“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 thepubliccorrespondence 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.”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:“Theimmediatebenefits 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 beenprofessedlygoverned 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 accrueimmediatelyto them, yet mediately at least they inure to the great benefit of the whole country.”[pg 035]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“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.”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.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“have a more intense appreciation of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time,”than ordinary persons can conceive!It has been said that it will be impossible to secure the services of[pg 036]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.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“National Bribery:”“It has just been stated in congress, that the two houses had orderedfifty-five thousand copiesto 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‘needles in a hay-mow.’Then, this huge quantity of trash, created at this large expense, is to befrankedfor all parts of the country, by way ofcurrying favor and getting votes next time, 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, aboutthree pounds! The aggregate weight of the 55,000 copies, is thereforeeighty-two and a half tons! 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 thefrankingprivilege! Poor patient people!“Such taxes, to be defrayed by high postage on letters and newspapers, grow out of thisfrankingprivilege; 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‘currying favor’with the influential, and thus‘getting votes next time!’”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:“The object of assembling the representatives of the people isdiscussion, 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 isnota candidate for re-election.“Now, let us suppose that the average number of each member'sdocumentconstituency is but 2500, and that each getsfourfavors only from his servant in congress. This would throw upon the shoulders of each member the labor of procuring, and franking, and directingten thousandspeeches in the course of a session. What more[pg 037]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 aboutthree millionsof this kind of‘fodder.’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.“‘Stranger,’said he,‘I never came to congress before, and I never want to come again. I tellyouthat 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.’I asked,‘How comes on the loan bill in your branch?’‘O, they are spouting away, sir, and here I am franking the speeches. The Lord only knows what is in them.’‘And the Ten Regiment Bill?’‘I know nothing about it, and don't want to. Look at them thar letters,’pointing to a two bushel basket of private correspondence—‘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 myconstituents.’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.”VI.Letter Postage Stamps, for Prepayment.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; 1d., 2d., or 1s., 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.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[pg 038]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.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.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 1d.for postage; that is, eight stamped envelopes are sold for 9d., or 24 for 2s.3d.Stamped half sheets of paper are also furnished by the post-office, a farthing being charged for the paper, besides the 1d.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.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.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.[pg 039]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.The total number of Label Stamps issued in the year ending1d. Stamps.2d. Stamps.5th January, 1841,74,856,9607,587,9605th January, 1842,110,878,3443,391,8005th January, 1843,121,648,0802,866,080——————First three years,307,383,38413,845,840321,229,224 stamps, nominal value,£1,396,146Expense of manufacture and distribution,42,763——————Net proceeds,£1,353,382Average yearly,451,127The present cost of Label Stamps is reported, July 16, 1846, thus:Paper for a million labels,£5 11s.Printing and gumming,25 --Salaries, proportion of,46 10s.Contingencies, poundage, &c.46 10s.————————Cost per million,£79 --The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:Year Ending.Cost.Sold for.Profit.5th January, 1841,£4,268£4,2925th January, 1842,5,5305,4705th January, 1843,5,2905,4155th January, 1844,6,1906,5405th January, 1845,6,9487,261Total, five years,£28,229£28,978£749The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on six years.The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the[pg 040]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.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“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.”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.VII.New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage.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.Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration,[pg 041]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.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.There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, arising from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report:[pg 042]“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.”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.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 2d. 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.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.So great are the advantages of uniformity of rate, in facilitating the administration of the post-office, that there would be a greater loss[pg 043]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.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.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.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.In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay 1d. 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 1d. 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 1s. 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[pg 044]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[pg 045]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 subscription5,075,3204,786,029,240$106,076Daily penny11,408,0007,018,617,000110,400Semi-weekly1,460,4481,442,010,33658,748Weekly11,610,0408,738,546,856334,895Semi-monthly458,400216,314,00031,700Monthly2,583,6001,522,477,200127,100Two months and quarterly37,200143,076,80024,500Annual255,500265,045,30031,565————————————Total32,890,50824,132,117,132$825,074Here 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 postage25,000,000Free and dead papers4,000,000————————Total29,000,000[pg 046]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,[pg 047]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' toprepayat 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, 1d.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 6d.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[pg 048]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[pg 049]“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 1d.sterling, instead of paying, as they now do in England, 8d.when sent by a sailing vessel, and 1s.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, at8,640,458Number of newspapers2,698,376Gross revenue from letters and papers,£301,640Letters sent to and from the United States,744,108Newspapers317,468Postage on letters and papers,£46,548Whole expense of packet service,£761,900In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the cöoperation of a distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says:
