“At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, &c., transmitted from the United States in 1846, and which have been refused on account of the rates of postage, and are consequently lying dead in the English post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage charged upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that this return will startle the people and government with some remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a farthing, because he asks too much for the job.”By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters by the mail steamers to the United States is now 1s.per half ounce; and on newspapers 2d.each paper. On all letters and papers sent from Great Britain the postage must be prepaid. If not prepaid, they are not sent; but in the case of letters, it is the practice of the post-office to notify persons in this country to whom letters are addressed, that cannot be forwarded for the want of prepayment, that they can have[pg 050]their letters on procuring the prepayment of the required shilling. I have more than once received a printed notice of this kind, designating the number by which my letter could be called for. No additional charge is made for this piece of attention. This fact is significant of the spirit of the cheap postage system. No provision is made by which postage can be prepaid in this country, and consequently, the whole expense of correspondence falls upon the parties in England.Mr. Burritt enumerates some of the inconveniences of the present system, in addition to the positive evil of a burdensome tax upon the letter correspondence between the two countries—a tax which amounts to a suppression of intercourse by letter, to a sad extent.1. The present shilling rate of postage, being exacted on the English side, too, in all cases, and thus throwing the whole cost of correspondence upon the English or European correspondents, greatly diminishes the number of letters which would otherwise be transmitted to and from America, through the English mail.2. In consequence of the present high rate of postage on letters, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, &c., a large amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, liesdeadin the English post-office—a dead loss to the department—the persons to whom it is addressed, refusing to take it out on account of the postal charges upon it.3. Under the present shilling rate, it is both legal and common for passengers to carry a large number ofunsealedletters, which are allowed as letters of introduction, and which, at the end of the voyage, are sealed and mailed in England or America, to persons who thus evade the ocean postage entirely.4. In consequence of the present shilling rate, it is common, as it is legal, for persons to enclose several communications, addressed to different parties, under one envelope, which, on reaching America or England, are remailed to the persons addressed, thus saving to them the whole charge of Ocean Postage. Paper is manufactured purposely tosave postage, and, for this quality, is called“Foreign Post.”He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect iftheyfirst adopt the Ocean Penny Postage.Someof the same considerations ought to have weight with American citizens and American philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producing the conviction, that it is better for the United States to lose no time in adopting this system.1. It would put it into the power of every person in America or England to write to his or her relatives, friends, or other correspondents, across the Atlantic, as often as business or friendship would dictate, or leisure permit.2. It would probably secure to England the whole carrying-trade of the Mail matter, not only between America and Great Britain, but also between the New World and the Old, forever.3. It would break up entirely all clandestine or private conveyance of Mail matter across the ocean, and virtually empty into the English mail bags all the mailable communications, even to invoices, bills of lading, &c.; which, under the old system, have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of emigrants, and in the bales of merchants.4. It would prevent any letters, newspapers, magazines, or pamphlets, from lying dead in the English post-office, on account of the rates of postage charged upon them, and thus relieve the department of the heavy loss which it must sustain, from that cause, under the present system.5. It would enable American correspondents to prepay the postage on their own letters, not only across the ocean, but also from Liverpool or Southampton to any post town or village in the United Kingdom; to prepay it also, toEngland, by putting two English penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America directed to France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, andvice versa.[pg 051]7. It would not only open the cheapest possible medium of correspondence between the Old World and the New, but also one for the transmission of specimens of cotton, woollen, and other manufactures; of seeds, plants, flowers, grasses, woods; of specimens illustrating even geology, entomology, and other departments of useful science; thus creating a new branch of commerce as well as correspondence, which might bring into the English mail bags tons of matter, paying at the rate of 2s.8d.per lb. for carriage.8. It would make English penny postage stamps a kind of international currency, at par on both sides of the Atlantic, and which might be procured without the loss of a farthing by way of exchange, and be transmitted from one country to the other, at less cost for conveyance than the charge upon money orders in England from one post-office to another, for equal sums.One of the strongest recommendations of this measure, and a weighty reason also in favor of the immediate adoption of the whole system of cheap postage, is found in the present derangement of postal intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. These two great nations, the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood, are at this moment“trying to see which can do the other most harm,”by a course of mutual retaliation, which may be known in future history as thewar of posts. It is the opinion of some philosophers, that in wars in general, the party most to blame is the one which gives the heaviest blows; but in this case there arises a new problem, whether each particular blow does the most damage to the party which receives or to the one that gives it. The principal points in the contest I suppose to be these. The American government charges Great Britain five cents postage on all letters in the British packet mails, borne across our country at the expense of Great Britain, to and from the province of Canada. Great Britain in return, charges the United States the full rate of ship postage on all letters in the American packet mails, which touch at a British port on their way to and from the continent of Europe. Then the Postmaster-General of the United States suspends the agreement by which a mutual postage account is kept between his department and the post-office in Canada. And now a bill is before Congress, having actually passed the House of Representatives in one day, by which our own citizens are to pay 24 cents postage on every letter, and 4 cents on every newspaper, brought by the British mail steamers, as a tax to our own post-office, although the same postage has already been prepaid by the sender in England. The tax thus imposed on our own people, in the prosecution of this postal war, will amount to $178,586 a year, no small burden upon a subject of taxation so sensitive as postage, and no trifling obstruction to the intercourse between the two countries, and between the emigrants who find a refuge on our shores and the friends they have left behind. Such a stoppage is peculiarly to be regretted at this juncture, when the number of emigrants is so rapidly increasing, and all the interests of humanity seem to require the utmost freedom and facility of intercourse between the United States and the European world.The proposed bill is intended as a retaliatory measure, and perhaps nothing can be devised more severe in the way of retaliation. It is worthy of inquiry, however, whether there may not be found“a more excellent way,”by means of cheap postage on the ocean as well as on the land. It does not appear but that Great Britain can stand the[pg 052]impost of double postage as easily and as long as we can. But let our government open its mails to carry letters by steam packet between Europe and America for TWO CENTS, and I do not see how Great Britain can stand that. She must succumb. A man who thought he had been injured and was meditating plans of revenge, happened to open his Bible and read the counsel of the wisest of human rulers,—“If thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”The man mused a few minutes, and then rose and clapped his hands, and said,“I'll burn him.”Without touching the merits of the controversy as to which did the first wrong, I must say that the course of the British government, in exacting 1s.per letter on the mails of the American steamers bound to Germany, for barely touching at the port of Southampton, is the mostgougingaffair of any governmental proceeding within my knowledge. It seems to me that our own government would do itself honor by adopting almost any expedient, rather than imitate so bad an example, in this age of the world, as to lay a tax amounting to a prohibition, upon the interchange of knowledge and the flow of the social affections among mankind. It is submitted that the establishment of Ocean Penny Postage by our mail steamers, with an offer of perfect reciprocity to all other countries adopting the same policy, will be quite consistent with our national honor. With the interest which this subject has already acquired in the British nation, and the apparent disposition of that government to yield to the well-expressed wishes of the people, there can be no doubt that this would lead to an immediate adjustment of the pending controversy.The only remaining question respecting Ocean Penny Postage is the statesmanlike and proper one,How is the expense to be paid?In the first place, the government would not be required to pay any more money for the transportation of its mails than they pay now. This great boon can be given to the people without a dollar's additional cost. Our own experience under the postage act of 1845, proves this. While the number of letters is doubled, the whole expense of the post-office is diminished—especially that part which might most naturally be expected to increase, that is, the transportation of the mails. The freight of a barrel of flour, weighing 200 pounds, is about fifty cents. Of course, the equitable price of ten thousand letters added to any given mail, which would not weigh so much as a barrel of flour, would make no assignable difference in the cost upon a single letter. As both sailing ships and steam packets are becoming multiplied, individual competition may now be relied on to keep the price of transportation of mails from ever rising above its present standard. The increase of the number of letters makes but very little addition to the aggregate expense of the post-office. In the first year of the penny postage in England, there were ninety-three millions of letters added to the mails, and only £70,231 to the whole expenditure of the department, including the cost of introducing the new system, with all its apparatus. This amounts to 0.181d.; less than two-tenths of a penny each for the added letters. In 1844, there were 21,000,000 letters added to the circulation, and not a farthing added to the cost. These letters yielded about £90,000 in postage, every penny of which went[pg 053]as net gain into the treasury. I have no means of stating how much of the £450,000 added to the yearly expenditure of the British Post-office, is chargeable to the great increase of facilities and accommodations, both of the public and of the department; but have understood that by far the greater part of it arises from this, and not properly from the mere increase of letters. It may be safely assumed that, for any number of letters now added to the mails in Great Britain, the additional expense will not exceed half a farthing each letter, and the rest will be clear profit to the post-office. As the plan of Ocean Penny Postage includes also the inland postage prepaid in each country, it follows that each country would realize from three-quarters to seven-eighths of a penny advantage on every letter added to the present ocean mails.In addition to all this, there is just as much reason to expect Ocean Postage to increase, as to expect land postage to increase. And as it is proved that, on land, the reduction of price will increase the consumption, so as to produce an equal income, there can be no doubt that, in a little while, if the sea postage is reduced to the cheap standard, the letters and papers sent will increase sufficiently to yield an equal income. And if so, the consequent increase of inland postage and the profits on the same will be clear gain.Add to the immense number of Europe-born people now living in the United States, the children of such, who will retain for two or three generations, their relationship to kindred remaining in the Old World: Add to the half million of European emigrants, who by ordinary calculation would be expected every year, the numbers whom passing events will drive to seek an asylum from European revolutions under the peaceful and permanent government of the American Union: Add to the increase of transatlantic intercourse arising from the increase of commerce, the growth also of advancing civilization and intelligence: Add to the interest which emigration of neighbors and the growth of the country gives to European residents in a correspondence with America, the eager desire which the new times now begun must create to become more familiarly conversant with the new world, whose path of freedom and equality the old countries are all striving to follow: How long will any man say it would take, with a rate of postage across the Atlantic not exceeding two cents per half ounce, before there would be ten millions of letters yearly, instead of three-quarters of a million, the number now carried by the British packet mails? And these would yield more postage than can now be collected at a shilling a letter, besides the profit they would yield on the inland postage. With our own experience under the act, of 1844, and the experience of Great Britain under the act of 1839, it would be unphilosophical to set a longer time than five years as the period that would be required to bring up the product of Ocean Postage to its present amount. And the healthy spring which such a reform would give to commerce, and to every source of national prosperity, and its consequent indirect aid to the public revenues, would justify any government, on mere pecuniary considerations alone, in assuming a heavy expenditure, not only for five years, but permanently, to secure so great an object. I address to my own country, as the nation[pg 054]whom it more appropriately belongs to take so great a step towards universal brotherhood, the fervid appeal which my friend Burritt has made to England:“The irresistible genius and propagation of the English race are fastAnglicizingthe world, and thus centering it around the heart of civilization and commerce. Under the sceptre of England alone, there live, it is said, one hundred and forty million of human beings, embracing all races of men, dwelling between every two degrees of latitude and longitude around the globe. And there is the Anglo-American hemisphere of the English race, doubling its population every twenty-five years, and propelling its propagation through the Western World. And there is the English language, colonized, not only by Christian missions, but by commerce, in every port, on every shore, accessible to an English keel. The heathen of China or Eastern Inde, whilst buying sandal wood for incense to their deities from English or American merchantmen, or trafficing for poisonous drugs; the sable savages that come out of the depth of Africa, to barter on the seaboard their glittering sand, their ivory, ostrich feathers or apes, for articles of English manufacture; the Red Indians of North and South America, as they come from their hunting grounds in the deep wilderness, to sell their spoils to English or American fur companies; the swarthy inhabitants of the ocean islands, as they run to the beach to greet the American whale ship or the English East Indiaman, bringing yams and curious ware to sell to the pale-faced foreigners; all these carry back to their kind and kindred rude lessons in the English language—the meaning of home and household words of the strong, old Saxon tongue, each of which links its possessor to the magnetic chain of English civilization.“What then, should England do, to bring all nations of men within the range of the vital functions of that heart-relation which she sustains to the world?