three generations, their relationship to kindred remaining in the Old
+World: Add to the half million of European emigrants, who by ordinary
+calculation would be expected every year, the numbers whom
+passing events will drive to seek an asylum from European revolutions
+under the peaceful and permanent government of the American Union:
+Add to the increase of transatlantic intercourse arising from the
+increase of commerce, the growth also of advancing civilization and
+intelligence: Add to the interest which emigration of neighbors and
+the growth of the country gives to European residents in a correspondence
+with America, the eager desire which the new times now
+begun must create to become more familiarly conversant with the new
+world, whose path of freedom and equality the old countries are all
+striving to follow: How long will any man say it would take, with a
+rate of postage across the Atlantic not exceeding two cents per half
+ounce, before there would be ten millions of letters yearly, instead of
+three-quarters of a million, the number now carried by the British
+packet mails? And these would yield more postage than can now be
+collected at a shilling a letter, besides the profit they would yield on
+the inland postage. With our own experience under the act, of 1844,
+and the experience of Great Britain under the act of 1839, it would
+be unphilosophical to set a longer time than five years as the period
+that would be required to bring up the product of Ocean Postage to
+its present amount. And the healthy spring which such a reform
+would give to commerce, and to every source of national prosperity,
+and its consequent indirect aid to the public revenues, would justify
+any government, on mere pecuniary considerations alone, in assuming
+a heavy expenditure, not only for five years, but permanently, to secure
+so great an object. I address to my own country, as the nation
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page054">[pg 054]</span><a name="Pg054" id="Pg054" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+whom it more appropriately belongs to take so great a step towards
+universal brotherhood, the fervid appeal which my friend Burritt has
+made to England:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The irresistible genius and propagation of the English race are fast
+</span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Anglicizing</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">
+the world, and thus centering it around the heart of civilization and commerce.
+Under the sceptre of England alone, there live, it is said, one hundred and forty
+million of human beings, embracing all races of men, dwelling between every two
+degrees of latitude and longitude around the globe. And there is the Anglo-American
+hemisphere of the English race, doubling its population every twenty-five years,
+and propelling its propagation through the Western World. And there is the
+English language, colonized, not only by Christian missions, but by commerce, in
+every port, on every shore, accessible to an English keel. The heathen of China
+or Eastern Inde, whilst buying sandal wood for incense to their deities from English
+or American merchantmen, or trafficing for poisonous drugs; the sable savages that
+come out of the depth of Africa, to barter on the seaboard their glittering sand,
+their ivory, ostrich feathers or apes, for articles of English manufacture; the Red
+Indians of North and South America, as they come from their hunting grounds in
+the deep wilderness, to sell their spoils to English or American fur companies; the
+swarthy inhabitants of the ocean islands, as they run to the beach to greet the American
+whale ship or the English East Indiaman, bringing yams and curious ware to
+sell to the pale-faced foreigners; all these carry back to their kind and kindred rude
+lessons in the English language—the meaning of home and household words of the
+strong, old Saxon tongue, each of which links its possessor to the magnetic chain of
+English civilization.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">What then, should England do, to bring all nations of men within the
+range of the vital functions of that heart-relation which she sustains to the world?</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Answer—let her establish an </span><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Ocean Penny Postage</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+X. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large
+Towns</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The simple adoption of Uniform Cheap Postage would hardly fail
+of securing, in the end, all other desirable postal reforms. An act of
+congress, in five lines, enacting that <span class="tei tei-q">“hereafter the postage on all letters
+prepaid, not exceeding half an ounce in weight, shall be two
+cents; and for each additional half ounce, two cents; and if not prepaid
+the postage shall be doubled,”</span> would at no distant period, bring
+in all the other desired improvements. The adoption of cheap postage
+in Great Britain, greatly improved the system of local delivery of letters
+and newspapers in the large towns. Formerly, an additional charge of
+1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case
+of letters that had been mailed; and for <span class="tei tei-q">“drop letters,”</span> or letters delivered
+in the same town where they are posted, the price was 2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> Now
+all drop letters are charged at the uniform rate of 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> the same
+as mail letters; and the mail letters are delivered by carriers without
+additional charge—the penny postage paying all. The Postmaster-General
+prescribes what places shall have the free delivery, and how
+far it shall extend around each post-office.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Beyond those limits, and in places where the free delivery is not
+judged practicable, the local postmasters are at liberty, on their own
+discretion, to employ penny-post carriers to deliver letters at the houses
+of the people, charging 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d.</span></span> each for delivery, which is a private
+perquisite—the department taking neither profit nor responsibility
+in the case. Persons who do not choose to pay the penny-post can
+refuse to receive letters in that way, and obtain them by calling at the
+post-office.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page055">[pg 055]</span><a name="Pg055" id="Pg055" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+To facilitate this local free-delivery, there are <span class="tei tei-q">“receiving houses”</span>
+established at convenient distances in the town, where letters are
+deposited for the mails, without a fee, and thence are taken to the
+post-office in season for the daily mails, or for distribution through the
+local delivery. These receiving houses are generally established in a
+drug or stationery store, grocery, or some retail shop, where the nature
+of the business requires some one to be always in attendance, and
+where the increase of custom likely to arise from the resort of people
+with letters is a sufficient consideration for the slight trouble of keeping
+the office. The letters are taken to the post-office at stated hours,
+by persons employed for that purpose; those which are to be mailed
+are separated, and those which are for local delivery sorted and delivered
+to the carriers to go out by the next delivery. I have not a
+list of the number or size of the cities and towns within which the free
+delivery is enjoyed. Its necessary effect in increasing the number of
+letters sent by mail, and benefiting the country and the government
+by the aid it furnishes to trade and general prosperity, would seem to
+be a guaranty that the department would be likely to extend the free
+delivery as far as it could possibly answer, within the reasonable
+ability of the government, to meet the reasonable wants of the people.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The London District Post was originally a penny post, and was
+created by private enterprise. One William Dockwra, in the reign of
+Charles II., set up a private post for the delivery of letters in the city of London,
+for which the charge was 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., payable invariably in advance.
+It was soon taken possession of by the government, and the
+same rate of postage retained until 1801, when, for the sake of
+revenue, the postage was doubled, and so remained until the establishment
+of the general penny postage. Its limits were gradually extended
+to include the city of Westminster and the borough of Southwark,
+then all places within a circle of three miles, and finally to twelve
+miles from the General Post-Office.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Within the three miles circle there are 220 receiving houses, of
+which 180 are within the town portions of the district. At these
+offices, letters are despatched to the post-office, ten times daily, viz.