“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 thepubliccorrespondence 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.”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:“Theimmediatebenefits 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 beenprofessedlygoverned 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 accrueimmediatelyto them, yet mediately at least they inure to the great benefit of the whole country.”[pg 035]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“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.”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.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“have a more intense appreciation of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time,”than ordinary persons can conceive!It has been said that it will be impossible to secure the services of[pg 036]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.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“National Bribery:”“It has just been stated in congress, that the two houses had orderedfifty-five thousand copiesto 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‘needles in a hay-mow.’Then, this huge quantity of trash, created at this large expense, is to befrankedfor all parts of the country, by way ofcurrying favor and getting votes next time, 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, aboutthree pounds! The aggregate weight of the 55,000 copies, is thereforeeighty-two and a half tons! 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 thefrankingprivilege! Poor patient people!“Such taxes, to be defrayed by high postage on letters and newspapers, grow out of thisfrankingprivilege; 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‘currying favor’with the influential, and thus‘getting votes next time!’”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:“The object of assembling the representatives of the people isdiscussion, 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 isnota candidate for re-election.“Now, let us suppose that the average number of each member'sdocumentconstituency is but 2500, and that each getsfourfavors only from his servant in congress. This would throw upon the shoulders of each member the labor of procuring, and franking, and directingten thousandspeeches in the course of a session. What more[pg 037]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 aboutthree millionsof this kind of‘fodder.’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.“‘Stranger,’said he,‘I never came to congress before, and I never want to come again. I tellyouthat 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.’I asked,‘How comes on the loan bill in your branch?’‘O, they are spouting away, sir, and here I am franking the speeches. The Lord only knows what is in them.’‘And the Ten Regiment Bill?’‘I know nothing about it, and don't want to. Look at them thar letters,’pointing to a two bushel basket of private correspondence—‘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 myconstituents.’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.”VI.Letter Postage Stamps, for Prepayment.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; 1d., 2d., or 1s., 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.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[pg 038]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.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.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 1d.for postage; that is, eight stamped envelopes are sold for 9d., or 24 for 2s.3d.Stamped half sheets of paper are also furnished by the post-office, a farthing being charged for the paper, besides the 1d.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.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.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.[pg 039]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.The total number of Label Stamps issued in the year ending1d. Stamps.2d. Stamps.5th January, 1841,74,856,9607,587,9605th January, 1842,110,878,3443,391,8005th January, 1843,121,648,0802,866,080——————First three years,307,383,38413,845,840321,229,224 stamps, nominal value,£1,396,146Expense of manufacture and distribution,42,763——————Net proceeds,£1,353,382Average yearly,451,127The present cost of Label Stamps is reported, July 16, 1846, thus:Paper for a million labels,£5 11s.Printing and gumming,25 --Salaries, proportion of,46 10s.Contingencies, poundage, &c.46 10s.————————Cost per million,£79 --The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:Year Ending.Cost.Sold for.Profit.5th January, 1841,£4,268£4,2925th January, 1842,5,5305,4705th January, 1843,5,2905,4155th January, 1844,6,1906,5405th January, 1845,6,9487,261Total, five years,£28,229£28,978£749The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on six years.The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the[pg 040]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.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“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.”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.VII.New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage.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.Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration,[pg 041]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.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.There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, arising from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report:[pg 042]“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.”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.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 2d. 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.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.So great are the advantages of uniformity of rate, in facilitating the administration of the post-office, that there would be a greater loss[pg 043]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.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.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.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.In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay 1d. 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 1d. 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 1s. 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[pg 044]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[pg 045]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 subscription5,075,3204,786,029,240$106,076Daily penny11,408,0007,018,617,000110,400Semi-weekly1,460,4481,442,010,33658,748Weekly11,610,0408,738,546,856334,895Semi-monthly458,400216,314,00031,700Monthly2,583,6001,522,477,200127,100Two months and quarterly37,200143,076,80024,500Annual255,500265,045,30031,565————————————Total32,890,50824,132,117,132$825,074Here 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 postage25,000,000Free and dead papers4,000,000————————Total29,000,000[pg 046]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,[pg 047]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' toprepayat 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, 1d.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 6d.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[pg 048]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[pg 049]“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 1d.sterling, instead of paying, as they now do in England, 8d.when sent by a sailing vessel, and 1s.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, at8,640,458Number of newspapers2,698,376Gross revenue from letters and papers,£301,640Letters sent to and from the United States,744,108Newspapers317,468Postage on letters and papers,£46,548Whole expense of packet service,£761,900In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the cöoperation of a distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says:
