Or all the manifold devices supplied by the ingenuity of men to promote the progress of civilization, the idea of a National Post Office stands in the foremost ranks of importance. The social want which it proposes to supply is so obvious and apparently so inseparable from a state even in the least degree advanced beyond that of a primitive and pastoral people, that we might naturally seek for the date of its first realization among the earliest annals of nations. Its existence, even in an imperfect and incipient form, is nevertheless assignable to a comparatively late epoch, nor did it attain any development commensurate to its importance, until the last half century. Indeed, it is only in these, our own times, that its full capabilities seem likely to be manifested. One cause, perhaps the principal one, of the slow progress of this great social institution towards maturity, has been its intimate dependence on other arts of life, and intermediately on the mechanical discoveries and inventions by which these arts have attained their present degree of perfection. First, and transcendently the most important of these, was the art of transportation by land and water; an art which continued in a state of relative imperfection until the genius of Watt, Fulton, Trevithick and Stephenson created the Steam Engine, and bade that omnipotent machine to carry the ship in triumph over the wide waste of waters, laughing to scorn the opposing elements; to transport the barge against the streams of the gigantic Mississippi and its interminable tributaries, of the Rhine, the Thames and the Ganges, and to give wings to the chariot and waft it with the speed of the wind over paths where lately the Red man alone roamed, and the beast of the forest had its lair. So curiously dove-tailed is the artificial system of human society, so complex is the reticulation by which the wants and wishes of our race are supplied and gratified, that scarcely any branch of art can be seriously affected in its progress without producing a sensible influence among a multitude of others, immediately or remotely connected with, or related to it. The entire system progresses with a common velocity, and however admirable the theory of the Post Office, and however craving those

social wants which it was designed to supply might have been, it could not be fully realized until the cognate arts had had attained correlative maturity.

Correspondence by letter is a speech at a distance. It is conversation carried on between individuals separated by a space exceeding the limit of the range of the voice and the ear. Social machinery for the easy, expeditious and cheap transmission of letters is to the ear what the telescope is to the eye, with this difference that while the one shows only the image of what is desired to be approached, the other brings to us the thing itself; and while the one is confined in its application to physical objects, the other bears upon the social, the intellectual, the political and the commercial. We speak on paper with the hand, and to the words thus spoken, we listen with the eye. Space, if not time, is thus, for all the objects of personal intercommunication, annihilated. The interposition of an hemisphere of our planet does not prevent the out-pouring of the affection of the husband to the wife, the child to the parent, the brother to the sister. It stops not the progress of the bargain or the sale. It clogs not the wheels of trade. The merchant who is present, bodily, in Wall street, is simultaneously present, in his commercial spirit, in Threadneedle street, and on the Place de la Bourse. Whether individuals be regarded in their relations of kindred, or as component parts of general society, or as agents in carrying out the objects of commerce, or as links between distant nations, stronger and more manifold reasons are apparent for promoting every measure, and prosecuting every inquiry which is directed to improve and facilitate the means of correspondence between distant parts of the same country, or between distant parts of the globe. To neglect this duty, and still more to be directly or indirectly instrumental in augmenting the expense of such intercommunication beyond the very lowest amount which is necessary for its efficiency, is equivalent to putting an obstruction on the liberty of speech itself. A tax upon letters, is, in fact, a tax upon speech. It is worse. It is a fine levied upon the affections. It is an impost upon

the love of kindred. It is a duty laid upon friendship. It is a penalty on commerce; an amercement on the diffusion of knowledge, and a drag on the progress of civilization. It has been well said by eminent commercial authorities, that you might as well tax words spoken upon the Royal Exchange, as the communications of various persons living at Manchester, Liverpool, and London," and that "if there be any one subject which ought not to be selected as a subject of taxation, it is that of inter-communication by post; and if there be any one thing which the government ought, consistently with its great duties to the public, to do gratuitously, it is the carriage of letters. We build National Galleries and furnish them with pictures; we propose to create public walks for air and health, and exercise of the community, at the general cost of the country. Neither of these, useful and valuable as they are to the community, and fit as they are for the government to sanction, are more conducive to the moral and social advancement of the community than the facility of the intercourse by post." Such are the deliberate opinions and sentiments, not of professed philanthropists, not of speculative philosophers, but of plain, practical men of business, merchants and bankers, who, from long and extensive experience, know what they speak of. And this has been applied to a country circumscribed within limits not exceeding those of a single State of this Union, and reticulated by innumerable routes for the rapid and cheap intercourse of its crowded population. While on the other hand, our country presents a territory forming a large section of the globe, inhabited by a sparse population, separated by distances, not to be traveled over, even by the aid of the marvelous powers of steam, in less time than can be expressed by weeks. Among such a people, correspondence, so desirable to all, becomes a want of imperious urgency. Now, in England, the people have risen, and with one consentaneous voice uttered their will in accents neither to be mistaken nor resisted, and extorted from an unwilling legislature and reluctant government, the most stupendous official reform of which the annals of any civilized nation can afford an example. They have, in the teeth of an obstinate resist