“Answer—let her establish anOcean Penny Postage.”X.The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large Towns.The simple adoption of Uniform Cheap Postage would hardly fail of securing, in the end, all other desirable postal reforms. An act of congress, in five lines, enacting that“hereafter the postage on all letters prepaid, not exceeding half an ounce in weight, shall be two cents; and for each additional half ounce, two cents; and if not prepaid the postage shall be doubled,”would at no distant period, bring in all the other desired improvements. The adoption of cheap postage in Great Britain, greatly improved the system of local delivery of letters and newspapers in the large towns. Formerly, an additional charge of 1d.was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case of letters that had been mailed; and for“drop letters,”or letters delivered in the same town where they are posted, the price was 2d.Now all drop letters are charged at the uniform rate of 1d.the same as mail letters; and the mail letters are delivered by carriers without additional charge—the penny postage paying all. The Postmaster-General prescribes what places shall have the free delivery, and how far it shall extend around each post-office.Beyond those limits, and in places where the free delivery is not judged practicable, the local postmasters are at liberty, on their own discretion, to employ penny-post carriers to deliver letters at the houses of the people, charging 1d.each for delivery, which is a private perquisite—the department taking neither profit nor responsibility in the case. Persons who do not choose to pay the penny-post can refuse to receive letters in that way, and obtain them by calling at the post-office.[pg 055]To facilitate this local free-delivery, there are“receiving houses”established at convenient distances in the town, where letters are deposited for the mails, without a fee, and thence are taken to the post-office in season for the daily mails, or for distribution through the local delivery. These receiving houses are generally established in a drug or stationery store, grocery, or some retail shop, where the nature of the business requires some one to be always in attendance, and where the increase of custom likely to arise from the resort of people with letters is a sufficient consideration for the slight trouble of keeping the office. The letters are taken to the post-office at stated hours, by persons employed for that purpose; those which are to be mailed are separated, and those which are for local delivery sorted and delivered to the carriers to go out by the next delivery. I have not a list of the number or size of the cities and towns within which the free delivery is enjoyed. Its necessary effect in increasing the number of letters sent by mail, and benefiting the country and the government by the aid it furnishes to trade and general prosperity, would seem to be a guaranty that the department would be likely to extend the free delivery as far as it could possibly answer, within the reasonable ability of the government, to meet the reasonable wants of the people.The London District Post was originally a penny post, and was created by private enterprise. One William Dockwra, in the reign of Charles II., set up a private post for the delivery of letters in the city of London, for which the charge was 1d., payable invariably in advance. It was soon taken possession of by the government, and the same rate of postage retained until 1801, when, for the sake of revenue, the postage was doubled, and so remained until the establishment of the general penny postage. Its limits were gradually extended to include the city of Westminster and the borough of Southwark, then all places within a circle of three miles, and finally to twelve miles from the General Post-Office.Within the three miles circle there are 220 receiving houses, of which 180 are within the town portions of the district. At these offices, letters are despatched to the post-office, ten times daily, viz. at 8, 10, and 12, in the morning, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon. Letters are required to be left at the receiving house a quarter of an hour previous to the hour. The letters so left may be expected to be delivered within the three miles circle in about two hours from the hour at which they are sent to the post-office; that is, the 8 o'clock letters are delivered by 10, and so on.There are now ten deliveries daily, within a circle of three miles from the post-office; five deliveries in a circle of six miles, and three deliveries to the circle of twelve miles distance. In the three miles circle, the delivery is completed in one hour and a quarter from the time the carrier leaves the office; in the six miles circle, in two hours, and in the twelve miles circle, in three hours.[pg 056]In 1839, the estimated average of letters passing through the London district post was about one million every four weeks, of which 800,000 or four-fifths were unpaid. In 1842, the average was two millions in four weeks, of which only 100,000, or one-twentieth, were unpaid—ninety-five per cent. being prepaid. In 1847, the number was nearly three millions. These do not include the“General Post;”that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.The General Post letters, however, are distributed on the same principle of free delivery, without extra charge, and the utmost diligence is used by the letter-carriers to find out the persons to whom letters are directed. I was witness to this, in the case of a gentleman from Ohio, who went to England in a merchant ship, without having taken the precaution to give his family any instructions as to the direction of letters. His voyage was somewhat long, and before he had been three days in London, the carrier brought to his lodgings a letter from his wife, which had come in the mail steamer, and the people at the post-office had sought him out, an entire stranger among two millions of people! The General Post letters passing through the London office, were estimated in 1839 at 1,622,147, each four weeks, of which only one-sixth were prepaid. In 1847, they were 8,500,000, of which above ninety-four per cent. were prepaid. This makes the whole number of letters mailed and delivered in London, equal to above 146,000,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calculate that about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free Delivery.As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are prepaid, the delivery is accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them, of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving numbers of letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms and shops, which are open. Most houses where letters are received daily, have letter-boxes by the door, fitted with an ingenious contrivance to guard against robbery, into which prepaid letters can be dropped from the street, to be taken out by a door that is locked on the inside. Thus the great bulk of the letters are delivered with little more trouble or loss of time to the carrier, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many letters are deliverable at one place, which of course lessens the amount of labor chargeable to each one.[pg 057]There are ninety-five bell-men, who call at every door in their several districts once a day, and take letters to the post-office in time for the evening mails. Each one carries a locked bag, with an aperture large enough to drop in a letter, which can only be opened at the post-office. Any person having letters to go by mail, may drop them into this bag, pay the bell-man his fee of 1d., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening.All these carriers are required to assist, at stated times, in the sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails. They are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent business, with chances for advancement in business and wages, according to length of service and merit.A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Postmaster-General of the United States, by Barnabas Bates, Esq., of New York, one of the most able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing date February 7, 1847, urging the adoption of a similar system for the city of New York, and other cities—the postage to be in all cases prepaid. The advantages to be anticipated are thus set forth by Mr. Bates:“The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue to the post-office department.“1. It will be the means of diminishing the number of dead letters and newspapers, which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. The carriers will not carry out letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their pay, consequently the number of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead newspapers, they are sold by cart loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to carry out newspapers, especially if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the many complaints of editors that their subscribers do not get their papers.“2. It will reduce the list of advertised letters which has increased within a few years more than three hundred per cent. The Sun and Tribune of last Saturday, advertised 1700 letters, which cost sixty-eight dollars; if this be the average weekly number, the post-office department or the people must pay for advertising, the sum of three thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars per annum! The list of advertised letters of the Boston post-office, which is semi-monthly, averages from fourteen to sixteen columns of the Boston Times. If efficient carriers were appointed to deliver these letters to their address free of expense, this list would be reduced more than one half; thus a saving would be made in advertising, besides the collection of a large amount of postage. I would further remark, that requiringfour centsto be paid for advertising, in addition to the postage, frequently deters poor people from taking out their letters, and thus the cost of advertising, as well as the postage, are lost to the General Post-office. An efficient free delivery would save the department thousands of dollars every year.“3. A free delivery of letters would increase the revenue by causing the greater portion of the drop letters to be sent through the post-office, instead of the private offices now established in different parts of the city. The only reason why the City Despatch Post failed was, that they charged more than the private penny post offices. But if these letters were delivered free, charging only two cents as drop letters, nearly all the city correspondence would be conveyed through this medium. The increased income from this source alone would in a short time be amply sufficient to pay the salaries of all the carriers.“4. The post-office would not only command all the drop letters, but afford such easy, safe, and cheap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the means of increasing the city and country correspondence to an extent which can hardly be estimated. Thousands and tens of thousands of letters which are now sent by private hands, or through the private penny post, would then be deposited in the United States sub post-offices, both for city delivery and to be forwarded by the mails.”[pg 058]The extent to which such a system of Free Delivery could properly be introduced in this country, can only be determined by experiment. That is, to decide in how many and what towns there shall be a Free Delivery, and how far from the post-office the Free Delivery shall be carried, experience must be the guide. A city and its suburbs might all be included in one arrangement, as New York with Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Jersey City; Boston with Charlestown, Cambridge, Chelsea and Roxbury; and as population increases and intercourse extends, other places might be included.Such a system would make a vast amount of business for itself, as people learned the advantages of so easy a correspondence—especially in those places which may admit of two or more deliveries a day. It would also tend to facilitate and stimulate and increase the general business of the place, and this would in turn increase the business of the post-office. The establishment of Free Delivery in any city or large town, would tend to increase the correspondence of the country with such town. Every addition to the number of letters delivered, would lessen the average cost of delivery of each letter, and thus increase the net profits of the institution. In these ways the department would feel its way along, in the extension of Free Delivery from one class of towns to another, until, at no distant day, it would be found that its benefits were far more widely diffusible than the most sanguine could now anticipate.On the subject of the cost of delivery, the parliamentary committee obtained many valuable items of information. Mr. Reid, of London, said he got a thousand circulars delivered lately, for a foreigner. The gentleman had intended to send them through the post-office, paying the postage. Mr. Reid told him he would get them delivered a great deal cheaper. He gave them to a very trusty person, who delivered them all in the course of a week, at the expense of £1 2s. 3d. They were certain he delivered them; for nearly every time they sent him out, they took care to misdirect two or three, taking an account of the false direction, and he invariably brought back these letters, because he could not find the persons to whom they were directed. The postage of these circulars, at 1d. would have been £4 3s. 4d. Here was a saving of £3 1s. 1d. in one job. The expense of delivery was 1-1/14 farthing per letter. Of course, regular carriers, in their accustomed routes, could deliver prepaid letters at a much cheaper rate than this.During the parliamentary investigations on the subject of cheap postage, a plan was suggested, of establishing what were called secondary mails, to reach every village and hamlet in the country. These secondary mails were to run from each post-town to the surrounding places, and deliver letters for an additional charge of 1d. But on consideration it was found impracticable to clog the general system with this addition. Uniformity was everything, to the system. And they could not establish any uniform rate which would answer both for the post-towns and for the hamlets. The rate which would pay for the towns, would not pay for mails to the hamlets. And the rate which was necessary for the hamlets, was too high for the towns, andthe contraband conveyance would still continue. Consequently,[pg 059]the post-office would have to distribute the letters to the smaller places, where the distribution is attended with the greatest cost and the smallest profits. In the end, the rule of uniformity was left unbroken, and it was left to future experience or local arrangement to meet the wants of the smaller places, not now reached by the mails. The local postmasters are to make such arrangements as they deem proper in their respective neighborhoods, as to the employment of penny-post carriers to distribute the letters at the houses of the people.To show the working of multiplication and division in the increase of profits, and the very low rate at which a service similar to that of free delivery can be performed, let us look at the newspapers. The principal daily papers in Boston are served to subscribers by carriers, at the expense of the publishers. Deducting Sundays and holidays, there are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost of 25 to 50 cents for each subscriber. Taking the highest cost, and you pay 1.6millsfor each paper delivered—less than one-sixth of a cent.The penny papers are served to subscribers by carriers, who have regular beats or districts; and who furnish their patrons for six cents per week. These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at 62 to 75 cents per 100; so that their profits on each paper are from one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper promptly every morning, and collect the money on Saturday, running, of course, some risk of losses by bad debts, &c. And yet this business is found to be so profitable that some routes in New York have been sold, that is, the good will transferred, for at least $500, just for the privilege of serving that district.The two-cent papers from New York are regularly served to customers in Boston. A person engaged in this business used to buy the New York Express, Tribune, and Herald, for 1¼ to 1½ cents each. He paid the cost of bringing them by express from New York. To guard against failures, he divided his bundles, and had a part sent by way of Norwich, and a part by Stonington. He then served them to subscribers all over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections on Saturday. This man made money, so that in a few years he sold out his route and business in the New York papers, and purchased an interest in a flourishing penny paper in Boston, of which he is now one of the publishers.