+at 8, 10, and 12, in the morning, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon.
+Letters are required to be left at the receiving house a quarter
+of an hour previous to the hour. The letters so left may be expected
+to be delivered within the three miles circle in about two hours from
+the hour at which they are sent to the post-office; that is, the 8 o'clock
+letters are delivered by 10, and so on.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+There are now ten deliveries daily, within a circle of three miles
+from the post-office; five deliveries in a circle of six miles, and three
+deliveries to the circle of twelve miles distance. In the three miles
+circle, the delivery is completed in one hour and a quarter from the
+time the carrier leaves the office; in the six miles circle, in two hours,
+and in the twelve miles circle, in three hours.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page056">[pg 056]</span><a name="Pg056" id="Pg056" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In 1839, the estimated average of letters passing through the London
+district post was about one million every four weeks, of which
+800,000 or four-fifths were unpaid. In 1842, the average was two
+millions in four weeks, of which only 100,000, or one-twentieth, were
+unpaid—ninety-five per cent. being prepaid. In 1847, the number
+was nearly three millions. These do not include the <span class="tei tei-q">“General Post;”</span>
+that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that
+originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The General Post letters, however, are distributed on the same
+principle of free delivery, without extra charge, and the utmost
+diligence is used by the letter-carriers to find out the persons to whom
+letters are directed. I was witness to this, in the case of a gentleman
+from Ohio, who went to England in a merchant ship, without having
+taken the precaution to give his family any instructions as to the
+direction of letters. His voyage was somewhat long, and before he
+had been three days in London, the carrier brought to his lodgings a
+letter from his wife, which had come in the mail steamer, and the
+people at the post-office had sought him out, an entire stranger among
+two millions of people! The General Post letters passing through the
+London office, were estimated in 1839 at 1,622,147, each four weeks,
+of which only one-sixth were prepaid. In 1847, they were 8,500,000,
+of which above ninety-four per cent. were prepaid. This makes the
+whole number of letters mailed and delivered in London, equal to
+above 146,000,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calculate that
+about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free
+Delivery.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are prepaid, the delivery is
+accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them,
+of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving numbers of
+letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A
+large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms and shops, which are
+open. Most houses where letters are received daily, have letter-boxes
+by the door, fitted with an ingenious contrivance to guard against robbery,
+into which prepaid letters can be dropped from the street, to be
+taken out by a door that is locked on the inside. Thus the great
+bulk of the letters are delivered with little more trouble or loss of time
+to the carrier, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases
+are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many
+letters are deliverable at one place, which of course lessens the amount
+of labor chargeable to each one.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page057">[pg 057]</span><a name="Pg057" id="Pg057" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+There are ninety-five bell-men, who call at every door in their several
+districts once a day, and take letters to the post-office in time for
+the evening mails. Each one carries a locked bag, with an aperture
+large enough to drop in a letter, which can only be opened at the
+post-office. Any person having letters to go by mail, may drop them
+into this bag, pay the bell-man his fee of 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., and be quite sure
+they will be despatched the same evening.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+All these carriers are required to assist, at stated times, in the
+sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails. They
+are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent business, with
+chances for advancement in business and wages, according to length
+of service and merit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Postmaster-General
+of the United States, by Barnabas Bates, Esq., of New York,
+one of the most able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing
+date February 7, 1847, urging the adoption of a similar system for the
+city of New York, and other cities—the postage to be in all cases
+prepaid. The advantages to be anticipated are thus set forth by Mr.
+Bates:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue
+to the post-office department.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">1. It will be the means of diminishing the number of dead letters and
+newspapers, which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. The carriers will not
+carry out letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their pay, consequently
+the number of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead newspapers,
+they are sold by cart loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to carry
+out newspapers, especially if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the
+many complaints of editors that their subscribers do not get their papers.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">2. It will reduce the list of advertised letters which has increased
+within a few years more than three hundred per cent. The Sun and Tribune of last
+Saturday, advertised 1700 letters, which cost sixty-eight dollars; if this be the
+average weekly number, the post-office department or the people must pay for advertising,
+the sum of three thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars per annum! The list of
+advertised letters of the Boston post-office, which is semi-monthly, averages from
+fourteen to sixteen columns of the Boston Times. If efficient carriers were appointed to
+deliver these letters to their address free of expense, this list would be reduced more
+than one half; thus a saving would be made in advertising, besides the collection of
+a large amount of postage. I would further remark, that requiring </span><em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">four
+cents</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> to be paid for advertising, in addition to the postage, frequently deters
+poor people from taking out their letters, and thus the cost of advertising, as well as
+the postage, are lost to the General Post-office. An efficient free delivery would save
+the department thousands of dollars every year.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">3. A free delivery of letters would increase the revenue by causing the
+greater portion of the drop letters to be sent through the post-office, instead of the
+private offices now established in different parts of the city. The only reason why the
+City Despatch Post failed was, that they charged more than the private penny post
+offices. But if these letters were delivered free, charging only two cents as drop
+letters, nearly all the city correspondence would be conveyed through this medium. The
+increased income from this source alone would in a short time be amply sufficient to
+pay the salaries of all the carriers.</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">4. The post-office would not only command all the drop letters, but afford such
+easy, safe, and cheap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the
+means of increasing the city and country correspondence to an extent which can
+hardly be estimated. Thousands and tens of thousands of letters which are now
+sent by private hands, or through the private penny post, would then be deposited
+in the United States sub post-offices, both for city delivery and to be forwarded by
+the mails.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page058">[pg 058]</span><a name="Pg058" id="Pg058" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The extent to which such a system of Free Delivery could properly
+be introduced in this country, can only be determined by experiment.
+That is, to decide in how many and what towns there shall be a Free
+Delivery, and how far from the post-office the Free Delivery shall be
+carried, experience must be the guide. A city and its suburbs might
+all be included in one arrangement, as New York with Brooklyn,
+Williamsburg, and Jersey City; Boston with Charlestown, Cambridge,
+Chelsea and Roxbury; and as population increases and intercourse
+extends, other places might be included.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Such a system would make a vast amount of business for itself, as
+people learned the advantages of so easy a correspondence—especially
+in those places which may admit of two or more deliveries a day.