“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 thepubliccorrespondence 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.”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:“Theimmediatebenefits 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 beenprofessedlygoverned 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 accrueimmediatelyto them, yet mediately at least they inure to the great benefit of the whole country.”[pg 035]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“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.”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.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“have a more intense appreciation of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time,”than ordinary persons can conceive!It has been said that it will be impossible to secure the services of[pg 036]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.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“National Bribery:”“It has just been stated in congress, that the two houses had orderedfifty-five thousand copiesto 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‘needles in a hay-mow.’Then, this huge quantity of trash, created at this large expense, is to befrankedfor all parts of the country, by way ofcurrying favor and getting votes next time, 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, aboutthree pounds! The aggregate weight of the 55,000 copies, is thereforeeighty-two and a half tons! 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 thefrankingprivilege! Poor patient people!“Such taxes, to be defrayed by high postage on letters and newspapers, grow out of thisfrankingprivilege; 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‘currying favor’with the influential, and thus‘getting votes next time!’”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:“The object of assembling the representatives of the people isdiscussion, 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 isnota candidate for re-election.“Now, let us suppose that the average number of each member'sdocumentconstituency is but 2500, and that each getsfourfavors only from his servant in congress. This would throw upon the shoulders of each member the labor of procuring, and franking, and directingten thousandspeeches in the course of a session. What more[pg 037]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 aboutthree millionsof this kind of‘fodder.’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.“‘Stranger,’said he,‘I never came to congress before, and I never want to come again. I tellyouthat 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.’I asked,‘How comes on the loan bill in your branch?’‘O, they are spouting away, sir, and here I am franking the speeches. The Lord only knows what is in them.’‘And the Ten Regiment Bill?’‘I know nothing about it, and don't want to. Look at them thar letters,’pointing to a two bushel basket of private correspondence—‘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 myconstituents.’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.”VI.Letter Postage Stamps, for Prepayment.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; 1d., 2d., or 1s., 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.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[pg 038]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.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.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 1d.for postage; that is, eight stamped envelopes are sold for 9d., or 24 for 2s.3d.Stamped half sheets of paper are also furnished by the post-office, a farthing being charged for the paper, besides the 1d.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.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.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.[pg 039]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.The total number of Label Stamps issued in the year ending1d. Stamps.2d. Stamps.5th January, 1841,74,856,9607,587,9605th January, 1842,110,878,3443,391,8005th January, 1843,121,648,0802,866,080——————First three years,307,383,38413,845,840321,229,224 stamps, nominal value,£1,396,146Expense of manufacture and distribution,42,763——————Net proceeds,£1,353,382Average yearly,451,127The present cost of Label Stamps is reported, July 16, 1846, thus:Paper for a million labels,£5 11s.Printing and gumming,25 --Salaries, proportion of,46 10s.Contingencies, poundage, &c.46 10s.————————Cost per million,£79 --The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:Year Ending.Cost.Sold for.Profit.5th January, 1841,£4,268£4,2925th January, 1842,5,5305,4705th January, 1843,5,2905,4155th January, 1844,6,1906,5405th January, 1845,6,9487,261Total, five years,£28,229£28,978£749The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on six years.The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the[pg 040]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.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“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.”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.VII.New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage.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.Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration,[pg 041]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.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.There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, arising from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report:[pg 042]“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.”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.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 2d. 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.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.So great are the advantages of uniformity of rate, in facilitating the administration of the post-office, that there would be a greater loss[pg 043]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.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.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.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.In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay 1d. 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 1d. 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 1s. 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[pg 044]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[pg 045]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 subscription5,075,3204,786,029,240$106,076Daily penny11,408,0007,018,617,000110,400Semi-weekly1,460,4481,442,010,33658,748Weekly11,610,0408,738,546,856334,895Semi-monthly458,400216,314,00031,700Monthly2,583,6001,522,477,200127,100Two months and quarterly37,200143,076,80024,500Annual255,500265,045,30031,565————————————Total32,890,50824,132,117,132$825,074Here 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 postage25,000,000Free and dead papers4,000,000————————Total29,000,000[pg 046]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,[pg 047]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' toprepayat 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, 1d.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 6d.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[pg 048]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[pg 049]“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 1d.sterling, instead of paying, as they now do in England, 8d.when sent by a sailing vessel, and 1s.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, at8,640,458Number of newspapers2,698,376Gross revenue from letters and papers,£301,640Letters sent to and from the United States,744,108Newspapers317,468Postage on letters and papers,£46,548Whole expense of packet service,£761,900In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the cöoperation of a distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says:
“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 thepubliccorrespondence 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.”