[pg 060]XI.The Expense of Cheap Postage, and how it is to be paid.It is quite important to have it understood, in all parts of the country, that the friends of postal reform have no desire to curtail the public accommodations now enjoyed, in the slightest degree—unless in cases of manifest abuse. Neither do they consider that too much money is paid by our government to furnish the people with the privileges of the mail. We desire rather to see the benefits and conveniences of the post-office greatly increased, as well as brought more within the reach of all the population. The bill for establishing cheap postage should therefore contain a distinct declaration that the mail facilities of the country shall not be curtailed, but shall be liberally extended, with the spread and increase of population, so as to give, as far as the ability of the government will admit, the best practicable accommodations to every citizen of the republic.It ought also to be provided that the Postmaster-General shall have it in his power, according to his discretion, whenever justice may require, to continue the compensation of all postmasters equal to their present rates, in proportion to the amount of services rendered, or labor performed. It is not easy, at present, to decide how much the labor of keeping the post-office will be lessened, by the adoption of uniform rates, and prepayment. Certainly, the reduction will be very considerable. And experience will hereafter suggest a new scale of compensations adapted to the new methods of doing the business.The falling off in the gross receipts of the British post-office, on the first adoption of the new system, was upwards of a million sterling, being nearly 43 per cent. on the whole amount. A corresponding reduction from the income of our own post-office would amount to $1,696,734. But the falling off would not be so great. The reduction of postage in that case was from 7-½d. on an average, to 1d., while in ours it would barely prove an average of 6-½ cents to 2 cents. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect a very rapid increase of letters, because the partial reduction in 1845 has already given the people a taste of the advantages of reduced rates of postage. The whole number of letters now sent by mail is 52,000,000. The number would, without doubt, be doubled in one year, which would give a revenue of above $2,000,000; $2,080,000 from letters. There would also be a very considerable increase of income from papers and pamphlets, and a great saving in the article of dead letters and newspapers. It is safe to estimate the revenue of the post-office, under the new system, at $3,000,000 for the first year, $3,500,000 for the second, $4,000,000 for the third, and $4,500,000 for the fourth, which will bring it up to what will then be the wants of the service, making the most liberal allowance for improved facilities.As an illustration of the capability of retrenchment in expense, let it be remembered that the present Postmaster-General has effected a reduction of nearlya million dollars per annum in the cost of transportation alone. He says in his Report:
“At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, &c., transmitted from the United States in 1846, and which have been refused on account of the rates of postage, and are consequently lying dead in the English post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage charged upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that this return will startle the people and government with some remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a farthing, because he asks too much for the job.”By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters by the mail steamers to the United States is now 1s.per half ounce; and on newspapers 2d.each paper. On all letters and papers sent from Great Britain the postage must be prepaid. If not prepaid, they are not sent; but in the case of letters, it is the practice of the post-office to notify persons in this country to whom letters are addressed, that cannot be forwarded for the want of prepayment, that they can have[pg 050]their letters on procuring the prepayment of the required shilling. I have more than once received a printed notice of this kind, designating the number by which my letter could be called for. No additional charge is made for this piece of attention. This fact is significant of the spirit of the cheap postage system. No provision is made by which postage can be prepaid in this country, and consequently, the whole expense of correspondence falls upon the parties in England.Mr. Burritt enumerates some of the inconveniences of the present system, in addition to the positive evil of a burdensome tax upon the letter correspondence between the two countries—a tax which amounts to a suppression of intercourse by letter, to a sad extent.1. The present shilling rate of postage, being exacted on the English side, too, in all cases, and thus throwing the whole cost of correspondence upon the English or European correspondents, greatly diminishes the number of letters which would otherwise be transmitted to and from America, through the English mail.2. In consequence of the present high rate of postage on letters, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, &c., a large amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, liesdeadin the English post-office—a dead loss to the department—the persons to whom it is addressed, refusing to take it out on account of the postal charges upon it.3. Under the present shilling rate, it is both legal and common for passengers to carry a large number ofunsealedletters, which are allowed as letters of introduction, and which, at the end of the voyage, are sealed and mailed in England or America, to persons who thus evade the ocean postage entirely.4. In consequence of the present shilling rate, it is common, as it is legal, for persons to enclose several communications, addressed to different parties, under one envelope, which, on reaching America or England, are remailed to the persons addressed, thus saving to them the whole charge of Ocean Postage. Paper is manufactured purposely tosave postage, and, for this quality, is called“Foreign Post.”He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect iftheyfirst adopt the Ocean Penny Postage.Someof the same considerations ought to have weight with American citizens and American philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producing the conviction, that it is better for the United States to lose no time in adopting this system.1. It would put it into the power of every person in America or England to write to his or her relatives, friends, or other correspondents, across the Atlantic, as often as business or friendship would dictate, or leisure permit.2. It would probably secure to England the whole carrying-trade of the Mail matter, not only between America and Great Britain, but also between the New World and the Old, forever.3. It would break up entirely all clandestine or private conveyance of Mail matter across the ocean, and virtually empty into the English mail bags all the mailable communications, even to invoices, bills of lading, &c.; which, under the old system, have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of emigrants, and in the bales of merchants.4. It would prevent any letters, newspapers, magazines, or pamphlets, from lying dead in the English post-office, on account of the rates of postage charged upon them, and thus relieve the department of the heavy loss which it must sustain, from that cause, under the present system.5. It would enable American correspondents to prepay the postage on their own letters, not only across the ocean, but also from Liverpool or Southampton to any post town or village in the United Kingdom; to prepay it also, toEngland, by putting two English penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America directed to France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, andvice versa.[pg 051]7. It would not only open the cheapest possible medium of correspondence between the Old World and the New, but also one for the transmission of specimens of cotton, woollen, and other manufactures; of seeds, plants, flowers, grasses, woods; of specimens illustrating even geology, entomology, and other departments of useful science; thus creating a new branch of commerce as well as correspondence, which might bring into the English mail bags tons of matter, paying at the rate of 2s.8d.per lb. for carriage.8. It would make English penny postage stamps a kind of international currency, at par on both sides of the Atlantic, and which might be procured without the loss of a farthing by way of exchange, and be transmitted from one country to the other, at less cost for conveyance than the charge upon money orders in England from one post-office to another, for equal sums.One of the strongest recommendations of this measure, and a weighty reason also in favor of the immediate adoption of the whole system of cheap postage, is found in the present derangement of postal intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. These two great nations, the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood, are at this moment“trying to see which can do the other most harm,”by a course of mutual retaliation, which may be known in future history as thewar of posts. It is the opinion of some philosophers, that in wars in general, the party most to blame is the one which gives the heaviest blows; but in this case there arises a new problem, whether each particular blow does the most damage to the party which receives or to the one that gives it. The principal points in the contest I suppose to be these. The American government charges Great Britain five cents postage on all letters in the British packet mails, borne across our country at the expense of Great Britain, to and from the province of Canada. Great Britain in return, charges the United States the full rate of ship postage on all letters in the American packet mails, which touch at a British port on their way to and from the continent of Europe. Then the Postmaster-General of the United States suspends the agreement by which a mutual postage account is kept between his department and the post-office in Canada. And now a bill is before Congress, having actually passed the House of Representatives in one day, by which our own citizens are to pay 24 cents postage on every letter, and 4 cents on every newspaper, brought by the British mail steamers, as a tax to our own post-office, although the same postage has already been prepaid by the sender in England. The tax thus imposed on our own people, in the prosecution of this postal war, will amount to $178,586 a year, no small burden upon a subject of taxation so sensitive as postage, and no trifling obstruction to the intercourse between the two countries, and between the emigrants who find a refuge on our shores and the friends they have left behind. Such a stoppage is peculiarly to be regretted at this juncture, when the number of emigrants is so rapidly increasing, and all the interests of humanity seem to require the utmost freedom and facility of intercourse between the United States and the European world.The proposed bill is intended as a retaliatory measure, and perhaps nothing can be devised more severe in the way of retaliation. It is worthy of inquiry, however, whether there may not be found“a more excellent way,”by means of cheap postage on the ocean as well as on the land. It does not appear but that Great Britain can stand the[pg 052]impost of double postage as easily and as long as we can. But let our government open its mails to carry letters by steam packet between Europe and America for TWO CENTS, and I do not see how Great Britain can stand that. She must succumb. A man who thought he had been injured and was meditating plans of revenge, happened to open his Bible and read the counsel of the wisest of human rulers,—“If thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”The man mused a few minutes, and then rose and clapped his hands, and said,“I'll burn him.”Without touching the merits of the controversy as to which did the first wrong, I must say that the course of the British government, in exacting 1s.per letter on the mails of the American steamers bound to Germany, for barely touching at the port of Southampton, is the mostgougingaffair of any governmental proceeding within my knowledge. It seems to me that our own government would do itself honor by adopting almost any expedient, rather than imitate so bad an example, in this age of the world, as to lay a tax amounting to a prohibition, upon the interchange of knowledge and the flow of the social affections among mankind. It is submitted that the establishment of Ocean Penny Postage by our mail steamers, with an offer of perfect reciprocity to all other countries adopting the same policy, will be quite consistent with our national honor. With the interest which this subject has already acquired in the British nation, and the apparent disposition of that government to yield to the well-expressed wishes of the people, there can be no doubt that this would lead to an immediate adjustment of the pending controversy.The only remaining question respecting Ocean Penny Postage is the statesmanlike and proper one,How is the expense to be paid?In the first place, the government would not be required to pay any more money for the transportation of its mails than they pay now. This great boon can be given to the people without a dollar's additional cost. Our own experience under the postage act of 1845, proves this. While the number of letters is doubled, the whole expense of the post-office is diminished—especially that part which might most naturally be expected to increase, that is, the transportation of the mails. The freight of a barrel of flour, weighing 200 pounds, is about fifty cents. Of course, the equitable price of ten thousand letters added to any given mail, which would not weigh so much as a barrel of flour, would make no assignable difference in the cost upon a single letter. As both sailing ships and steam packets are becoming multiplied, individual competition may now be relied on to keep the price of transportation of mails from ever rising above its present standard. The increase of the number of letters makes but very little addition to the aggregate expense of the post-office. In the first year of the penny postage in England, there were ninety-three millions of letters added to the mails, and only £70,231 to the whole expenditure of the department, including the cost of introducing the new system, with all its apparatus. This amounts to 0.181d.; less than two-tenths of a penny each for the added letters. In 1844, there were 21,000,000 letters added to the circulation, and not a farthing added to the cost. These letters yielded about £90,000 in postage, every penny of which went[pg 053]as net gain into the treasury. I have no means of stating how much of the £450,000 added to the yearly expenditure of the British Post-office, is chargeable to the great increase of facilities and accommodations, both of the public and of the department; but have understood that by far the greater part of it arises from this, and not properly from the mere increase of letters. It may be safely assumed that, for any number of letters now added to the mails in Great Britain, the additional expense will not exceed half a farthing each letter, and the rest will be clear profit to the post-office. As the plan of Ocean Penny Postage includes also the inland postage prepaid in each country, it follows that each country would realize from three-quarters to seven-eighths of a penny advantage on every letter added to the present ocean mails.In addition to all this, there is just as much reason to expect Ocean Postage to increase, as to expect land postage to increase. And as it is proved that, on land, the reduction of price will increase the consumption, so as to produce an equal income, there can be no doubt that, in a little while, if the sea postage is reduced to the cheap standard, the letters and papers sent will increase sufficiently to yield an equal income. And if so, the consequent increase of inland postage and the profits on the same will be clear gain.Add to the immense number of Europe-born people now living in the United States, the children of such, who will retain for two or three generations, their relationship to kindred remaining in the Old World: Add to the half million of European emigrants, who by ordinary calculation would be expected every year, the numbers whom passing events will drive to seek an asylum from European revolutions under the peaceful and permanent government of the American Union: Add to the increase of transatlantic intercourse arising from the increase of commerce, the growth also of advancing civilization and intelligence: Add to the interest which emigration of neighbors and the growth of the country gives to European residents in a correspondence with America, the eager desire which the new times now begun must create to become more familiarly conversant with the new world, whose path of freedom and equality the old countries are all striving to follow: How long will any man say it would take, with a rate of postage across