+It would also tend to facilitate and stimulate and increase the general
+business of the place, and this would in turn increase the business of
+the post-office. The establishment of Free Delivery in any city or
+large town, would tend to increase the correspondence of the country
+with such town. Every addition to the number of letters delivered,
+would lessen the average cost of delivery of each letter, and thus
+increase the net profits of the institution. In these ways the department
+would feel its way along, in the extension of Free Delivery from
+one class of towns to another, until, at no distant day, it would be
+found that its benefits were far more widely diffusible than the most
+sanguine could now anticipate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On the subject of the cost of delivery, the parliamentary committee
+obtained many valuable items of information. Mr. Reid, of London,
+said he got a thousand circulars delivered lately, for a foreigner. The
+gentleman had intended to send them through the post-office, paying
+the postage. Mr. Reid told him he would get them delivered a great
+deal cheaper. He gave them to a very trusty person, who delivered
+them all in the course of a week, at the expense of £1
+2<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. They
+were certain he delivered them; for nearly every time they sent him
+out, they took care to misdirect two or three, taking an account of the
+false direction, and he invariably brought back these letters, because
+he could not find the persons to whom they were directed. The postage
+of these circulars, at 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. would have been
+£4 3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 4<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. Here was
+a saving of £3 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.
+in one job. The expense of delivery was 1-1/14 farthing
+per letter. Of course, regular carriers, in their accustomed
+routes, could deliver prepaid letters at a much cheaper rate than
+this.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+During the parliamentary investigations on the subject of cheap
+postage, a plan was suggested, of establishing what were called
+secondary mails, to reach every village and hamlet in the country.
+These secondary mails were to run from each post-town to the surrounding
+places, and deliver letters for an additional charge of 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.
+But on consideration it was found impracticable to clog the general
+system with this addition. Uniformity was everything, to the system.
+And they could not establish any uniform rate which would answer
+both for the post-towns and for the hamlets. The rate which would
+pay for the towns, would not pay for mails to the hamlets. And the
+rate which was necessary for the hamlets, was too high for the towns,
+and <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">the contraband conveyance would still continue</span></em>. Consequently,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page059">[pg 059]</span><a name="Pg059" id="Pg059" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the post-office would have to distribute the letters to the smaller
+places, where the distribution is attended with the greatest cost and
+the smallest profits. In the end, the rule of uniformity was left unbroken,
+and it was left to future experience or local arrangement to
+meet the wants of the smaller places, not now reached by the mails.
+The local postmasters are to make such arrangements as they deem
+proper in their respective neighborhoods, as to the employment of
+penny-post carriers to distribute the letters at the houses of the
+people.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+To show the working of multiplication and division in the increase
+of profits, and the very low rate at which a service similar to that of
+free delivery can be performed, let us look at the newspapers. The
+principal daily papers in Boston are served to subscribers by carriers,
+at the expense of the publishers. Deducting Sundays and holidays,
+there are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost
+of 25 to 50 cents for each subscriber. Taking the highest cost, and
+you pay 1.6 <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mills</span></span> for each paper delivered—less than
+one-sixth of a cent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The penny papers are served to subscribers by carriers, who have
+regular beats or districts; and who furnish their patrons for six cents
+per week. These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at
+62 to 75 cents per 100; so that their profits on each paper are from
+one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper
+promptly every morning, and collect the money on Saturday, running,
+of course, some risk of losses by bad debts, &amp;c. And yet this business
+is found to be so profitable that some routes in New York have
+been sold, that is, the good will transferred, for at least $500, just for
+the privilege of serving that district.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The two-cent papers from New York are regularly served to customers
+in Boston. A person engaged in this business used to buy the
+New York Express, Tribune, and Herald, for 1¼ to 1½ cents each.
+He paid the cost of bringing them by express from New York.
+To guard against failures, he divided his bundles, and had a part sent
+by way of Norwich, and a part by Stonington. He then served them
+to subscribers all over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections
+on Saturday. This man made money, so that in a few years
+he sold out his route and business in the New York papers, and purchased
+an interest in a flourishing penny paper in Boston, of which he
+is now one of the publishers.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page060">[pg 060]</span><a name="Pg060" id="Pg060" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+XI. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Expense of Cheap Postage,
+and how it is to be paid.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is quite important to have it understood, in all parts of the country,
+that the friends of postal reform have no desire to curtail the public
+accommodations now enjoyed, in the slightest degree—unless in
+cases of manifest abuse. Neither do they consider that too much
+money is paid by our government to furnish the people with the privileges
+of the mail. We desire rather to see the benefits and conveniences
+of the post-office greatly increased, as well as brought more
+within the reach of all the population. The bill for establishing cheap
+postage should therefore contain a distinct declaration that the mail
+facilities of the country shall not be curtailed, but shall be liberally
+extended, with the spread and increase of population, so as to give, as
+far as the ability of the government will admit, the best practicable
+accommodations to every citizen of the republic.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It ought also to be provided that the Postmaster-General shall have
+it in his power, according to his discretion, whenever justice may
+require, to continue the compensation of all postmasters equal to their
+present rates, in proportion to the amount of services rendered, or
+labor performed. It is not easy, at present, to decide how much
+the labor of keeping the post-office will be lessened, by the adoption
+of uniform rates, and prepayment. Certainly, the reduction
+will be very considerable. And experience will hereafter suggest a
+new scale of compensations adapted to the new methods of doing the
+business.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The falling off in the gross receipts of the British post-office, on
+the first adoption of the new system, was upwards of a million sterling,
+being nearly 43 per cent. on the whole amount. A corresponding
+reduction from the income of our own post-office would amount to
+$1,696,734. But the falling off would not be so great. The reduction
+of postage in that case was from 7-½<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.
+on an average, to 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., while in
+ours it would barely prove an average of 6-½ cents to 2 cents. On the
+other hand, it is reasonable to expect a very rapid increase of letters,
+because the partial reduction in 1845 has already given the people a
+taste of the advantages of reduced rates of postage. The whole number
+of letters now sent by mail is 52,000,000. The number would,
+without doubt, be doubled in one year, which would give a revenue of
+above $2,000,000; $2,080,000 from letters. There would also be
+a very considerable increase of income from papers and pamphlets,
+and a great saving in the article of dead letters and newspapers. It
+is safe to estimate the revenue of the post-office, under the new
+system, at $3,000,000 for the first year, $3,500,000 for the second,
+$4,000,000 for the third, and $4,500,000 for the fourth, which will
+bring it up to what will then be the wants of the service, making the
+most liberal allowance for improved facilities.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As an illustration of the capability of retrenchment in expense, let it
+be remembered that the present Postmaster-General has effected a
+reduction of nearly <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">a million dollars per annum in the cost of transportation
+alone</span></em>. He says in his Report:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The direction to the Postmaster-General to contract with the lowest bidder,
+without the allowance of any advantage to the former contractor, as had been the
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page061">[pg 061]</span><a name="Pg061" id="Pg061" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-size: 90%">
+case before its passage, had the effect of enlarging the field of competition, and
+reducing the price of transportation, except on railroads and in steamboats, to the
+lowest amount for which the service can be performed; and will reduce the cost of
+transportation, when the other section is let to contract under it, but little less than
+a million of dollars per annum from the former prices.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In other words, our letter postage is no longer taxed as it used to be,
+to give the people of other sections of the country, stage coaches which
+they do not support, as well as mails which they do not pay for. There
+will doubtless be still further reductions in this branch, in proportion
+as the knowledge becomes diffused among the people, of the profits of
+this business and the freeness of the competition for it. As Mr. Dana
+suggested in his valuable Report in 1844:
+</p>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
+<span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The difference must arise from want of competition, and a reluctance to engage
+in the business of transporting the mail. When the attention of the North shall be
+called to the subject, and the difference in price pointed out, we cannot doubt that
+contracts will be made nearly as cheap for transportation at the South as at the
+North. If southern men will not engage in the business, let it be generally known
+that such increased pay can be had, and an abundance of yankee enterprise will be
+ready to engage in the business.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Railroad Transportation</span></span>. One of the most difficult points in
+the administration of the post-office, has been the dealing with railroad
+corporations. As these are bodies without souls, they can only be
+dealt with on the footing of pecuniary interest. And as they are state
+institutions, and local favorites, public opinion has been generally predisposed
+to take sides with the railroad, and against the department.
+And thus the railroads have been able to exact exorbitant allowances
+for services which cost them next to nothing. Were the whole mails
+of the country to be sent at once by a single railroad, what would be
+the amount? The average number of letters mailed in a day is
+142,857; which, at the average weight of ⅓ ounce, would weigh 2976
+pounds. The average number of newspapers in a day is 150,685,
+which, at the average weight of 2 ounces, would give 18,834 pounds.
+The whole together make 21,815 pounds, equal to 109 passengers,
+averaging, with their baggage, 200 pounds each. These passengers
+would be carried by railroad 200 miles, from Boston to Albany for
+$545. The daily cost of railroad service is $1637, which shows that
+it is distance, not weight, that is chiefly regarded. Or, in other
+words, that the weight of the mails is of very little account to railroads.
+It is well known that the corporations regard the carriage of the mail
+as almost clear profit. The whole daily mails of the United States
+could be carried by the inland route from Boston to New Orleans, by
+the established expresses, at their regular rates on parcels, for a little
+over $3000; while the whole daily expense of mail transportation is
+$6,594. The expresses will carry from Boston to New York, for
+$1.50, an amount of parcels, which the post-office would charge $150
+for carrying as letters, or $18.40 as newspapers—and all go by the
+same train, of course involving equal cost of transportation to the company.
+The inference is unavoidable, that the government is charged
+exorbitantly by these companies, from the entire absence of competition
+on almost every railroad route. While human nature remains the
+same, it is to be expected that corporations will take this advantage
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page062">[pg 062]</span><a name="Pg062" id="Pg062" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+unless some counteracting interest can be brought to bear upon them
+as a restraint against extortion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Now, let the post-office present itself to the people as a system of
+pure and unmingled beneficence, studying not how it can get a little
+more money for a little less service, but how it can render the greatest
+amount of accommodation with the least expense to the public treasury,
+and it will at once become the object of the public gratitude and
+warm affection; men will study how to facilitate all its transactions,
+will be conscientiously careful not to impose any needless trouble upon
+its servants, and will generally watch for its interests as their own.
+Such is the benign effect upon all the considerate portions of society in
+England. Then the government will be fully sustained in insisting
+that all railroads shall carry the mail for a compensation which will be
+just a fair equivalent for the service performed, in reasonable proportion
+to other services. And if the corporations are perverse in throwing
+obstacles in the way, the people will expect that such coercive
+measures should be employed, as wisdom may prescribe, to make these
+creatures of their power subservient to the public good, and not to
+mere private aggrandisement.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In January, 1845, a document was communicated to congress by
+the Postmaster-General, containing replies by the British post-office to
+certain queries which he had proposed to them. This document gives
+the distance travelled daily by mail trains on railways at 1601 miles,
+at a cost per mile of 1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>.
+1-18/32<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. per mile. But this <span class="tei tei-q">“distance”</span> is the
+number of miles between place and place. The total number of
+miles that the mail travels by railroad daily is 5808, which would
+make the real cost per mile of travel about 5-¼<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. The number of
+miles travelled by railroad in this country is 4,170,403, at the cost of
+$597,475, which is about 12 cents per mile. But the English trains
+are driven at much greater speed than ours, the expense of running is
+much greater in all respects, the cost of the roads is vastly higher, the
+weight of mails is much greater, and therefore the price of transportation
+might be higher than with us. But it is lower. The average
+weight of mails sent daily from London alone is 27,384 pounds, which
+is 5569 pounds more than the whole daily mails of the United States.
+By act of parliament, the Postmaster-General is authorized and empowered
+<span class="tei tei-q">“to require of every railway company that they shall convey
+the mail at such times as he may deem proper; and the amount paid
+for such services is settled by a subsequent arbitration.”</span> Railroad
+service is performed in New Hampshire for a fraction over 4 cents per
+mile. The average in New England is 10-½ cents per mile. The average
+price of passenger fares, for short distances or long, is but 3 cents per
+mile. There can be no doubt that it is within the constitutional and
+proper prerogative of congress to take the use of a railroad for the
+public service, leaving the just compensation to be awarded by arbitration.
+Neither can it be doubted that enlightened arbitration would
+greatly reduce the price from what is now paid.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Comparative Cost of other Transportation with Letter
+Postage.</span></span> The following table shows the cost of passage from Boston
+to the places named, and the cost of transportation of parcels of usual
+weight by Express, with the price per half ounce at the same rates.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page063">[pg 063]</span><a name="Pg063" id="Pg063" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The average weight of passengers with their baggage is set at 230
+pounds. This would be equal to the weight of 7360 letters, at half
+an ounce each, the postage on which, at two cents, would be $147.20,
+irrespective of distance.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">From Boston</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Passenger</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Per half oz.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Express</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Per half oz.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">Fare.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Mills.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Freight.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Mills.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">230 pounds.</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To New York,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">$4.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5-10ths</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">$1.50</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To Philadelphia,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">7.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">9-10ths</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3.50</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To Baltimore,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">10.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1 3-10ths</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">5.50</td><td class="tei tei-cell">7-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To Cincinnati,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">25.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3 2-10ths</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">10.50</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1 4-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To St. Louis,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">35.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4 7-10ths</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">12.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1 6-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To New Orleans,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">45.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6 1-10th</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">14.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1 9-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">To Liverpool,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">120.00</td><td class="tei tei-cell">16 3-10ths</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">7.20</td><td class="tei tei-cell">9-10ths</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">per Cunard Steamers</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Rowland Hill discovered that the cost of transporting a letter from
+London to Edinburgh was 1-36th of a penny; and the Parliamentary
+Committee ascertained by a different calculation, that this was the
+average cost per letter of all the mails in England.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Penny Papers</span></span>. The establishment of penny papers in this country
+is a very striking illustration of the principles here involved. It is
+now just fifteen years since the New York Sun was commenced by a
+couple of journeymen printers, one of whom had just been in my
+employ. They were intelligent and enterprising, and began by writing
+their editorials and police reports, which they then set up in type, and
+worked from an old Ramage press, with their own hands. They
+printed seven hundred papers, of a very small size, which they sold to
+boys at 62-½ cents per hundred, and the boys sold them in the streets
+at one cent each. Soon their editions increased, and they enlarged
+their sheet, and hired it printed on a Napier press which I owned.
+Again their business increased, so much that it became necessary for
+them to have a press of their own, driven by steam power. One of
+the partners then sold out his interest for $10,000, went to the West,
+studied law, and has been twice a candidate for Congress, with strong
+prospects of success. The concern has since passed into other hands,
+and has continued to prosper. For many years it has been printed on
+a sheet larger than could be bought for a cent, making a constant loss
+on the paper alone; besides which, it has cost $25 a week to the
+editor for the leading articles alone; and I know not how much for
+other editorial labor, market and commercial reports, ship news, foreign
+news, lightning expresses, correspondence, &amp;c. And yet the amount
+received for advertising has covered all these expenditures, and enabled
+the present proprietor to realize, as is supposed, a splendid fortune.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A man in Boston buys 200 copies of the New York Tribune and
+other papers daily, for which he pays 1-¼ cents each. The Express
+brings him the parcel for 50 cents, which is one quarter of a cent for
+each paper. The post-office would charge $3.00 for postage alone.
+For the half cent remaining to him after expenses paid, the carrier delivers
+his papers to subscribers all over the city, collects his pay once
+a month, and runs all the risk of loss of bundles and bad debts. Each
+paper weighs about an ounce and a half—equal to three single letters
+of full weight, the postage on which would be fifteen cents, making
+$30 in all. It is impossible to doubt the practicability of cheap postage.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page064">[pg 064]</span><a name="Pg064" id="Pg064" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In Scotland, with but 2,628,957 inhabitants, and no great commercial
+centre, no political metropolis, and but little foreign commerce,
+such is the effect of cheap postage that 28,669,169 letters are sent in
+a year. Even in <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">poor</span></em> Ireland, where the people die of hunger by
+thousands, where there are millions of people who never taste of bread,
+and where the majority of the people are said to be unable to read or
+write, with a population of 8,175,124, less than half the population of
+the United States—there are 28,587,996 letters mailed under the
+influence of penny postage. The population of Scotland and Ireland
+together is 10,804,081, not half the present population of the United
+States; the number of letters in a year is 57,257,165, being more than
+<em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">all</span></em> that are sent in the United States, franks included.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Concluding Remarks</span></span>. I am brought to the close of this essay,
+with only a brief space left to be filled, and with many subjects of
+remark untouched—the Exclusive Right of the Post-office—the
+History of Postage in this country—the Sectional Bearings of Cheap
+Postage—the Postage Bill now before Congress—the Moral and Social
+Benefits of Cheap Postage. This pamphlet has been wholly
+written since the vote of the Publishing Committee, which must be my
+apology for some repetitions. The main arguments cannot be overthrown,
+until men disprove arithmetic.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Who can doubt that cheap postage would bring three times as
+many letters as are now sent by mail in this country. And that would
+give a greater revenue to the post-office than it now receives. It is
+impossible to doubt the success of cheap postage, when once it is
+established.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Now is the favorable time for its adoption. The astonishing success
+of cheap postage in Great Britain is opening people's eyes. The
+rapid progress which public opinion has made in the last six months in
+favor of cheap postage, creates a confident expectation that congress will
+yield to the first resolute motion that shall be made, and adopt a well-considered
+system, of which two cents letter-postage shall be the
+basis, with a general provision for prepayment. The details will be
+easily adjusted when the principle is adopted. Let us have no evasions,
+no half-way measures, to delude with false hopes, and to stand
+as obstacles in the way of the only true system.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Why should I enlarge upon the benefits of cheap postage? The
+only question to be asked is—What shall every man do to obtain it?
+The answer is, You must understand its merits; you must talk with
+your neighbors, and get them interested in its favor; you must write,
+if you can, for the papers; you must unite, without delay, in signing
+and forwarding the following petition to congress:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in
+Congress assembled</span></span>:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The undersigned, Citizens of:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+respectfully petition Congress to pass a Law to establish <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">a uniform
+rate of Postage</span></span>, not to exceed <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">one cent on
+Newspapers</span></span>, and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">TWO
+CENTS</span></span> on each <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">pre-paid Letter</span></span>
+of half an ounce, for all distances;
+and for other corresponding reforms.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page065">[pg 065]</span><a name="Pg065" id="Pg065" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<a name="toc5" id="toc5"></a>
+<a name="pdf6" id="pdf6"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">APPENDIX.</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+I. TABLES FROM THE PARLIAMENTARY RETURNS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The parliamentary return, obligingly sent to Dr. Webb by Mr. Hume,
+M. P., bears date the 11th of June, 1847, and was made in pursuance of an
+order of the House, passed April 22, 1847. The tabular statements contained
+in this important paper will be examined with great interest by those
+who are accustomed to statistical inquiries, and are here presented for their
+use. Taken in connection with Mr. Hume's table, on page 4, they will
+present the most convincing evidence of the unparalleled success of cheap
+postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A comparative statement of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Number of Letters</span></span> delivered in
+the United Kingdom, in one week of the month of November, 1839, and of each
+subsequent year, taking a week in the month of April, 1847. (Condensed from
+the parliamentary document.)
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">England and Wales.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Ireland.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Scotland.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">United Kingdom.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1839<a id="noteref_3" name="noteref_3" href="#note_3"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">3</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,252,977</td><td class="tei tei-cell">179,931</td><td class="tei tei-cell">153,065</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,585,973</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,685,181</td><td class="tei tei-cell">385,672</td><td class="tei tei-cell">385,262</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3,456,115</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,029,453</td><td class="tei tei-cell">403,421</td><td class="tei tei-cell">413,248</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3,846,122</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,282,021</td><td class="tei tei-cell">474,031</td><td class="tei tei-cell">446,494</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,202,546</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,401,595</td><td class="tei tei-cell">478,941</td><td class="tei tei-cell">468,677</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,349,213</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,744,011</td><td class="tei tei-cell">527,630</td><td class="tei tei-cell">511,663</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,783,304</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4,467,619</td><td class="tei tei-cell">597,425</td><td class="tei tei-cell">601,715</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">5,666,759</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4,629,324</td><td class="tei tei-cell">649,324</td><td class="tei tei-cell">621,850</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">5,890,704</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1847<a id="noteref_4" name="noteref_4" href="#note_4"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">4</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,823,854</td><td class="tei tei-cell">698,313</td><td class="tei tei-cell">626,709</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">6,148,876</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page066">[pg 066]</span><a name="Pg066" id="Pg066" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+II. An account, showing the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Gross</span></span> and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Net Post Office Revenue</span></span>, and the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Cost
+of Management</span></span>, for the United Kingdom, for the year ending the
+5th day of January, 1839, and for each subsequent year.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="4"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Year ending</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Gross Revenue.<a id="noteref_5" name="noteref_5" href="#note_5"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">5</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Cost of Management.<a id="noteref_6" name="noteref_6" href="#note_6"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">6</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Net Revenue.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1839</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£2,346,278 —<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 9½<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£686,768 3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 6¾<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.</td>
+    <td class="tei tei-cell">£1,659,509 17<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 2¾<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1840<a id="noteref_7" name="noteref_7" href="#note_7"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">7</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,390,763 10 1½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">756,999 7 4</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,633,764 2 9½</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,359,466 9 2</td><td class="tei tei-cell">858,677 —5¼</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">500,789 11 4¼</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,499,418 10 11¾</td><td class="tei tei-cell">938,168 19 7½</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">561,249 11 4¼</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,578,145 16 7½</td><td class="tei tei-cell">977,504 10 3</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">600,641 64½</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,620,867 11 10</td><td class="tei tei-cell">980,650 7 5¾</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">640,217 4 4¼</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,705,067 16  4</td><td class="tei tei-cell">985,110 13 10¾</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">719,957 2 5¼</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,901,580 10 2¾</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,125,594 5 —</td><td class="tei tei-cell">775,986 5 2¾</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1847</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,978,293 11 10¼</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,138,745 2 4¼</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">839,548 9 6</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+III. Return of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Payments</span></span> made by the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Post Office</span></span> during each of the
+years ending the 5th of January, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846,
+1847, for the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Conveyance</span></span> of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mails</span></span> by <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Railway</span></span> in Great Britain.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="2"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1839,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£12,380 5<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>.
+7<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1840,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">52,230 1 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1841,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">51,301 6 8</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1842,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">94,818 7 10</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1843,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">77,570 5 7</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1844,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">96,360 10 5</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1845,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">89,809 4 6</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1846,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">179,257 4 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5th January, 1847,</td><td class="tei tei-cell">107,890 14 2</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+IV. An account of the Number and Amount of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Money Orders</span></span>
+issued (and paid) in England and Wales (London included), from the 5th April, 1839, to
+5th April, 1847, inclusive.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="3"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">For the Quarters ended</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Number.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Amount.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1839</td><td class="tei tei-cell">28,838</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£49,496 5<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. 8<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1839</td><td class="tei tei-cell">34,612</td><td class="tei tei-cell">59,099 9 5</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1839</td><td class="tei tei-cell">38,510</td><td class="tei tei-cell">64,056 7 8</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">40,763</td><td class="tei tei-cell">67,411 2 7</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">76,145</td><td class="tei tei-cell">119,932 12 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">94,215</td><td class="tei tei-cell">151,734 15 8</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">122,420</td><td class="tei tei-cell">196,507 14 3</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">189,984</td><td class="tei tei-cell">334,652 14 8</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">275,870</td><td class="tei tei-cell">567,518 12 3</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">289,884</td><td class="tei tei-cell">608,774 11 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">334,071</td><td class="tei tei-cell">661,099 9 —</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">390,290</td><td class="tei tei-cell">820,576 11 10</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">419,530</td><td class="tei tei-cell">890,575 17 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">422,452</td><td class="tei tei-cell">885,803 4 5</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">432,205</td><td class="tei tei-cell">901,549 5 5</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">493,439</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,031,850 5 3</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">512,798</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,080,249 2 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">495,723</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,032,643 5 11</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">515,458</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,060,023 8 7</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">562,030</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,196,428 8 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">582,056</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,212,094 4 9</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">555,561</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,166,161 12 3</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">574,250</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,184,178 — 5</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">621,826</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,296,451 17 4</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">656,452</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,372,405 18 8</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">613,539</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,279,050 2 4</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">637,369</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,316,164 12 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">719,813</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,495,832 17 6</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">716,618</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,490,626 12 5</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 July, 1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">679,236</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,399,789 17 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 October, 1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">706,055</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,447,507 17 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 January, 1847</td><td class="tei tei-cell">779,790</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,588,549 7 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">5 April, 1847</td><td class="tei tei-cell">810,603</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,654,278 7 —</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page067">[pg 067]</span><a name="Pg067" id="Pg067" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Commission on Money Orders was, on and from the 20th November, 1840,
+reduced as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+For any sum not exceeding £2, from 6<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. to
+3<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.<br />
+For any sum above £2, and not exceeding £5, from  1s.
+6<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">6</span></span>d.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+V. Return of the Number of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Chargeable Letters</span></span>,
+which is passed through the London General Post, inwards and outwards, in the
+first four weeks of each year, beginning with 1839, distinguishing the Unpaid,
+Paid with Coin, Stamped, and Total.<a id="noteref_8" name="noteref_8" href="#note_8"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">8</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Unpaid.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Paid.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Stamped.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Total.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1839<a id="noteref_9" name="noteref_9" href="#note_9"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">9</span></span></a></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,358,651</td><td class="tei tei-cell">263,496</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,622,147</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1840<a id="noteref_10" name="noteref_10" href="#note_10"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">10</span></span></a></td><td class="tei tei-cell">787,139</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,217,127</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3,004,266</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">370,080</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,204,419</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,108,074</td><td class="tei tei-cell">4,683,073</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">351,134</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,166,960</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,760,757</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,278,851</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">312,839</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,431,231</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,972,828</td><td class="tei tei-cell">5,716,898</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">433,270</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,524,270</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3,079,418</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,037,526</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">504,519</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,613,648</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3,681,026</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,800,293</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">551,461</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,899,306</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,435,966</td><td class="tei tei-cell">7,886,733</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1847<a id="noteref_11" name="noteref_11" href="#note_11"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">11</span></span></a></td><td class="tei tei-cell">448,838</td><td class="tei tei-cell">3,057,257</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">4,905,674</td><td class="tei tei-cell">8,411,769</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page068">[pg 068]</span><a name="Pg068" id="Pg068" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+VI. Return of the Number of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Chargeable Letters</span></span> which passed
+through the London District Post, excluding all General Post Letters, in the first four
+weeks of each year, beginning with 1839.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Unpaid.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Paid.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Stamped.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Total.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1839</td><td class="tei tei-cell">800,573</td><td class="tei tei-cell">220,813</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,021,286</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">331,589</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,207,985</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,539,574</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">157,242</td><td class="tei tei-cell">926,264</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">752,134</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,835,640</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">118,101</td><td class="tei tei-cell">820,835</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">980,694</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,919,630</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">113,293</td><td class="tei tei-cell">837,624</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,020,091</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,971,008</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">98,712</td><td class="tei tei-cell">859,776</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,181,314</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,139,802</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">99,005</td><td class="tei tei-cell">947,660</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,337,132</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,383,697</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">119,165</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,055,717</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,573,603</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,748,485</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1847</td><td class="tei tei-cell">108,158</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,079,378</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,685,105</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,872,641</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Penny Rate took effect on this route Dec. 5, 1839.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The increase of the total, since 1839, is 181 per cent.; showing that the greatest
+increase is out of the London District.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+VII. Table by Mr. Hill, showing the loss of Revenue by the Post Office, compared
+with the Increase of Population.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="6"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Population.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Postage.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Postage due by</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Loss.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Pr. ct.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">Population.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1815</td><td class="tei tei-cell">19,552,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£1,557,291</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£1,557,291</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1820</td><td class="tei tei-cell">20,928,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,479,547</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,677,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£194,553</td><td class="tei tei-cell">11.6</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1825</td><td class="tei tei-cell">22,362,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,670,209</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,789,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">118,781</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6.6</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1830</td><td class="tei tei-cell">23,961,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,517,952</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,917,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">399,048</td><td class="tei tei-cell">20.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1835</td><td class="tei tei-cell">25,605,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,540,300</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,048,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">507,700</td><td class="tei tei-cell">24.8</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+VII. Table by Mr. Hill, showing the loss of Revenue by the Post Office, compared
+with the Increase of the Stage-Coach Duty.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="6"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Stage Coach</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Postage.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Post due by</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Loss.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Pr. ct.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">Duty</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell">Coach Duty.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1815</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£217,671</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£1,557,291</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">£1,557,291</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1820</td><td class="tei tei-cell">273,477</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,479,547</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1,946,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£466,453</td><td class="tei tei-cell">24.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1825</td><td class="tei tei-cell">362,631</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,670,209</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,585,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">914,781</td><td class="tei tei-cell">35.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1830</td><td class="tei tei-cell">418,598</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,517,952</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">2,990,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,472,048</td><td class="tei tei-cell">49.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1835</td><td class="tei tei-cell">498,497</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1,540,300</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">3,550,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,009,700</td><td class="tei tei-cell">57.</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The revenue from the stage coach duty had increased 128 per cent. in twenty
+years. There was no reason why the natural demand for the conveyance of letters
+should not have increased at least as much as the demand for the conveyance of persons.
+It was evident that the postage revenue fell short by at least two millions
+which was lost by the high rate of postage.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page069">[pg 069]</span><a name="Pg069" id="Pg069" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+NEWSPAPERS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+[From Porter's Progress of the British Nation.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Owing to the great craving of the people for information upon political subjects
+during the agitation that accompanied the introduction and passing of the bill <span class="tei tei-q">“to
+amend the representation of the people,”</span> commonly known as <span class="tei tei-q">“The Reform Bill,”</span>
+a great temptation was offered for the illegal publication of newspapers upon unstamped
+paper, many of which were sold in large numbers in defiance of all the preventive
+efforts made by the officers of government. The stamp duty of fourpence
+per sheet was therefore taken off in 1836, leaving a stamp of
+1<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., as an equivalent
+for free postage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+IX. Table showing the Number of Newspapers at different periods, and the
+Revenue derived from the same.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="3"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Newspapers.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Revenue.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1801</td><td class="tei tei-cell">16,085,085</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£185,806</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1811</td><td class="tei tei-cell">24,421,713</td><td class="tei tei-cell">298,547</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1821</td><td class="tei tei-cell">24,862,186</td><td class="tei tei-cell">335,753</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1826</td><td class="tei tei-cell">27,004,802</td><td class="tei tei-cell">451,676</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1830</td><td class="tei tei-cell">30,158,741</td><td class="tei tei-cell">505,439</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1831</td><td class="tei tei-cell">35,198,160</td><td class="tei tei-cell">483,153</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1835</td><td class="tei tei-cell">33,191,820</td><td class="tei tei-cell">453,130</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1836</td><td class="tei tei-cell">35,576,056</td><td class="tei tei-cell">359,826</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1837</td><td class="tei tei-cell">53,496,207</td><td class="tei tei-cell">218,042</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1838</td><td class="tei tei-cell">53,347,231</td><td class="tei tei-cell">221,164</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1839</td><td class="tei tei-cell">55,891,003</td><td class="tei tei-cell">238,394</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">60,922,151</td><td class="tei tei-cell">244,416</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">59,936,897</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">61,495,503</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td><td class="tei tei-cell"></td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+X. Table showing the Increase of Expense in the British Post Office, consequent
+upon the Increase of the Number of Letters under the new System; the Rate
+per Letter of the Cost of additional Letters, and the Profits realized from such
+Increase, expressed in decimals of a penny.