ance on the part of the Post Office department-of the aristocracy who enjoyed exemption from the burthen of postage by the franking privilege,-of the press upon which the projected plan was expected to operate disadvantageously,— of the House of Commons, whose privilege was threatened to be swept away,established a Post Office system which has multiplied, in an infinite proportion, the social advantages of the nation, which has offered a model to other countries, and which will descend to future ages as a monument of what may be effected by the spirit of a free and intelligent people. Any individual of the population of the United Kingdom can now transmit a packet weighing half an ounce, to any other individual, no matter how remote his position within the country, at the cost of TWO CENTS! and by executing this service at this rate of charge, the Post Office department, after defraying all its various and heavy charges, is enabled to transfer annually to the National Treasury a regularly augmenting nett revenue, the present amount of which exceeds three millions of dollars!!

The condition of things which led to this grand reform in England, and which ultimately elicited from the people that expression of their will, which when unanimous is as irresistible under the monarchy of Britain as under our own republican institutions, was exactly similar to that which now prevails in this country. The reports and remonstrances of the Post Office department were identical even to minute particulars with those which are now issued here. The same necessity for some change was admitted, and the same resistance to a really efficient change was offered. The same enormous abuses of the franking privilege were complained of.

The same establishment of private mails and expresses, the same decline of the Post Office revenue, the same abuses in the free transmission of printed papers, were all and severally the topics of vain declamation and fruitless complaint. The sympathy of the public was not on the side of the established laws, and they were, as they always will be in such cases, violated with impunity, and, as here at present, set at open defiance. Their breach was unattended with punishment, their evasion visited with no discredit. It was proved that for one

letter sent through the post office, ten were transmitted through cheaper but illegal channels. Merchants and bankers of the first rank, wealth and respectability voluntarily came forward and declared that they systematically defrauded the Post Office! that they themselves sent their letters by regular private expresses!* In short the practice of evasion was admitted as it is here daily, without a blush, by persons of the highest respectability. The expedients of evasion were thus enumerated:-1st. By carriers or private expresses openly carrying letters. 2d. In booksellers' parcels. 3d. In warehousemen's bales and parcels. 4th. In stagecoach parcels. 5th. In weavers' bags, in the neighborhood of the manufacturing towns. 6th. In private boxes. Under parliamentary and official franks, by parties not entitled to their use.

7th.

But some devices for evasion evinced such ingenuity that they merit more especial notice. A letter in a franked envelope is sent from London to Dublin, so wafered or sealed as to be opened without tearing the cover. The individual receiving it writes another, enclosing it in the same envelope with the same address, but altering the place to some other town or city, Edinburgh for example, as though the party to whom it was addressed had departed from Dublin, thence. Being received at Edinburgh, the same envelope is again made to serve a like purpose. In this way we have known the same frank to carry three or more letters successively between different places.

The free transmission of newspapers afforded too obvious a means of cheap and rapid communication to escape the ingenuity of the British trader. Some curious evidence on the abuse of this right was produced before the committees of parliament. It appeared that it was a common practice with commercial houses to transmit newspapers, the mode of addressing which served the purposes of the usual business communications. In such cases a system of signals was agreed upon between the correspondents, determined by the form of address inscribed on the journals which were thus used as the instruments of communication. Let us suppose for example that William Smith Jones of 516 Mark Lane, London, were the party addressed. A

great variety of forms of address might be used on different occasions, such as the following:-

William Smith Jones, 516 Mark Lane,
London.

William Smith Jones, Mark Lane, London.
Wm. Smith Jones, 516 Mark Lane, London.
William Smith Jones, London.
Wm. Smith Jones, London.
Wm. Smith Jones, Mark Lane, London.
W. S. Jones, 516 Mark Lane, London.
W. S. Jones, Mark Lane, London.
W. S. Jones, London.
William S. Jones, 516 Mark Lane, London.
William S. Jones, Mark Lane, London.
William S. Jones, London.
W. Smith Jones, 516 Mark Lane, London.
W. Smith Jones, Mark Lane, London.
W. Smith Jones, London.
William Smith Jones, Esq.,516 Mark Lane,
London.

&c., &c., &c.

Thus a simple address assumed a hundred different forms, and these forms were entered in a page of the merchant's memorandum book, with a key, which gave them a signification, by which a corresponding variety of the most usual commercial communications were effected by their means. To inform him of the state of the market, the arrival or transmission of goods, all that was necessary was to send a newspaper with one of the above varieties of form of address, from which, by a preconcerted plan, this communication was interpreted.

Such were the shifts to which an overtaxed people were driven to satisfy the social and commercial wants which a healthy Post Office system should have supplied.

The average postage payable at that time, on single letters, was sixpence, or twelve cents, the same which is now chargeable by the United States Post Office, and to resist and evade which the public have resorted to like shifts and expedients.