the Atlantic not exceeding two cents per half ounce, before there would be ten millions of letters yearly, instead of three-quarters of a million, the number now carried by the British packet mails? And these would yield more postage than can now be collected at a shilling a letter, besides the profit they would yield on the inland postage. With our own experience under the act, of 1844, and the experience of Great Britain under the act of 1839, it would be unphilosophical to set a longer time than five years as the period that would be required to bring up the product of Ocean Postage to its present amount. And the healthy spring which such a reform would give to commerce, and to every source of national prosperity, and its consequent indirect aid to the public revenues, would justify any government, on mere pecuniary considerations alone, in assuming a heavy expenditure, not only for five years, but permanently, to secure so great an object. I address to my own country, as the nation[pg 054]whom it more appropriately belongs to take so great a step towards universal brotherhood, the fervid appeal which my friend Burritt has made to England:“The irresistible genius and propagation of the English race are fastAnglicizingthe world, and thus centering it around the heart of civilization and commerce. Under the sceptre of England alone, there live, it is said, one hundred and forty million of human beings, embracing all races of men, dwelling between every two degrees of latitude and longitude around the globe. And there is the Anglo-American hemisphere of the English race, doubling its population every twenty-five years, and propelling its propagation through the Western World. And there is the English language, colonized, not only by Christian missions, but by commerce, in every port, on every shore, accessible to an English keel. The heathen of China or Eastern Inde, whilst buying sandal wood for incense to their deities from English or American merchantmen, or trafficing for poisonous drugs; the sable savages that come out of the depth of Africa, to barter on the seaboard their glittering sand, their ivory, ostrich feathers or apes, for articles of English manufacture; the Red Indians of North and South America, as they come from their hunting grounds in the deep wilderness, to sell their spoils to English or American fur companies; the swarthy inhabitants of the ocean islands, as they run to the beach to greet the American whale ship or the English East Indiaman, bringing yams and curious ware to sell to the pale-faced foreigners; all these carry back to their kind and kindred rude lessons in the English language—the meaning of home and household words of the strong, old Saxon tongue, each of which links its possessor to the magnetic chain of English civilization.“What then, should England do, to bring all nations of men within the range of the vital functions of that heart-relation which she sustains to the world?“Answer—let her establish anOcean Penny Postage.”X.The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large Towns.The simple adoption of Uniform Cheap Postage would hardly fail of securing, in the end, all other desirable postal reforms. An act of congress, in five lines, enacting that“hereafter the postage on all letters prepaid, not exceeding half an ounce in weight, shall be two cents; and for each additional half ounce, two cents; and if not prepaid the postage shall be doubled,”would at no distant period, bring in all the other desired improvements. The adoption of cheap postage in Great Britain, greatly improved the system of local delivery of letters and newspapers in the large towns. Formerly, an additional charge of 1d.was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case of letters that had been mailed; and for“drop letters,”or letters delivered in the same town where they are posted, the price was 2d.Now all drop letters are charged at the uniform rate of 1d.the same as mail letters; and the mail letters are delivered by carriers without additional charge—the penny postage paying all. The Postmaster-General prescribes what places shall have the free delivery, and how far it shall extend around each post-office.Beyond those limits, and in places where the free delivery is not judged practicable, the local postmasters are at liberty, on their own discretion, to employ penny-post carriers to deliver letters at the houses of the people, charging 1d.each for delivery, which is a private perquisite—the department taking neither profit nor responsibility in the case. Persons who do not choose to pay the penny-post can refuse to receive letters in that way, and obtain them by calling at the post-office.[pg 055]To facilitate this local free-delivery, there are“receiving houses”established at convenient distances in the town, where letters are deposited for the mails, without a fee, and thence are taken to the post-office in season for the daily mails, or for distribution through the local delivery. These receiving houses are generally established in a drug or stationery store, grocery, or some retail shop, where the nature of the business requires some one to be always in attendance, and where the increase of custom likely to arise from the resort of people with letters is a sufficient consideration for the slight trouble of keeping the office. The letters are taken to the post-office at stated hours, by persons employed for that purpose; those which are to be mailed are separated, and those which are for local delivery sorted and delivered to the carriers to go out by the next delivery. I have not a list of the number or size of the cities and towns within which the free delivery is enjoyed. Its necessary effect in increasing the number of letters sent by mail, and benefiting the country and the government by the aid it furnishes to trade and general prosperity, would seem to be a guaranty that the department would be likely to extend the free delivery as far as it could possibly answer, within the reasonable ability of the government, to meet the reasonable wants of the people.The London District Post was originally a penny post, and was created by private enterprise. One William Dockwra, in the reign of Charles II., set up a private post for the delivery of letters in the city of London, for which the charge was 1d., payable invariably in advance. It was soon taken possession of by the government, and the same rate of postage retained until 1801, when, for the sake of revenue, the postage was doubled, and so remained until the establishment of the general penny postage. Its limits were gradually extended to include the city of Westminster and the borough of Southwark, then all places within a circle of three miles, and finally to twelve miles from the General Post-Office.Within the three miles circle there are 220 receiving houses, of which 180 are within the town portions of the district. At these offices, letters are despatched to the post-office, ten times daily, viz. at 8, 10, and 12, in the morning, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon. Letters are required to be left at the receiving house a quarter of an hour previous to the hour. The letters so left may be expected to be delivered within the three miles circle in about two hours from the hour at which they are sent to the post-office; that is, the 8 o'clock letters are delivered by 10, and so on.There are now ten deliveries daily, within a circle of three miles from the post-office; five deliveries in a circle of six miles, and three deliveries to the circle of twelve miles distance. In the three miles circle, the delivery is completed in one hour and a quarter from the time the carrier leaves the office; in the six miles circle, in two hours, and in the twelve miles circle, in three hours.[pg 056]In 1839, the estimated average of letters passing through the London district post was about one million every four weeks, of which 800,000 or four-fifths were unpaid. In 1842, the average was two millions in four weeks, of which only 100,000, or one-twentieth, were unpaid—ninety-five per cent. being prepaid. In 1847, the number was nearly three millions. These do not include the“General Post;”that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.The General Post letters, however, are distributed on the same principle of free delivery, without extra charge, and the utmost diligence is used by the letter-carriers to find out the persons to whom letters are directed. I was witness to this, in the case of a gentleman from Ohio, who went to England in a merchant ship, without having taken the precaution to give his family any instructions as to the direction of letters. His voyage was somewhat long, and before he had been three days in London, the carrier brought to his lodgings a letter from his wife, which had come in the mail steamer, and the people at the post-office had sought him out, an entire stranger among two millions of people! The General Post letters passing through the London office, were estimated in 1839 at 1,622,147, each four weeks, of which only one-sixth were prepaid. In 1847, they were 8,500,000, of which above ninety-four per cent. were prepaid. This makes the whole number of letters mailed and delivered in London, equal to above 146,000,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calculate that about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free Delivery.As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are prepaid, the delivery is accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them, of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving numbers of letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms and shops, which are open. Most houses where letters are received daily, have letter-boxes by the door, fitted with an ingenious contrivance to guard against robbery, into which prepaid letters can be dropped from the street, to be taken out by a door that is locked on the inside. Thus the great bulk of the letters are delivered with little more trouble or loss of time to the carrier, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many letters are deliverable at one place, which of course lessens the amount of labor chargeable to each one.[pg 057]There are ninety-five bell-men, who call at every door in their several districts once a day, and take letters to the post-office in time for the evening mails. Each one carries a locked bag, with an aperture large enough to drop in a letter, which can only be opened at the post-office. Any person having letters to go by mail, may drop them into this bag, pay the bell-man his fee of 1d., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening.All these carriers are required to assist, at stated times, in the sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails. They are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent business, with chances for advancement in business and wages, according to length of service and merit.A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Postmaster-General of the United States, by Barnabas Bates, Esq., of New York, one of the most able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing date February 7, 1847, urging the adoption of a similar system for the city of New York, and other cities—the postage to be in all cases prepaid. The advantages to be anticipated are thus set forth by Mr. Bates:“The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue to the post-office department.“1. It will be the means of diminishing the number of dead letters and newspapers, which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. The carriers will not carry out letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their pay, consequently the number of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead newspapers, they are sold by cart loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to carry out newspapers, especially if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the many complaints of editors that their subscribers do not get their papers.“2. It will reduce the list of advertised letters which has increased within a few years more than three hundred per cent. The Sun and Tribune of last Saturday, advertised 1700 letters, which cost sixty-eight dollars; if this be the average weekly number, the post-office department or the people must pay for advertising, the sum of three thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars per annum! The list of advertised letters of the Boston post-office, which is semi-monthly, averages from fourteen to sixteen columns of the Boston Times. If efficient carriers were appointed to deliver these letters to their address free of expense, this list would be reduced more than one half; thus a saving would be made in advertising, besides the collection of a large amount of postage. I would further remark, that requiringfour centsto be paid for advertising, in addition to the postage, frequently deters poor people from taking out their letters, and thus the cost of advertising, as well as the postage, are lost to the General Post-office. An efficient free delivery would save the department thousands of dollars every year.“3. A free delivery of letters would increase the revenue by causing the greater portion of the drop letters to be sent through the post-office, instead of the private offices now established in different parts of the city. The only reason why the City Despatch Post failed was, that they charged more than the private penny post offices. But if these letters were delivered free, charging only two cents as drop letters, nearly all the city correspondence would be conveyed through this medium. The increased income from this source alone would in a short time be amply sufficient to pay the salaries of all the carriers.“4. The post-office would not only command all the drop letters, but afford such easy, safe, and cheap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the means of increasing the city and country correspondence to an extent which can hardly be estimated. Thousands and tens of thousands of letters which are now sent by private hands, or through the private penny post, would then be deposited in the United States sub post-offices, both for city delivery and to be forwarded by the mails.”[pg 058]The extent to which such a system of Free Delivery could properly be introduced in this country, can only be determined by experiment. That is, to decide in how many and what towns there shall be a Free Delivery, and how far from the post-office the Free Delivery shall be carried, experience must be the guide. A city and its suburbs might all be included in one arrangement, as New York with Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Jersey City; Boston with Charlestown, Cambridge, Chelsea and Roxbury; and as population increases and intercourse extends, other places might be included.Such a system would make a vast amount of business for itself, as people learned the advantages of so easy a correspondence—especially in those places which may admit of two or more deliveries a day. It would also tend to facilitate and stimulate and increase the general business of the place, and this would in turn increase the business of the post-office. The establishment of Free Delivery in any city or large town, would tend to increase the correspondence of the country with such town. Every addition to the number of letters delivered, would lessen the average cost of delivery of each letter, and thus increase the net profits of the institution. In these ways the department would feel its way along, in the extension of Free Delivery from one class of towns to another, until, at no distant day, it would be found that its benefits were far more widely diffusible than the most sanguine could now anticipate.On the subject of the cost of delivery, the parliamentary committee obtained many valuable items of information. Mr. Reid, of London, said he got a thousand circulars delivered lately, for a foreigner. The gentleman had intended to send them through the post-office, paying the postage. Mr. Reid told him he would get them delivered a great deal cheaper. He gave them to a very trusty person, who delivered them all in the course of a week, at the expense of £1 2s. 3d. They were certain he delivered them; for nearly every time they sent him out, they took care to misdirect two or three, taking an account of the false direction, and he invariably brought back these letters, because he could not find the persons to whom they were directed. The postage of these circulars, at 1d. would have been £4 3s. 4d. Here was a saving of £3 1s. 1d. in one job. The expense of delivery was 1-1/14 farthing per letter. Of course, regular carriers, in their accustomed routes, could deliver prepaid letters at a much cheaper rate than this.During the parliamentary investigations on the subject of cheap postage, a plan was suggested, of establishing what were called secondary mails, to reach every village and hamlet in the country. These secondary mails were to run from each post-town to the surrounding places, and deliver letters for an additional charge of 1d. But on consideration it was found impracticable to clog the general system with this addition. Uniformity was everything, to the system. And they could not establish any uniform rate which would answer both for the post-towns and for the hamlets. The rate which would pay for the towns, would not pay for mails to the hamlets. And the rate which was necessary for the hamlets, was too high for the towns, andthe contraband conveyance would still continue. Consequently,[pg 059]the post-office would have to distribute the letters to the smaller places, where the distribution is attended with the greatest cost and the smallest profits. In the end, the rule of uniformity was left unbroken, and it was left to future experience or local arrangement to meet the wants of the smaller places, not now reached by the mails. The local postmasters are to make such arrangements as they deem proper in their respective neighborhoods, as to the employment of penny-post carriers to distribute the letters at the houses of the people.To show the working of multiplication and division in the increase of profits, and the very low rate at which a service similar to that of free delivery can be performed, let us look at the newspapers. The principal daily papers in Boston are served to subscribers by carriers, at the expense of the publishers. Deducting Sundays and holidays, there are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost of 25 to 50 cents for each subscriber. Taking the highest cost, and you pay 1.6millsfor each paper delivered—less than one-sixth of a cent.The penny papers are served to subscribers by carriers, who have regular beats or districts; and who furnish their patrons for six cents per week. These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at 62 to 75 cents per 100; so that their profits on each paper are from one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper promptly every morning, and collect the money on Saturday, running, of course, some risk of losses by bad debts, &c. And yet this business is found to be so profitable that some routes in New York have been sold, that is, the good will transferred, for at least $500, just for the privilege of serving that district.The two-cent papers from New York are regularly served to customers in Boston. A person engaged in this business used to buy the New York Express, Tribune, and Herald, for 1¼ to 1½ cents each. He paid the cost of bringing them by express from New York. To guard against failures, he divided his bundles, and had a part sent by way of Norwich, and a part by Stonington. He then served them to subscribers all over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections on Saturday. This man made money, so that in a few years he sold out his route and business in the New York papers, and purchased an interest in a flourishing penny paper in Boston, of which he is now one of the publishers.[pg 060]XI.The Expense of Cheap Postage, and how it is to be paid.It is quite important to have it understood, in all parts of the country, that the friends of postal reform have no desire to curtail the public accommodations now enjoyed, in the slightest degree—unless in cases of manifest abuse. Neither do they consider that too much money is paid by our government to furnish the people with the privileges of the mail. We desire rather to see the benefits and conveniences of the post-office greatly increased, as well as brought more within the reach of all the population. The bill for establishing cheap postage should therefore contain a distinct declaration that the mail facilities of the country shall not be curtailed, but shall be liberally extended, with the spread and increase of population, so as to give, as far as the ability of the government will admit, the best practicable accommodations to every citizen of the republic.It ought also to be provided that the Postmaster-General shall have it in his power, according to his discretion, whenever justice may require, to continue the compensation of all postmasters equal to their present rates, in proportion to the amount of services rendered, or labor performed. It is not easy, at present, to decide how much the labor of keeping the post-office will be lessened, by the adoption of uniform rates, and prepayment. Certainly, the reduction will be very considerable. And experience will hereafter suggest a new scale of compensations adapted to the new methods of doing the business.The falling off in the gross receipts of the British post-office, on the first adoption of the new system, was upwards of a million sterling, being nearly 43 per cent. on the whole amount. A corresponding reduction from the income of our own post-office would amount to $1,696,734. But the falling off would not be so great. The reduction of postage in that case was from 7-½d. on an average, to 1d., while in ours it would barely prove an average of 6-½ cents to 2 cents. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect a very rapid increase of letters, because the partial reduction in 1845 has already given the people a taste of the advantages of reduced rates of postage. The whole number of letters now sent by mail is 52,000,000. The number would, without doubt, be doubled in one year, which would give a revenue of above $2,000,000; $2,080,000 from letters. There would also be a very considerable increase of income from papers and pamphlets, and a great saving in the article of dead letters and newspapers. It is safe to estimate the revenue of the post-office, under the new system, at $3,000,000 for the first year, $3,500,000 for the second, $4,000,000 for the third, and $4,500,000 for the fourth, which will bring it up to what will then be the wants of the service, making the most liberal allowance for improved facilities.As an illustration of the capability of retrenchment in expense, let it be remembered that the present Postmaster-General has effected a reduction of nearlya million dollars per annum in the cost of transportation alone. He says in his Report:
“At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, &c., transmitted from the United States in 1846, and which have been refused on account of the rates of postage, and are consequently lying dead in the English post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage charged upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that this return will startle the people and government with some remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a farthing, because he asks too much for the job.”By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters by the mail steamers to the United States is now 1s.per half ounce; and on newspapers 2d.each paper. On all letters and papers sent from Great Britain the postage must be prepaid. If not prepaid, they are not sent; but in the case of letters, it is the practice of the post-office to notify persons in this country to whom letters are addressed, that cannot be forwarded for the want of prepayment, that they can have[pg 050]their letters on procuring the prepayment of the required shilling. I have more than once received a printed notice of this kind, designating the number by which my letter could be called for. No additional charge is made for this piece of attention. This fact is significant of the spirit of the cheap postage system. No provision is made by which postage can be prepaid in this country, and consequently, the whole expense of correspondence falls upon the parties in England.Mr. Burritt enumerates some of the inconveniences of the present system, in addition to the positive evil of a burdensome tax upon the letter correspondence between the two countries—a tax which amounts to a suppression of intercourse by letter, to a sad extent.1. The present shilling rate of postage, being exacted on the English side, too, in all cases, and thus throwing the whole cost of correspondence upon the English or European correspondents, greatly diminishes the number of letters which would otherwise be transmitted to and from America, through the English mail.2. In consequence of the present high rate of postage on letters, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, &c., a large amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, liesdeadin the English post-office—a dead loss to the department—the persons to whom it is addressed, refusing to take it out on account of the postal charges upon it.3. Under the present shilling rate, it is both legal and common for passengers to carry a large number ofunsealedletters, which are allowed as letters of introduction, and which, at the end of the voyage, are sealed and mailed in England or America, to persons who thus evade the ocean postage entirely.4. In consequence of the present shilling rate, it is common, as it is legal, for persons to enclose several communications, addressed to different parties, under one envelope, which, on reaching America or England, are remailed to the persons addressed, thus saving to them the whole charge of Ocean Postage. Paper is manufactured purposely tosave postage, and, for this quality, is called“Foreign Post.”He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect iftheyfirst adopt the Ocean Penny Postage.Someof the same considerations ought to have weight with American citizens and American philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producing the conviction, that it is better for the United States to lose no time in adopting this system.1. It would put it into the power of every person in America or England to write to his or her relatives, friends, or other correspondents, across the Atlantic, as often as business or friendship would dictate, or leisure permit.2. It would probably secure to England the whole carrying-trade of the Mail matter, not only between America and Great Britain, but also between the New World and the Old, forever.3. It would break up entirely all clandestine or private conveyance of Mail matter across the ocean, and virtually empty into the English mail bags all the mailable communications, even to invoices, bills of lading, &c.; which, under the old system, have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of emigrants, and in the bales of merchants.4. It would prevent any letters, newspapers, magazines, or pamphlets, from lying dead in the English post-office, on account of the rates of postage charged upon them, and thus relieve the department of the heavy loss which it must sustain, from that cause, under the present system.5. It would enable American correspondents to prepay the postage on their own letters, not only across the ocean, but also from Liverpool or Southampton to any post town or village in the United Kingdom; to prepay it also, toEngland, by putting two English penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America directed to France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, andvice versa.[pg 051]7. It would not only open the cheapest possible medium of correspondence between the Old World and the New, but also one for the transmission of specimens of cotton, woollen, and other manufactures; of seeds, plants, flowers, grasses, woods; of specimens illustrating even geology, entomology, and other departments of useful science; thus creating a new branch of commerce as well as correspondence, which might bring into the English mail bags tons of matter, paying at the rate of 2s.8d.per lb. for carriage.8. It would make English penny postage stamps a kind of international currency, at par on both sides of the Atlantic, and which might be procured without the loss of a farthing by way of exchange, and be transmitted from one country to the other, at less cost for conveyance than the charge upon money orders in England from one post-office to another, for equal sums.One of the strongest recommendations of this measure, and a weighty reason also in favor of the immediate adoption of the whole system of cheap postage, is found in the present derangement of postal intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. These two great nations, the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood, are at this moment“trying to see which can do the other most harm,”by a course of mutual retaliation, which may be known in future history as thewar of posts. It is the opinion of some philosophers, that in wars in general, the party most to blame is the one which gives the heaviest blows; but in this case there arises a new problem, whether each particular blow does the most damage to the party which receives or to the one that gives it. The principal points in the contest I suppose to be these. The American government charges Great Britain five cents postage on all letters in the British packet mails, borne across our country at the expense of Great Britain, to and from the province of Canada. Great Britain in return, charges the United States the full rate of ship postage on all letters in the American packet mails, which touch at a British port on their way to and from the continent of Europe. Then the Postmaster-General of the United States suspends the agreement by which a mutual postage account is kept between his department and the post-office in Canada. And now a bill is before Congress, having actually passed the House of Representatives in one day, by which our own citizens are to pay 24 cents postage on every letter, and 4 cents on every newspaper, brought by the British mail steamers, as a tax to our own post-office, although the same postage has already been prepaid by the sender in England. The tax thus imposed on our own people, in the prosecution of this postal war, will amount to $178,586 a year, no small burden upon a subject of taxation so sensitive as postage, and no trifling obstruction to the intercourse between the two countries, and between the emigrants who find a refuge on our shores and the friends they have left behind. Such a stoppage is peculiarly to be regretted at this juncture, when the number of emigrants is so rapidly increasing, and all the interests of humanity seem to require the utmost freedom and facility of intercourse between the United States and the European world.The proposed bill is intended as a retaliatory measure, and perhaps nothing can be devised more severe in the way of retaliation. It is worthy of inquiry, however, whether there may not be found“a more excellent way,”by means of cheap postage on the ocean as well as on the land. It does not appear but that Great Britain can stand the[pg 052]impost of double postage as easily and as long as we can. But let our government open its mails to carry letters by steam packet between Europe and America for TWO CENTS, and I do not see how Great Britain can stand that. She must succumb. A man who thought he had been injured and was meditating plans of revenge, happened to open his Bible and read the counsel of the wisest of human rulers,—“If thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”The man mused a few minutes, and then rose and clapped his hands, and said,“I'll burn him.”Without touching the merits of the controversy as to which did the first wrong, I must say that the course of the British government, in exacting 1s.per letter on the mails of the American steamers bound to Germany, for barely touching at the port of Southampton, is the mostgougingaffair of any governmental proceeding within my knowledge. It seems to me that our own government would do itself honor by adopting almost any expedient, rather than imitate so bad an example, in this age of the world, as to lay a tax amounting to a prohibition, upon the interchange of knowledge and the flow of the social affections among mankind. It is submitted that the establishment of Ocean Penny Postage by our mail steamers, with an offer of perfect reciprocity to all other countries adopting the same policy, will be quite consistent with our national honor. With the interest which this subject has already acquired in the British nation, and the apparent disposition of that government to yield to the well-expressed wishes of the people, there can be no doubt that this would lead to an immediate adjustment of the pending controversy.The only remaining question respecting Ocean Penny Postage is the statesmanlike and proper one,How is the expense to be paid?In the first place, the government would not be required to pay any more money for the transportation of its mails than they pay now. This great boon can be given to the people without a dollar's additional cost. Our own experience under the postage act of 1845, proves this. While the number of letters is doubled, the whole expense of the post-office is diminished—especially that part which might most naturally be expected to increase, that is, the transportation of the mails. The freight of a barrel of flour, weighing 200 pounds, is about fifty cents. Of course, the equitable price of ten thousand letters added to any given mail, which would not weigh so much as a barrel of flour, would make no assignable difference in the cost upon a single letter. As both sailing ships and steam packets are becoming multiplied, individual competition may now be relied on to keep the price of transportation of mails from ever rising above its present standard. The increase of the number of letters makes but very little addition to the aggregate expense of the post-office. In the first year of the penny postage in England, there were ninety-three millions of letters added to the mails, and only £70,231 to the whole expenditure of the department, including the cost of introducing the new system, with all its apparatus. This amounts to 0.181d.; less than two-tenths of a penny each for the added letters. In 1844, there were 21,000,000 letters added to the circulation, and not a farthing added to the cost. These letters yielded about £90,000 in postage, every penny of which went[pg 053]as net gain into the treasury. I have no means of stating how much of the £450,000 added to the yearly expenditure of the British Post-office, is chargeable to the great increase of facilities and accommodations, both of the public and of the department; but have understood that by far the greater part of it arises from this, and not properly from the mere increase of letters. It may be safely assumed that, for any number of letters now added to the mails in Great Britain, the additional expense will not exceed half a farthing each letter, and the rest will be clear profit to the post-office. As the plan of Ocean Penny Postage includes also the inland postage prepaid in each country, it follows that each country would realize from three-quarters to seven-eighths of a penny advantage on every letter added to the present ocean mails.In addition to all this, there is just as much reason to expect Ocean Postage to increase, as to expect land postage to increase. And as it is proved that, on land, the reduction of price will increase the consumption, so as to produce an equal income, there can be no doubt that, in a little while, if the sea postage is reduced to the cheap standard, the letters and papers sent will increase sufficiently to yield an equal income. And if so, the consequent increase of inland postage and the profits on the same will be clear gain.Add to the immense number of Europe-born people now living in the United States, the children of such, who will retain for two or three generations, their relationship to kindred remaining in the Old World: Add to the half million of European emigrants, who by ordinary calculation would be expected every year, the numbers whom passing events will drive to seek an asylum from European revolutions under the peaceful and permanent government of the American Union: Add to the increase of transatlantic intercourse arising from the increase of commerce, the growth also of advancing civilization and intelligence: Add to the interest which emigration of neighbors and the growth of the country gives to European residents in a correspondence with America, the eager desire which the new times now begun must create to become more familiarly conversant with the new world, whose path of freedom and equality the old countries are all striving to follow: How long will any man say it would take, with a rate of postage across the Atlantic not exceeding two cents per half ounce, before there would be ten millions of letters yearly, instead of three-quarters of a million, the number now carried by the British packet mails? And these would yield more postage than can now be collected at a shilling a letter, besides the profit they would yield on the inland postage. With our own experience under the act, of 1844, and the experience of Great Britain under the act of 1839, it would be unphilosophical to set a longer time than five years as the period that would be required to bring up the product of Ocean Postage to its present amount. And the healthy spring which such a reform would give to commerce, and to every source of national prosperity, and its consequent indirect aid to the public revenues, would justify any government, on mere pecuniary considerations alone, in assuming a heavy expenditure, not only for five years, but permanently, to secure so great an object. I address to my own country, as the nation[pg 054]whom it more appropriately belongs to take so great a step towards universal brotherhood, the fervid appeal which my friend Burritt has made to England:“The irresistible genius and propagation of the English race are fastAnglicizingthe world, and thus centering it around the heart of civilization and commerce. Under the sceptre of England alone, there live, it is said, one hundred and forty million of human beings, embracing all races of men, dwelling between every two degrees of latitude and longitude around the globe. And there is the Anglo-American hemisphere of the English race, doubling its population every twenty-five years, and propelling its propagation through the Western World. And there is the English language, colonized, not only by Christian missions, but by commerce, in every port, on every shore, accessible to an English keel. The heathen of China or Eastern Inde, whilst buying sandal wood for incense to their deities from English or American merchantmen, or trafficing for poisonous drugs; the sable savages that come out of the depth of Africa, to barter on the seaboard their glittering sand, their ivory, ostrich feathers or apes, for articles of English manufacture; the Red Indians of North and South America, as they come from their hunting grounds in the deep wilderness, to sell their spoils to English or American fur companies; the swarthy inhabitants of the ocean islands, as they run to the beach to greet the American whale ship or the English East Indiaman, bringing yams and curious ware to sell to the pale-faced foreigners; all these carry back to their kind and kindred rude lessons in the English language—the meaning of home and household words of the strong, old Saxon tongue, each of which links its possessor to the magnetic chain of English civilization.“What then, should England do, to bring all nations of men within the range of the vital functions of that heart-relation which she sustains to the world?“Answer—let her establish anOcean Penny Postage.”X.The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large Towns.The simple adoption of Uniform Cheap Postage would hardly fail of securing, in the end, all other desirable postal reforms. An act of congress, in five lines, enacting that“hereafter the postage on all letters prepaid, not exceeding half an ounce in weight, shall be two cents; and for each additional half ounce, two cents; and if not prepaid the postage shall be doubled,”would at no distant period, bring in all the other desired improvements. The adoption of cheap postage in Great Britain, greatly improved the system of local delivery of letters and newspapers in the large towns. Formerly, an additional charge of 1d.was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case of letters that had been mailed; and for“drop letters,”or letters delivered in the same town where they are posted, the price was 2d.Now all drop letters are charged at the uniform rate of 1d.the same as mail letters; and the mail letters are delivered by carriers without additional charge—the penny postage paying all. The Postmaster-General prescribes what places shall have the free delivery, and how far it shall extend around each post-office.Beyond those limits, and in places where the free delivery is not judged practicable, the local postmasters are at liberty, on their own discretion, to employ penny-post carriers to deliver letters at the houses of the people, charging 1d.each for delivery, which is a private perquisite—the department taking neither profit nor responsibility in the case. Persons who do not choose to pay the penny-post can refuse to receive letters in that way, and obtain them by calling at the post-office.[pg 055]To facilitate this local free-delivery, there are“receiving houses”established at convenient distances in the town, where letters are deposited for the mails, without a fee, and thence are taken to the post-office in season for the daily mails, or for distribution through the local delivery. These receiving houses are generally established in a drug or stationery store, grocery, or some retail shop, where the nature of the business requires some one to be always in attendance, and where the increase of custom likely to arise from the resort of people with letters is a sufficient consideration for the slight trouble of keeping the office. The letters are taken to the post-office at stated hours, by persons employed for that purpose; those which are to be mailed are separated, and those which are for local delivery sorted and delivered to the carriers to go out by the next delivery. I have not a list of the number or size of the cities and towns within which the free delivery is enjoyed. Its necessary effect in increasing the number of letters sent by mail, and benefiting the country and the government by the aid it furnishes to trade and general prosperity, would seem to be a guaranty that the department would be likely to extend the free delivery as far as it could possibly answer, within the reasonable ability of the government, to meet the reasonable wants of the people.The London District Post was originally a penny post, and was created by private enterprise. One William Dockwra, in the reign of Charles II., set up a private post for the delivery of letters in the city of London, for which the charge was 1d., payable invariably in advance. It was soon taken possession of by the government, and the same rate of postage retained until 1801, when, for the sake of revenue, the postage was doubled, and so remained until the establishment of the general penny postage. Its limits were gradually extended to include the city of Westminster and the borough of Southwark, then all places within a circle of three miles, and finally to twelve miles from the General Post-Office.Within the three miles circle there are 220 receiving houses, of which 180 are within the town portions of the district. At these offices, letters are despatched to the post-office, ten times daily, viz. at 8, 10, and 12, in the morning, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon. Letters are required to be left at the receiving house a quarter of an hour previous to the hour. The letters so left may be expected to be delivered within the three miles circle in about two hours from the hour at which they are sent to the post-office; that is, the 8 o'clock letters are delivered by 10, and so on.There are now ten deliveries daily, within a circle of three miles from the post-office; five deliveries in a circle of six miles, and three deliveries to the circle of twelve miles distance. In the three miles circle, the delivery is completed in one hour and a quarter from the time the carrier leaves the office; in the six miles circle, in two hours, and in the twelve miles circle, in three hours.[pg 056]In 1839, the estimated average of letters passing through the London district post was about one million every four weeks, of which 800,000 or four-fifths were unpaid. In 1842, the average was two millions in four weeks, of which only 100,000, or one-twentieth, were unpaid—ninety-five per cent. being prepaid. In 1847, the number was nearly three millions. These do not include the“General Post;”that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.The General Post letters, however, are distributed on the same principle of free delivery, without extra charge, and the utmost diligence is used by the letter-carriers to find out the persons to whom letters are directed. I was witness to this, in the case of a gentleman from Ohio, who went to England in a merchant ship, without having taken the precaution to give his family any instructions as to the direction of letters. His voyage was somewhat long, and before he had been three days in London, the carrier brought to his lodgings a letter from his wife, which had come in the mail steamer, and the people at the post-office had sought him out, an entire stranger among two millions of people! The General Post letters passing through the London office, were estimated in 1839 at 1,622,147, each four weeks, of which only one-sixth were prepaid. In 1847, they were 8,500,000, of which above ninety-four per cent. were prepaid. This makes the whole number of letters mailed and delivered in London, equal to above 146,000,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calculate that about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free Delivery.As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are prepaid, the delivery is accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them, of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving numbers of letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms and shops, which are open. Most houses where letters are received daily, have letter-boxes by the door, fitted with an ingenious contrivance to guard against robbery, into which prepaid letters can be dropped from the street, to be taken out by a door that is locked on the inside. Thus the great bulk of the letters are delivered with little more trouble or loss of time to the carrier, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many letters are deliverable at one place, which of course lessens the amount of labor chargeable to each one.[pg 057]There are ninety-five bell-men, who call at every door in their several districts once a day, and take letters to the post-office in time for the evening mails. Each one carries a locked bag, with an aperture large enough to drop in a letter, which can only be opened at the post-office. Any person having letters to go by mail, may drop them into this bag, pay the bell-man his fee of 1d., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening.All these carriers are required to assist, at stated times, in the sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails. They are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent business, with chances for advancement in business and wages, according to length of service and merit.A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Postmaster-General of the United States, by Barnabas Bates, Esq., of New York, one of the most able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing date February 7, 1847, urging the adoption of a similar system for the city of New York, and other cities—the postage to be in all cases prepaid. The advantages to be anticipated are thus set forth by Mr. Bates:“The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue to the post-office department.“1. It will be the means of diminishing the number of dead letters and newspapers, which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. The carriers will not carry out letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their pay, consequently the number of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead newspapers, they are sold by cart loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to carry out newspapers, especially if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the many complaints of editors that their subscribers do not get their papers.“2. It will reduce the list of advertised letters which has increased within a few years more than three hundred per cent. The Sun and Tribune of last Saturday, advertised 1700 letters, which cost sixty-eight dollars; if this be the average weekly number, the post-office department or the people must pay for advertising, the sum of three thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars per annum! The list of advertised letters of the Boston post-office, which is semi-monthly, averages from fourteen to sixteen columns of the Boston Times. If efficient carriers were appointed to deliver these letters to their address free of expense, this list would be reduced more than one half; thus a saving would be made in advertising, besides the collection of a large amount of postage. I would further remark, that requiringfour centsto be paid for advertising, in addition to the postage, frequently deters poor people from taking out their letters, and thus the cost of advertising, as well as the postage, are lost to the General Post-office. An efficient free delivery would save the department thousands of dollars every year.“3. A free delivery of letters would increase the revenue by causing the greater portion of the drop letters to be sent through the post-office, instead of the private offices now established in different parts of the city. The only reason why the City Despatch Post failed was, that they charged more than the private penny post offices. But if these letters were delivered free, charging only two cents as drop letters, nearly all the city correspondence would be conveyed through this medium. The increased income from this source alone would in a short time be amply sufficient to pay the salaries of all the carriers.“4. The post-office would not only command all the drop letters, but afford such easy, safe, and cheap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the means of increasing the city and country correspondence to an extent which can hardly be estimated. Thousands and tens of thousands of letters which are now sent by private hands, or through the private penny post, would then be deposited in the United States sub post-offices, both for city delivery and to be forwarded by the mails.”