Chapter I: J. Brewin, of Cirencester, one of the Society of Friends, (3)

In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay 1_d_. 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_d_. 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.

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, “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_s_. 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.” As to the question of the liability to forgery, he said that “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.” 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The following table of newspapers and periodicals issued annually from the Boston press, is given in Shattuck’s “Census of Boston,” published by the city in the year 1846.

Class of Publications. Number. Square inches. Value. Daily subscription 5,075,320 4,786,029,240 $106,076 Daily penny 11,408,000 7,018,617,000 110,400 Semi-weekly 1,460,448 1,442,010,336 58,748 Weekly 11,610,040 8,738,546,856 334,895 Semi-monthly 458,400 216,314,000 31,700 Monthly 2,583,600 1,522,477,200 127,100 Two months and quarterly 37,200 143,076,800 24,500 Annual 255,500 265,045,300 31,565 ———— ———— ———— Total 32,890,508 24,132,117,132 $825,074

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.

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.

The number of newspapers sent by mail was estimated in 1837, by Postmaster Kendall, as follows:

Newspapers paying postage 25,000,000 Free and dead papers 4,000,000 ———— ———— Total 29,000,000

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.

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.

VIII. _Pamphlet and Magazine Postage_.

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.

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, 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 _prepay_ at four cents for each half-pound.

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_d._ 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 “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.”

A rate of 6_d._ 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.

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 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.

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.

IX. _Ocean Penny Postage._

For the word and the idea here set down, the world is indebted to Elihu Burritt, the “LEARNED BLACKSMITH,” 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 “Universal Brotherhood.” By putting all these things together, he wrought out the plan of “Ocean Penny Postage,” by which all ship letters are to pay 1_d._ sterling, instead of paying, as they now do in England, 8_d._ when sent by a sailing vessel, and 1_s._ when sent by a steam packet.

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.

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.

Mr. Burritt states the number of letters to and from places beyond sea in 1846, through six of the principal seaports of England, at

8,640,458 Number of newspapers 2,698,376 Gross revenue from letters and £301,640 papers, Letters sent to and from the 744,108 United States, Newspapers 317,468 Postage on letters and papers, £46,548 Whole expense of packet £761,900 service,

In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the cöoperation of a distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says:

“At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the
letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, &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.”

By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters by the mail steamers to the United States is now 1_s._ per half ounce; and on newspapers 2_d._ 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 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.

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.

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.

2. In consequence of the present high rate of postage on letters,
newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, &c., a large amount of mail
matter conveyed across the ocean, lies _dead_ 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.

3. Under the present shilling rate, it is both legal and common
for passengers to carry a large number of _unsealed_ 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.

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 _save postage_, and, for this
quality, is called “Foreign Post.”

He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect if _they_ first adopt the Ocean Penny Postage. _Some_ 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.

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.

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.

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, &c.; which, under the old system,
have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of
emigrants, and in the bales of merchants.

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.

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 _England_, by putting two English
penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.

6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America
directed to France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, and
_vice versa_.

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_s._
8_d._ per lb. for carriage.

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.

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 “trying to see which can do the other most harm,” by a course of mutual retaliation, which may be known in future history as the _war of posts_. 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.

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 “a more excellent way,” 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 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,—“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.” The man mused a few minutes, and then rose and clapped his hands, and said, “I’ll burn him.” 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_s._ per letter on the mails of the American steamers bound to Germany, for barely touching at the port of Southampton, is the most _gouging_ 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.

The only remaining question respecting Ocean Penny Postage is the statesmanlike and proper one, _How is the expense to be paid?_ 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_d._; 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 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.

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.

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 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:

“The irresistible genius and propagation of the English race are
fast _Anglicizing_ 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.

“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?

“Answer—let her establish an _Ocean Penny Postage_.”

X. _The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large Towns_.

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 “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,” 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_d._ was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case of letters that had been mailed; and for “drop letters,” or letters delivered in the same town where they are posted, the price was 2_d._ Now all drop letters are charged at the uniform rate of 1_d._ 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.

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_d._ 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.

To facilitate this local free-delivery, there are “receiving houses” 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.

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_d_., 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.

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.

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.

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 “General Post;” that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.

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.

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.

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_d_., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening.

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.

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:

“The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue
to the post-office department.

“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.

“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 _four cents_ 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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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_s_. 3_d_. 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_d_. would have been £4 3_s_. 4_d_. Here was a saving of £3 1_s_. 1_d_. 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.

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_d_. 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 _the contraband conveyance would still continue_. Consequently, 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.

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 _mills_ for each paper delivered—less than one-sixth of a cent.