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:
“Theimmediatebenefits 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 beenprofessedlygoverned 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 accrueimmediatelyto them, yet mediately at least they inure to the great benefit of the whole country.”
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“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.”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.
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“have a more intense appreciation of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time,”than ordinary persons can conceive!
It has been said that it will be impossible to secure the services of[pg 036]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.
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“National Bribery:”
“It has just been stated in congress, that the two houses had orderedfifty-five thousand copiesto 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‘needles in a hay-mow.’Then, this huge quantity of trash, created at this large expense, is to befrankedfor all parts of the country, by way ofcurrying favor and getting votes next time, 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, aboutthree pounds! The aggregate weight of the 55,000 copies, is thereforeeighty-two and a half tons! 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 thefrankingprivilege! Poor patient people!
“Such taxes, to be defrayed by high postage on letters and newspapers, grow out of thisfrankingprivilege; 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‘currying favor’with the influential, and thus‘getting votes next time!’”
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:
“The object of assembling the representatives of the people isdiscussion, 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 isnota candidate for re-election.
“Now, let us suppose that the average number of each member'sdocumentconstituency is but 2500, and that each getsfourfavors only from his servant in congress. This would throw upon the shoulders of each member the labor of procuring, and franking, and directingten thousandspeeches in the course of a session. What more[pg 037]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 aboutthree millionsof this kind of‘fodder.’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.
“‘Stranger,’said he,‘I never came to congress before, and I never want to come again. I tellyouthat 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.’I asked,‘How comes on the loan bill in your branch?’‘O, they are spouting away, sir, and here I am franking the speeches. The Lord only knows what is in them.’‘And the Ten Regiment Bill?’‘I know nothing about it, and don't want to. Look at them thar letters,’pointing to a two bushel basket of private correspondence—‘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 myconstituents.’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.”
VI.Letter Postage Stamps, for Prepayment.
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; 1d., 2d., or 1s., 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.
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[pg 038]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.
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.
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 1d.for postage; that is, eight stamped envelopes are sold for 9d., or 24 for 2s.3d.
Stamped half sheets of paper are also furnished by the post-office, a farthing being charged for the paper, besides the 1d.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.
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.
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.
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.
The total number of Label Stamps issued in the year ending
The present cost of Label Stamps is reported, July 16, 1846, thus:
The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:
The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on six years.The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.
Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the[pg 040]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.
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“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.”
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.
VII.New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage.
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.
Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration,[pg 041]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.
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.
There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, arising from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report:[pg 042]“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.”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.
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 2d. 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.
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.
So great are the advantages of uniformity of rate, in facilitating the administration of the post-office, that there would be a greater loss[pg 043]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.
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.
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.
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.
In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay 1d. 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 1d. 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 1s. 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[pg 044]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[pg 045]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.
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:
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,[pg 047]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' toprepayat 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, 1d.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 6d.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[pg 048]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[pg 049]“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 1d.sterling, instead of paying, as they now do in England, 8d.when sent by a sailing vessel, and 1s.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
In addition, he has been so fortunate as to enlist the cöoperation of a distinguished member of parliament, of whom he says: