tenth day of January, 1840, is one which must sooner or later be introduced, not only into our country, but under every civilized government. For reasons which will appear in the sequel, we ask the attention of the reader to some account of the origin of this system, of the principles on which it is constructed, and to the inquiry how far such a system is desirable and practicable in our own country. Of the " penny postage" system, as it is called, most persons in this country know little more than the name. It was first proposed in 1837, by a Mr. Rowland Hill, a man previously unknown to the public, in a pamphlet on "post-office reform." The object of that pamphlet was, to show that under a system which it described, letters not exceeding half an ounce each in weight, might be received in any part of the kingdom of Great Britain, and delivered in any other part of the kingdom, for a penny sterling; and that under such a system, this great diminution of postage would in the end involve no diminution of revenue. This bold proposal immediately excited public attention. Fortunately for its success, a parliamentary commission was at that time engaged in an extended investigation of the management of the postoffice department. The commissioners having already reported upon various parts of the general inquiry with which they were charged, could do little more in regard to Mr. Hill's plan than to call him before them and examine his opinions and arguments, respecting that branch of the subject upon which they had not yet reported. This however was a favorable introduction of Mr. Hill's proposal, to the notice both of the Parliament and of the public. In May, 1837, some three months after the appearance of Mr. Hill's pamphlet, a petition in favor of his Vol. I. 3 scheme was presented to both houses of Parliament, signed by a large number of the business men of London in every department—“ merchants, bankers, insurance companies, men of science, solicitors, publishers, printers," &c. About the same time, a memorial in behalf of the proposed reform was presented to the Lords of the treasury, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Ere long, the Common Council of the city of London, and the councils of other large towns, began to appear as the advocates of this reform, so obviously important to every commercial or manufacturing community. In November of that year, a committee was appointed by the House of Commons, to examine into the practicability of the proposed new system, and particularly whether it could be adopted without diminishing the net revenue of the post-office department. A parliamentary committee of inquiry is a very different affair in Great Britain, from such a committee in Congress, or in one of our State legislatures. There, such a committee, instead of finishing its business in one or two evenings or mornings, sits again and again, for weeks or for months-calls before it all sorts of men that can be supposed to have any interest in the subject of inquiry, or any knowledge of its details-not only hears. but records and reports their facts and reasonings on the subjectmakes one report, and if the subject is not exhausted, another, and another-till in the end a mass of information, including both facts and principles, has been collected, and digested, and presented both to the legislature and to the people, which may become the basis of wise, satisfactory and stable legislation. This committee on the reduction of postage sat sixty-three days; and they examined eighty-three witnesses, besides those who were called to give · facts and opinions from the post-of fice department and from the stamp- In the mean time, that this work Such *To the reprint of the Report of the Committee on postage (referred to at the commencement of this article) is appended the following appeal, which we copy as an illustration of the way in which the reform was carried in Great Britain. UNIFORM PENNY POSTAGE. (Form of a petition.) To the Honorable, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal [or, the Commons, as the case may be] in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned, [to be filled up with the name of place, corporation, &c.] nestly desire an uniform penny post, paySheweth, That your petitioners earable in advance, as proposed by Rowland the Select Committee of the House of Hill, and recommended by the Report of Commons. That your petitioners intreat your Honorable House to give instant effect to this report, &c. Mothers and Fathers that wish to hear from their absent children! Friends who are parted, that wish to write to each other! Emigrants that do not forget their native homes! Farmers that wish Merchants to know the best markets! and Tradesmen that wish to receive orders and money quickly and cheaply! Mechanics and Laborers that wish to learn where good work and high wages are to be had! support the report of the House of Commons with your petitions for an uniform penny post. Let every every religious society and congregation, city, town and village, every corporation, petition, and let every one in the kingdom sign a petition with his name or his mark. This is no question of party politics. Lord Ashburton, a conservative, and one of the richest noblemen of the country, spoke these impressive words before the House of Commons committee :-"Postage is one of the worst of our taxes; it is, in fact, taxing the conversation of other. The communication of letters by people who live at a distance from each persons living at a distance, is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the same town." 66 third of a poor man's income; if a genSixpence," says Mr. Brewin, "is the tleman, who had 1000l. a year, or 31. a day, had to pay one third of his daily income, a sovereign for a letter, how often would he write letters of friendship? Let a gentleman put that to himself, and then he will be able to see how the poor man cannot be able to pay sixpence for his letter." READER! If you can get any signatures to a petition, make two copies of the above on two half sheets of paper; ble; fold each up separately; put a slip get them signed as numerously as possiof paper around, leaving the ends open; Lords, the other to a member of the direct one to a member of the House of House of Commons, London, and put them into the post-office. tem, to reduce all postage to a penny sterling. The essential principles of the system are these. 