The grievances of the postage system then prevalent in England, and still pressing on the people of this country, consisted in the intolerable amount of the charge in proportion to the service performed, and in the vexatious and humiliating system of espionage to which the method of rating by single and double letters gave rise. The injustice of apportioning the amount of charge by the distance to

which the letters were transmitted was not perceived, and therefore formed no ground of complaint.

In the early part of the year 1837, a pamphlet was published, developing a project for effecting a vast Post Office revolution. It professed to demonstrate that letters might be conveyed through the Post, from one extremity of the country to the other, at the uniform rate of charging a penny per half ounce; and that such a system would, nevertheless, yield to the state a large revenue. A project so novel and so bold, affecting a department of the public administration which party politics did not reach, would, it might be thought, have needed some great reputation to force it into notice. Had its author already been known to fame, as a statist or financier, or had he been patronized by those in high places, more or less public attention might have been expected to have been attracted towards it. But such was not the case. Its author was an unknown, obscure schoolmaster, without personal weight, consideration, or influence. The boldness of the plan," says a writer of that day, "was therefore likely to be quietly contemned as empirical rashness, by a busy population like that of Great Britain, whose curiosity has been palled by the fallacious hopes of advantages which have been so constantly obtruded on the public attention. No scheme, therefore, was ever promulgated with less probability of success, from adventitious causes; and yet no scheme ever made its way in so short a time to the convictions of mankind, not only in England, but wherever a post office is to be found. In two years and a half, the theory of a private individual became the law of the land; and France, Germany, and other countries, have since directed their efforts to avail themselves of the same principles in their own system."

ries, when once explained, it appears so self-evident, that we are astonished at its not having been perceived sooner, and from its very simplicity are apt to underrate the powers which developed it. This important fact is, that the expense attending the dispatch and delivery of letters, by the Post Office, is practically independent of the distance to which they are transmitted, or, in other words, that the cost is the same, whether these distances are great or small. When this principle was first announced, it sounded so like paradox, not to say absurdity, that even acute minds could scarcely be prevailed on to give it serious consideration, and after it had been explained and demonstrated again and again, a large portion of those who were called on to act upon it, could not be got either to comprehend or to credit it. Let us see whether we cannot make it intelligible.

The various items into which the cost of transmitting a letter to its destination, may be resolved, consist of its reception at one post office-its sorting, stamping, and packing in the mail-bag-its transportation to the post office of the place of its address-its reception there and finally its delivery to the party to whom it is addressed. It is also chargeable with its share of the expense of the general superintendence and management of the Post Office. Now it is evident that all those items, the cost of transportation alone being excepted, are independent of the distance to which the letter is sent, and are, therefore, the same for letters transmitted to all distances. It becomes, then, a question of the highest importance, in this inquiry, to ascertain what is the actual proportion which this cost of transportation bears to the other expenses. It appears from the published returns of the British revenue, that for the year ending 5th January, 1842, the gross revenue of the Post Office amounted to $7,178,592, and that the nett revenue for the same year was $2,675,380 Hence we have the means of finding the total average cost of each single letter.

450

718

If a revenue tax be added, it will, of course, be the same for both, so that the difference of charge which could be equitably made in favor of the letter A, to the shorter distance, would amount to three-fourths of the thirty-sixth part of a penny, or to the forty eighth part of a penny, or twenty-fourth part of a cent, precisely.

It was therefore demonstrated that the only item of postage which varied in the ratio of the distance, was one of an amount so small as not to be capable of being changed in any current coin, and so minute a fraction of a farthing, as to be of no practical value to the parties dispatching or receiving letters.

It was thus established, that no difference of charge could be fairly made for letters sent to different distances, and it was conceded that so far as any consider ation of distance was involved, all letters of the same weight should be charged with the same postage.

Are all letters of equal weight then, it will be asked, attended with the same expense of dispatch and delivery? And if not, what circumstances produce the difference of expense, and how can the rates of postage be accommodated to such difference of expense? To this, it may be replied, that the cost of the transmission of letters is governed by the same law that prevails in the cost of production of all other commodities. It is, in short, diminished in a rapid proportion

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with the increase of the number of letters to be conveyed. Thus, suppose that a thousand letters have to be conveyed to one city, and only one hundred to the other, the large items of internal management will have to be, in the one case, divided among a thousand, and in the other case, among a hundred letters; and, as these items are very little affected in their gross amount, by the number of letters, the cost per letter of the smaller mail will be greater than the cost per letter of the larger mail. If this principle were adopted, and strictly equitable rates based upon it, we should have high rates of postage to all small towns, and low rates to all great cities. Not to mention other impractibilities attending the application of such a principle of rating, it would be subject to continual variation with the varying population and commerce of each place; but, indeed, it is sufficiently obvious, that no system, based on such a principle, could work with any good or useful effect.

But the plain, practical answer to all attempts at an equitable adjustment of varying rates of postage is, that the utmost cost of transmission of letters of the weight of half an ounce is so small that no variation of it is needed, and the practical advantages of one uniform rate, for all places, are so many and great as to render it at once, easy simple, and economical to the administration, and acceptable to the public.