+</p>
+
+<table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="5"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">Years.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Increase of Letters.</td><td class="tei tei-cell">Increase of Cost.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Additional Cost.</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">Additional Profit.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1840</td><td class="tei tei-cell">93,000,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">£70,231</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. 0.181</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. 0.819</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1841</td><td class="tei tei-cell">27,500,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">101,678</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">0.887</td><td class="tei tei-cell">0.113</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1842</td><td class="tei tei-cell">12,000,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">72,256</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1.445</td><td class="tei tei-cell"><a id="noteref_12" name="noteref_12" href="#note_12"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">12</span></span></a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1843</td><td class="tei tei-cell">12,000,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">35,826</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">0.716</td><td class="tei tei-cell">0.284</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1844</td><td class="tei tei-cell">21,500,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell"><a id="noteref_13" name="noteref_13" href="#note_13"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">13</span></span></a></td>
+      <td class="tei tei-cell">—</td><td class="tei tei-cell">1.004</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1845</td><td class="tei tei-cell">29,500,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">6,870</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">0.055</td><td class="tei tei-cell">0.945</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1846</td><td class="tei tei-cell">28,000,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">140,576</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">1.205</td><td class="tei tei-cell"><a id="noteref_14" name="noteref_14" href="#note_14"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">14</span></span></a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-row"><td class="tei tei-cell">1847</td><td class="tei tei-cell">2,2500,000</td><td class="tei tei-cell">23,879</td>
+     <td class="tei tei-cell">0.257</td><td class="tei tei-cell">0.746</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+N. B. The increase of letters since 1839 is 246 millions, and cost of the increase is
+.347 of a penny; so that every letter now added to the circulation yields a net profit
+to the government of .625<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>., or nearly two thirds of the penny
+postage.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-back" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+  <div id="footnotes" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <a name="toc7" id="toc7"></a>
+    <a name="pdf8" id="pdf8"></a>
+    <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Footnotes</span></h1>
+    <dl class="tei tei-list-footnotes"><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_1" name="note_1" href="#noteref_1">1.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext"><span class="tei tei-q">“The estimate for 1839 is founded on the ascertained
+number of letters for one week in the
+month of November, and strictly speaking, it is for the
+year ending Dec. 5th, at which time 4<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>.
+was made the maximum rate. The estimate for each subsequent year
+is founded on the ascertained
+number of letters for one week in each calendar month.”</span>
+</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_2" name="note_2" href="#noteref_2">2.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext"><span class="tei tei-q">“This is exclusive
+     of about six and a half millions of franks.”</span></dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_3" name="note_3" href="#noteref_3">3.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">The number of franks was ascertained for each of
+the weeks ending January 11, January 21, and February 4, 1838; and the mean of these
+three gives 126,212 as the estimated number for one week, which is 8 per cent. of
+the whole, and leaves 1,459,761 as the number of chargeable letters.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_4" name="note_4" href="#noteref_4">4.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Week ending April 21, 1847. The whole number in the
+week ending February was 6,569,696. The number 6,148,876, for one week, multiplied by 52,
+gives 319,741,552, the total number for the year 1847.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_5" name="note_5" href="#noteref_5">5.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Namely, the
+gross receipts, after deducting the returns for refused letters, &amp;c.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_6" name="note_6" href="#noteref_6">6.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Including all payments out of the
+revenue in its progress to the Exchequer, except advances to the Money Order Office;
+of these sums £10,307 10<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">s</span></span>. per annum is for pensions, and forms
+no part of the disbursements on account of the service of the Post Office.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_7" name="note_7" href="#noteref_7">7.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">This year includes one month of the
+Fourpenny Rate.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_8" name="note_8" href="#noteref_8">8.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">By multiplying any of
+these numbers by 13, you get the number for 62 weeks, which is, for
+all practical purposes, the number for a year; as 20,087,971 in 1839,
+to 109,362,997 in 1847</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_9" name="note_9" href="#noteref_9">9.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Estimated from an enumeration for four
+several weeks in that year.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_10" name="note_10" href="#noteref_10">10.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">The Penny Rate commenced Jan. 10, 1840; Stamps,
+May 6, 1840.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_11" name="note_11" href="#noteref_11">11.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">The increase of the total, since 1839,
+is 418 per cent.; of paid in coin, since 1840, 39 per
+cent.; of unpaid, since 1841, 21 per cent.; of stamps, since 1841,
+183 per cent.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_12" name="note_12" href="#noteref_12">12.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Cost diminished by £364,
+equal to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. 0.004 per letter.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_13" name="note_13" href="#noteref_13">13.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Cost increased
+equal to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. 0.445 per letter.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_14" name="note_14" href="#noteref_14">14.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Cost increased equal to
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d</span></span>. 0.205 per letter.</dd></dl>
+  </div>
+  <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <div id="pgfooter" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHEAP POSTAGE***
+</pre><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader9" id="rightpageheader9"></a><a name="pgtoc10" id="pgtoc10"></a><a name="pdf11" id="pdf11"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Credits</span></h1><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr><th class="tei tei-label tei-label-gloss">November 7, 2008  </th></tr><tr><td class="tei tei-item"><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-respStmt">
+        <span class="tei tei-name">
+            Produced by Bryan Ness, David King, and the Online
+            Distributed Proofreading Team at &lt;http://www.pgdp.net/&gt;.
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+        </span>
+      </span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader12" id="rightpageheader12"></a><a name="pgtoc13" id="pgtoc13"></a><a name="pdf14" id="pdf14"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h1><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This file should be named 
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:34:09 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:34:09 -0700
commit	a9103b8b3397b83d01d0c48a457ebe53e21b3ca4 (patch)
tree	fe6da8b9e12ce95e2472013c4ed6f0ee19c184f5 /27196-h