1. Uniformity of postage. Our system, as every one has occasion to know, proceeds on the principle of a tariff of different postages for different distances; and at first sight it seems unreasonable to charge the same postage for conveying a letter five miles, as for conveying it five hundred miles. But a little reflection is enough to show, that the distance to which a letter is transported, is no index of the actual cost of that letter to the government. The cost of conveying a letter from Boston to Philadelphia, is in all probability less to the government than the cost of conveying a letter from one country post-office to another, some fifteen miles distant. Why then should the first letter be charged with four times as much postage as the other? The great advantage of a national post-office system is, that the routes on which there is little communication, and which are therefore unable to maintain themselves, shall be maintained by the more profitable routes on which there is continually a large surplus revenue. In such a system, a uniform postage, without any regard to distance, will be more reasonable, and in the end more profitable to the establishment, than any tariff of postages varying with the distance. payment of postage, and greatly di minishes the entire cost of a letter to the department, is that the pre-pay. ment is made by means of stamps, which the department ordinarily sells as a commodity to stationers and other retail dealers, as well as to individuals and institutions maintaining an extensive correspondence. Thus postage is sold by the wholesale; and the immense expense to the government of collecting postage in millions upon millions of minute payments, is saved. The stamps prepared by govern. ment are of four sorts. (1.) An adhesive stamp or label, on a small piece of paper manufactured for the purpose, which being slightly moistened adheres to the letter like a wafer. (2.) A stamped cover, or half sheet of paper, in which the letter is enclosed, and which is sold for the price of the postage added to the cost of the paper. (3.) Stamped letter paper, by means of which the letter writer buys his paper and his postage at one purchase. (4.) Stamped wrappers of various prices, for packages and parcels of various weights. 4. Another principle of the new system is that postage is charged by weight alone. The reasonableness of this principle needs no illustra tion. What business has the gov ernment to inquire whether my let ter is composed of one piece of 2. Another feature of the new paper or of two or more? Is it system is the pre-payment of post- the object of the government to age. No letter enjoys the full ben charge extra postage on the transefit of the reform, on which the mission of money by mail? But postage is not paid at or before its the government runs no risk, and lodgment in the post-office. This is sustains no responsibility, in respect the principle, so well known to bu- to the money which is enclosed in siness men, of payment in advance letters. If it did, it might reasona-a principle which we earnestly bly indemnify itself, not by chargcommend to the publishers and to ing so much extra for each bank all the purchasers of the New Eng- note, without reference to its value, lander. If it is found economical but by a per centage on the amount. elsewhere, why should it not be far Besides, look at the inequality of more economical in such a concern this charge. Rich men, merchants as the post-office? and bankers, make remittances by 3. But what facilitates the pre- drafts written on the same sheet of paper with the letter, and they pay nothing but the letter postage. But the apprentice boy who, out of his hard earnings, or harder savings, wants to send a dollar to his widowed mother, to help her in her struggles to feed and school his younger brothers and sisters, must be taxed not for his letter only, but to the amount of from six to twenty-five per cent. on his poor paper dollar. On the new system of Great Britain, every thing not exceeding half an ounce in weight, goes for a single letter; and no postmaster's clerk is set to poke a wire into its foldings, to see what it encloses. 5. Another principle of the new system is the entire abolition of the franking privilege. The privilege of sending letters and documents by the public mails, free of postage, is allowed in this country to a great number of persons, with various restrictions, which are more or less respected according as the consciences of the privileged individuals are more or less efficient. It was so in England. The Postmas ter General of the United States in 1839, (Mr. Niles,) declared that, during the last three quarters of the year reviewed in his report, the free matter constituted a very considerable portion of the entire mails. During three weeks only of the summer of that year, the pamphlets and printed documents franked at the Washington city post-office, exclusive of franked letters, amounted to sixteen tons and a half. Who pays for the transportation of all this tonnage, and for its distribution to tens of thousands of individuals? It costs the department just as much to convey a free letter, as to convey in the same mail a letter of the same weight on which postage is to be paid. It may be necessary for the public good, that members of Congress and other dignitaries should have their postage given to them, in addition to their pay and their other perquisites; but how ought this to be paid for? It is now paid for by those who pay postage. Why should it not be a charge upon the general funds of the 'government? Why should we, in the walks of private life, pay our own postage and that of members of Congress besides? In Great Britain, Mr. Hill's system has abolished franking. The department is no respecter of persons. The Queen herself-as we understand the case-pays her postage like an honest woman. 6. Another principle on which the new system is constructed, is the principle, well understood among mercantile men, that it is better to do a large business with small profits, than to do a small business with larger profits. On this principle it is that the postage is reduced, in that country, to a penny for a half ounce letter. On the same principle, in such a country as this, the postage should be reduced to the lowest uniform rate at which the establishment, taken as a whole, would be able to support itself. In Great Britain, the reduction of postage has been followed, as was expected, by a temporary falling off of the revenue of the department. The department, however, notwith. standing this falling off, not only supported itself, but yielded for the general purposes of the government a net revenue of about three millions of dollars for the first year; and since that time the reve nue has been such as to confirm the expectation of its continued increase, till it shall exceed what was received under the old system of high postages. This is the outline of the system. Some of the principal advantages which would attend the adoption of a similar system in our own country, are obvious. 1. The most obvious is, that there must needs be under such a system, an immense increase of the corres pondence passing through the postoffices, and paying postage. The present system of high postages has the effect, first, of causing a large portion of the correspondence of the country to be carried on independent of the mails. Who goes from Hartford to New York, or even to New Haven, without carry ing letters, unless he takes his start so suddenly that no body knows of his going? The probability is that on the route between New York and Boston, or on that between New York and Philadelphia, or on that between Philadelphia and Baltimore, the number of letters conveyed by travelers is, at least, as great as the number conveyed by the public mails. Take away the high price of postage, and all these letters rush into the post-offices as naturally as water runs down hill. The present system, again, has the effect of causing a very great suppression of correspondence. There are few men, women, or children, capable of writing letters, who are not conscious that under a different sys tem, their letters would be twice or thrice as many as they now are. Especially is this true of those in humbler circumstances of the wid ow separated from her sons-of those sons separated from each other. To such persons, a letter of friendship is often a far greater luxury than it can be to any others. And to how great an extent is correspondence between such persons actually suppressed by the present system. These too, are the very persons who have the fewest opportunities of forwarding letters by private conveyance. How great an increase of correspondence by the mails must there be from these two sources-the throwing of letters in to the mails, that now pass through other channels-and the writing of letters that are now suppressed for the want of a cheap and regular conveyance. But there are other sources from which there would be a still greater increase. Many business men, under a system founded on the principles which we have enumerated, would find that the best mode of advertising is by a printed circular to the very individuals with whom they wish to communicate. A wholesale merchant in New York knows his regular customers, and he knows or can know the address of thousands of other retail dealers in his line. Let the mails be made cheap, and what mode of adverti sing would be so effectual as to communicate directly with his customers, by sending them just that information which he wishes to lay before their eyes? an Reduce the price of postage, and how many other things beside letters would be carried by the mails. Not only letters and bank notes, and printed paper, but light packa ges of any description, from half ounce to a pound or more, would seek such a mode of convey. ance. This has been found to be the case in England, to so great an extent, that it is becoming necessary to restrict the right of traveling by mail to packages of a convenient bulk and shape. 2. Another benefit of the reform is, that under the new system, all postmasters and other persons employed in the post-offices, are more easily held to a strict account. ability in regard to the monies pass. ing through their hands. The method of keeping accounts with deputy postmasters in England, was, we believe, much the same with that which exists here, which is necessarily complicated and extended. But in that country, they had reason to apprehend that under the old system, collusion between different postmasters, or between clerks in different offices, to assist each other in defrauding the department, was not very unfrequent. It may be more unfrequent in this |