[pg 058]The extent to which such a system of Free Delivery could properly be introduced in this country, can only be determined by experiment. That is, to decide in how many and what towns there shall be a Free Delivery, and how far from the post-office the Free Delivery shall be carried, experience must be the guide. A city and its suburbs might all be included in one arrangement, as New York with Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Jersey City; Boston with Charlestown, Cambridge, Chelsea and Roxbury; and as population increases and intercourse extends, other places might be included.Such a system would make a vast amount of business for itself, as people learned the advantages of so easy a correspondence—especially in those places which may admit of two or more deliveries a day. It would also tend to facilitate and stimulate and increase the general business of the place, and this would in turn increase the business of the post-office. The establishment of Free Delivery in any city or large town, would tend to increase the correspondence of the country with such town. Every addition to the number of letters delivered, would lessen the average cost of delivery of each letter, and thus increase the net profits of the institution. In these ways the department would feel its way along, in the extension of Free Delivery from one class of towns to another, until, at no distant day, it would be found that its benefits were far more widely diffusible than the most sanguine could now anticipate.On the subject of the cost of delivery, the parliamentary committee obtained many valuable items of information. Mr. Reid, of London, said he got a thousand circulars delivered lately, for a foreigner. The gentleman had intended to send them through the post-office, paying the postage. Mr. Reid told him he would get them delivered a great deal cheaper. He gave them to a very trusty person, who delivered them all in the course of a week, at the expense of £1 2s. 3d. They were certain he delivered them; for nearly every time they sent him out, they took care to misdirect two or three, taking an account of the false direction, and he invariably brought back these letters, because he could not find the persons to whom they were directed. The postage of these circulars, at 1d. would have been £4 3s. 4d. Here was a saving of £3 1s. 1d. in one job. The expense of delivery was 1-1/14 farthing per letter. Of course, regular carriers, in their accustomed routes, could deliver prepaid letters at a much cheaper rate than this.During the parliamentary investigations on the subject of cheap postage, a plan was suggested, of establishing what were called secondary mails, to reach every village and hamlet in the country. These secondary mails were to run from each post-town to the surrounding places, and deliver letters for an additional charge of 1d. But on consideration it was found impracticable to clog the general system with this addition. Uniformity was everything, to the system. And they could not establish any uniform rate which would answer both for the post-towns and for the hamlets. The rate which would pay for the towns, would not pay for mails to the hamlets. And the rate which was necessary for the hamlets, was too high for the towns, andthe contraband conveyance would still continue. Consequently,[pg 059]the post-office would have to distribute the letters to the smaller places, where the distribution is attended with the greatest cost and the smallest profits. In the end, the rule of uniformity was left unbroken, and it was left to future experience or local arrangement to meet the wants of the smaller places, not now reached by the mails. The local postmasters are to make such arrangements as they deem proper in their respective neighborhoods, as to the employment of penny-post carriers to distribute the letters at the houses of the people.To show the working of multiplication and division in the increase of profits, and the very low rate at which a service similar to that of free delivery can be performed, let us look at the newspapers. The principal daily papers in Boston are served to subscribers by carriers, at the expense of the publishers. Deducting Sundays and holidays, there are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost of 25 to 50 cents for each subscriber. Taking the highest cost, and you pay 1.6millsfor each paper delivered—less than one-sixth of a cent.The penny papers are served to subscribers by carriers, who have regular beats or districts; and who furnish their patrons for six cents per week. These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at 62 to 75 cents per 100; so that their profits on each paper are from one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper promptly every morning, and collect the money on Saturday, running, of course, some risk of losses by bad debts, &c. And yet this business is found to be so profitable that some routes in New York have been sold, that is, the good will transferred, for at least $500, just for the privilege of serving that district.The two-cent papers from New York are regularly served to customers in Boston. A person engaged in this business used to buy the New York Express, Tribune, and Herald, for 1¼ to 1½ cents each. He paid the cost of bringing them by express from New York. To guard against failures, he divided his bundles, and had a part sent by way of Norwich, and a part by Stonington. He then served them to subscribers all over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections on Saturday. This man made money, so that in a few years he sold out his route and business in the New York papers, and purchased an interest in a flourishing penny paper in Boston, of which he is now one of the publishers.[pg 060]XI.The Expense of Cheap Postage, and how it is to be paid.It is quite important to have it understood, in all parts of the country, that the friends of postal reform have no desire to curtail the public accommodations now enjoyed, in the slightest degree—unless in cases of manifest abuse. Neither do they consider that too much money is paid by our government to furnish the people with the privileges of the mail. We desire rather to see the benefits and conveniences of the post-office greatly increased, as well as brought more within the reach of all the population. The bill for establishing cheap postage should therefore contain a distinct declaration that the mail facilities of the country shall not be curtailed, but shall be liberally extended, with the spread and increase of population, so as to give, as far as the ability of the government will admit, the best practicable accommodations to every citizen of the republic.It ought also to be provided that the Postmaster-General shall have it in his power, according to his discretion, whenever justice may require, to continue the compensation of all postmasters equal to their present rates, in proportion to the amount of services rendered, or labor performed. It is not easy, at present, to decide how much the labor of keeping the post-office will be lessened, by the adoption of uniform rates, and prepayment. Certainly, the reduction will be very considerable. And experience will hereafter suggest a new scale of compensations adapted to the new methods of doing the business.The falling off in the gross receipts of the British post-office, on the first adoption of the new system, was upwards of a million sterling, being nearly 43 per cent. on the whole amount. A corresponding reduction from the income of our own post-office would amount to $1,696,734. But the falling off would not be so great. The reduction of postage in that case was from 7-½d. on an average, to 1d., while in ours it would barely prove an average of 6-½ cents to 2 cents. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect a very rapid increase of letters, because the partial reduction in 1845 has already given the people a taste of the advantages of reduced rates of postage. The whole number of letters now sent by mail is 52,000,000. The number would, without doubt, be doubled in one year, which would give a revenue of above $2,000,000; $2,080,000 from letters. There would also be a very considerable increase of income from papers and pamphlets, and a great saving in the article of dead letters and newspapers. It is safe to estimate the revenue of the post-office, under the new system, at $3,000,000 for the first year, $3,500,000 for the second, $4,000,000 for the third, and $4,500,000 for the fourth, which will bring it up to what will then be the wants of the service, making the most liberal allowance for improved facilities.As an illustration of the capability of retrenchment in expense, let it be remembered that the present Postmaster-General has effected a reduction of nearlya million dollars per annum in the cost of transportation alone. He says in his Report:
“At my solicitation he readily moved for a return of all the letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, &c., transmitted from the United States in 1846, and which have been refused on account of the rates of postage, and are consequently lying dead in the English post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage charged upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that this return will startle the people and government with some remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a farthing, because he asks too much for the job.”
By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters by the mail steamers to the United States is now 1s.per half ounce; and on newspapers 2d.each paper. On all letters and papers sent from Great Britain the postage must be prepaid. If not prepaid, they are not sent; but in the case of letters, it is the practice of the post-office to notify persons in this country to whom letters are addressed, that cannot be forwarded for the want of prepayment, that they can have[pg 050]their letters on procuring the prepayment of the required shilling. I have more than once received a printed notice of this kind, designating the number by which my letter could be called for. No additional charge is made for this piece of attention. This fact is significant of the spirit of the cheap postage system. No provision is made by which postage can be prepaid in this country, and consequently, the whole expense of correspondence falls upon the parties in England.
Mr. Burritt enumerates some of the inconveniences of the present system, in addition to the positive evil of a burdensome tax upon the letter correspondence between the two countries—a tax which amounts to a suppression of intercourse by letter, to a sad extent.
1. The present shilling rate of postage, being exacted on the English side, too, in all cases, and thus throwing the whole cost of correspondence upon the English or European correspondents, greatly diminishes the number of letters which would otherwise be transmitted to and from America, through the English mail.
2. In consequence of the present high rate of postage on letters, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, &c., a large amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, liesdeadin the English post-office—a dead loss to the department—the persons to whom it is addressed, refusing to take it out on account of the postal charges upon it.
3. Under the present shilling rate, it is both legal and common for passengers to carry a large number ofunsealedletters, which are allowed as letters of introduction, and which, at the end of the voyage, are sealed and mailed in England or America, to persons who thus evade the ocean postage entirely.
4. In consequence of the present shilling rate, it is common, as it is legal, for persons to enclose several communications, addressed to different parties, under one envelope, which, on reaching America or England, are remailed to the persons addressed, thus saving to them the whole charge of Ocean Postage. Paper is manufactured purposely tosave postage, and, for this quality, is called“Foreign Post.”
He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect iftheyfirst adopt the Ocean Penny Postage.Someof the same considerations ought to have weight with American citizens and American philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producing the conviction, that it is better for the United States to lose no time in adopting this system.
1. It would put it into the power of every person in America or England to write to his or her relatives, friends, or other correspondents, across the Atlantic, as often as business or friendship would dictate, or leisure permit.
2. It would probably secure to England the whole carrying-trade of the Mail matter, not only between America and Great Britain, but also between the New World and the Old, forever.
3. It would break up entirely all clandestine or private conveyance of Mail matter across the ocean, and virtually empty into the English mail bags all the mailable communications, even to invoices, bills of lading, &c.; which, under the old system, have been carried in the pockets of passengers, the packs of emigrants, and in the bales of merchants.
4. It would prevent any letters, newspapers, magazines, or pamphlets, from lying dead in the English post-office, on account of the rates of postage charged upon them, and thus relieve the department of the heavy loss which it must sustain, from that cause, under the present system.
5. It would enable American correspondents to prepay the postage on their own letters, not only across the ocean, but also from Liverpool or Southampton to any post town or village in the United Kingdom; to prepay it also, toEngland, by putting two English penny stamps upon every letter weighing under half an ounce.
6. It would bring into the English mail all letters from America directed to France, Germany, and the rest of the continent, andvice versa.
7. It would not only open the cheapest possible medium of correspondence between the Old World and the New, but also one for the transmission of specimens of cotton, woollen, and other manufactures; of seeds, plants, flowers, grasses, woods; of specimens illustrating even geology, entomology, and other departments of useful science; thus creating a new branch of commerce as well as correspondence, which might bring into the English mail bags tons of matter, paying at the rate of 2s.8d.per lb. for carriage.
8. It would make English penny postage stamps a kind of international currency, at par on both sides of the Atlantic, and which might be procured without the loss of a farthing by way of exchange, and be transmitted from one country to the other, at less cost for conveyance than the charge upon money orders in England from one post-office to another, for equal sums.
One of the strongest recommendations of this measure, and a weighty reason also in favor of the immediate adoption of the whole system of cheap postage, is found in the present derangement of postal intercourse between Great Britain and the United States. These two great nations, the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood, are at this moment“trying to see which can do the other most harm,”by a course of mutual retaliation, which may be known in future history as thewar of posts. It is the opinion of some philosophers, that in wars in general, the party most to blame is the one which gives the heaviest blows; but in this case there arises a new problem, whether each particular blow does the most damage to the party which receives or to the one that gives it. The principal points in the contest I suppose to be these. The American government charges Great Britain five cents postage on all letters in the British packet mails, borne across our country at the expense of Great Britain, to and from the province of Canada. Great Britain in return, charges the United States the full rate of ship postage on all letters in the American packet mails, which touch at a British port on their way to and from the continent of Europe. Then the Postmaster-General of the United States suspends the agreement by which a mutual postage account is kept between his department and the post-office in Canada. And now a bill is before Congress, having actually passed the House of Representatives in one day, by which our own citizens are to pay 24 cents postage on every letter, and 4 cents on every newspaper, brought by the British mail steamers, as a tax to our own post-office, although the same postage has already been prepaid by the sender in England. The tax thus imposed on our own people, in the prosecution of this postal war, will amount to $178,586 a year, no small burden upon a subject of taxation so sensitive as postage, and no trifling obstruction to the intercourse between the two countries, and between the emigrants who find a refuge on our shores and the friends they have left behind. Such a stoppage is peculiarly to be regretted at this juncture, when the number of emigrants is so rapidly increasing, and all the interests of humanity seem to require the utmost freedom and facility of intercourse between the United States and the European world.
The proposed bill is intended as a retaliatory measure, and perhaps nothing can be devised more severe in the way of retaliation. It is worthy of inquiry, however, whether there may not be found“a more excellent way,”by means of cheap postage on the ocean as well as on the land. It does not appear but that Great Britain can stand the[pg 052]impost of double postage as easily and as long as we can. But let our government open its mails to carry letters by steam packet between Europe and America for TWO CENTS, and I do not see how Great Britain can stand that. She must succumb. A man who thought he had been injured and was meditating plans of revenge, happened to open his Bible and read the counsel of the wisest of human rulers,—“If thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”The man mused a few minutes, and then rose and clapped his hands, and said,“I'll burn him.”Without touching the merits of the controversy as to which did the first wrong, I must say that the course of the British government, in exacting 1s.per letter on the mails of the American steamers bound to Germany, for barely touching at the port of Southampton, is the mostgougingaffair of any governmental proceeding within my knowledge. It seems to me that our own government would do itself honor by adopting almost any expedient, rather than imitate so bad an example, in this age of the world, as to lay a tax amounting to a prohibition, upon the interchange of knowledge and the flow of the social affections among mankind. It is submitted that the establishment of Ocean Penny Postage by our mail steamers, with an offer of perfect reciprocity to all other countries adopting the same policy, will be quite consistent with our national honor. With the interest which this subject has already acquired in the British nation, and the apparent disposition of that government to yield to the well-expressed wishes of the people, there can be no doubt that this would lead to an immediate adjustment of the pending controversy.
The only remaining question respecting Ocean Penny Postage is the statesmanlike and proper one,How is the expense to be paid?In the first place, the government would not be required to pay any more money for the transportation of its mails than they pay now. This great boon can be given to the people without a dollar's additional cost. Our own experience under the postage act of 1845, proves this. While the number of letters is doubled, the whole expense of the post-office is diminished—especially that part which might most naturally be expected to increase, that is, the transportation of the mails. The freight of a barrel of flour, weighing 200 pounds, is about fifty cents. Of course, the equitable price of ten thousand letters added to any given mail, which would not weigh so much as a barrel of flour, would make no assignable difference in the cost upon a single letter. As both sailing ships and steam packets are becoming multiplied, individual competition may now be relied on to keep the price of transportation of mails from ever rising above its present standard. The increase of the number of letters makes but very little addition to the aggregate expense of the post-office. In the first year of the penny postage in England, there were ninety-three millions of letters added to the mails, and only £70,231 to the whole expenditure of the department, including the cost of introducing the new system, with all its apparatus. This amounts to 0.181d.; less than two-tenths of a penny each for the added letters. In 1844, there were 21,000,000 letters added to the circulation, and not a farthing added to the cost. These letters yielded about £90,000 in postage, every penny of which went[pg 053]as net gain into the treasury. I have no means of stating how much of the £450,000 added to the yearly expenditure of the British Post-office, is chargeable to the great increase of facilities and accommodations, both of the public and of the department; but have understood that by far the greater part of it arises from this, and not properly from the mere increase of letters. It may be safely assumed that, for any number of letters now added to the mails in Great Britain, the additional expense will not exceed half a farthing each letter, and the rest will be clear profit to the post-office. As the plan of Ocean Penny Postage includes also the inland postage prepaid in each country, it follows that each country would realize from three-quarters to seven-eighths of a penny advantage on every letter added to the present ocean mails.
In addition to all this, there is just as much reason to expect Ocean Postage to increase, as to expect land postage to increase. And as it is proved that, on land, the reduction of price will increase the consumption, so as to produce an equal income, there can be no doubt that, in a little while, if the sea postage is reduced to the cheap standard, the letters and papers sent will increase sufficiently to yield an equal income. And if so, the consequent increase of inland postage and the profits on the same will be clear gain.
Add to the immense number of Europe-born people now living in the United States, the children of such, who will retain for two or three generations, their relationship to kindred remaining in the Old World: Add to the half million of European emigrants, who by ordinary calculation would be expected every year, the numbers whom passing events will drive to seek an asylum from European revolutions under the peaceful and permanent government of the American Union: Add to the increase of transatlantic intercourse arising from the increase of commerce, the growth also of advancing civilization and intelligence: Add to the interest which emigration of neighbors and the growth of the country gives to European residents in a correspondence with America, the eager desire which the new times now begun must create to become more familiarly conversant with the new world, whose path of freedom and equality the old countries are all striving to follow: How long will any man say it would take, with a rate of postage across the Atlantic not exceeding two cents per half ounce, before there would be ten millions of letters yearly, instead of three-quarters of a million, the number now carried by the British packet mails? And these would yield more postage than can now be collected at a shilling a letter, besides the profit they would yield on the inland postage. With our own experience under the act, of 1844, and the experience of Great Britain under the act of 1839, it would be unphilosophical to set a longer time than five years as the period that would be required to bring up the product of Ocean Postage to its present amount. And the healthy spring which such a reform would give to commerce, and to every source of national prosperity, and its consequent indirect aid to the public revenues, would justify any government, on mere pecuniary considerations alone, in assuming a heavy expenditure, not only for five years, but permanently, to secure so great an object. I address to my own country, as the nation[pg 054]whom it more appropriately belongs to take so great a step towards universal brotherhood, the fervid appeal which my friend Burritt has made to England:
“The irresistible genius and propagation of the English race are fastAnglicizingthe world, and thus centering it around the heart of civilization and commerce. Under the sceptre of England alone, there live, it is said, one hundred and forty million of human beings, embracing all races of men, dwelling between every two degrees of latitude and longitude around the globe. And there is the Anglo-American hemisphere of the English race, doubling its population every twenty-five years, and propelling its propagation through the Western World. And there is the English language, colonized, not only by Christian missions, but by commerce, in every port, on every shore, accessible to an English keel. The heathen of China or Eastern Inde, whilst buying sandal wood for incense to their deities from English or American merchantmen, or trafficing for poisonous drugs; the sable savages that come out of the depth of Africa, to barter on the seaboard their glittering sand, their ivory, ostrich feathers or apes, for articles of English manufacture; the Red Indians of North and South America, as they come from their hunting grounds in the deep wilderness, to sell their spoils to English or American fur companies; the swarthy inhabitants of the ocean islands, as they run to the beach to greet the American whale ship or the English East Indiaman, bringing yams and curious ware to sell to the pale-faced foreigners; all these carry back to their kind and kindred rude lessons in the English language—the meaning of home and household words of the strong, old Saxon tongue, each of which links its possessor to the magnetic chain of English civilization.
“What then, should England do, to bring all nations of men within the range of the vital functions of that heart-relation which she sustains to the world?
“Answer—let her establish anOcean Penny Postage.”
X.The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large Towns.
The simple adoption of Uniform Cheap Postage would hardly fail of securing, in the end, all other desirable postal reforms. An act of congress, in five lines, enacting that“hereafter the postage on all letters prepaid, not exceeding half an ounce in weight, shall be two cents; and for each additional half ounce, two cents; and if not prepaid the postage shall be doubled,”would at no distant period, bring in all the other desired improvements. The adoption of cheap postage in Great Britain, greatly improved the system of local delivery of letters and newspapers in the large towns. Formerly, an additional charge of 1d.was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case of letters that had been mailed; and for“drop letters,”or letters delivered in the same town where they are posted, the price was 2d.Now all drop letters are charged at the uniform rate of 1d.the same as mail letters; and the mail letters are delivered by carriers without additional charge—the penny postage paying all. The Postmaster-General prescribes what places shall have the free delivery, and how far it shall extend around each post-office.
Beyond those limits, and in places where the free delivery is not judged practicable, the local postmasters are at liberty, on their own discretion, to employ penny-post carriers to deliver letters at the houses of the people, charging 1d.each for delivery, which is a private perquisite—the department taking neither profit nor responsibility in the case. Persons who do not choose to pay the penny-post can refuse to receive letters in that way, and obtain them by calling at the post-office.
To facilitate this local free-delivery, there are“receiving houses”established at convenient distances in the town, where letters are deposited for the mails, without a fee, and thence are taken to the post-office in season for the daily mails, or for distribution through the local delivery. These receiving houses are generally established in a drug or stationery store, grocery, or some retail shop, where the nature of the business requires some one to be always in attendance, and where the increase of custom likely to arise from the resort of people with letters is a sufficient consideration for the slight trouble of keeping the office. The letters are taken to the post-office at stated hours, by persons employed for that purpose; those which are to be mailed are separated, and those which are for local delivery sorted and delivered to the carriers to go out by the next delivery. I have not a list of the number or size of the cities and towns within which the free delivery is enjoyed. Its necessary effect in increasing the number of letters sent by mail, and benefiting the country and the government by the aid it furnishes to trade and general prosperity, would seem to be a guaranty that the department would be likely to extend the free delivery as far as it could possibly answer, within the reasonable ability of the government, to meet the reasonable wants of the people.
The London District Post was originally a penny post, and was created by private enterprise. One William Dockwra, in the reign of Charles II., set up a private post for the delivery of letters in the city of London, for which the charge was 1d., payable invariably in advance. It was soon taken possession of by the government, and the same rate of postage retained until 1801, when, for the sake of revenue, the postage was doubled, and so remained until the establishment of the general penny postage. Its limits were gradually extended to include the city of Westminster and the borough of Southwark, then all places within a circle of three miles, and finally to twelve miles from the General Post-Office.
Within the three miles circle there are 220 receiving houses, of which 180 are within the town portions of the district. At these offices, letters are despatched to the post-office, ten times daily, viz. at 8, 10, and 12, in the morning, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon. Letters are required to be left at the receiving house a quarter of an hour previous to the hour. The letters so left may be expected to be delivered within the three miles circle in about two hours from the hour at which they are sent to the post-office; that is, the 8 o'clock letters are delivered by 10, and so on.
There are now ten deliveries daily, within a circle of three miles from the post-office; five deliveries in a circle of six miles, and three deliveries to the circle of twelve miles distance. In the three miles circle, the delivery is completed in one hour and a quarter from the time the carrier leaves the office; in the six miles circle, in two hours, and in the twelve miles circle, in three hours.
In 1839, the estimated average of letters passing through the London district post was about one million every four weeks, of which 800,000 or four-fifths were unpaid. In 1842, the average was two millions in four weeks, of which only 100,000, or one-twentieth, were unpaid—ninety-five per cent. being prepaid. In 1847, the number was nearly three millions. These do not include the“General Post;”that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.
The General Post letters, however, are distributed on the same principle of free delivery, without extra charge, and the utmost diligence is used by the letter-carriers to find out the persons to whom letters are directed. I was witness to this, in the case of a gentleman from Ohio, who went to England in a merchant ship, without having taken the precaution to give his family any instructions as to the direction of letters. His voyage was somewhat long, and before he had been three days in London, the carrier brought to his lodgings a letter from his wife, which had come in the mail steamer, and the people at the post-office had sought him out, an entire stranger among two millions of people! The General Post letters passing through the London office, were estimated in 1839 at 1,622,147, each four weeks, of which only one-sixth were prepaid. In 1847, they were 8,500,000, of which above ninety-four per cent. were prepaid. This makes the whole number of letters mailed and delivered in London, equal to above 146,000,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calculate that about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free Delivery.
As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are prepaid, the delivery is accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them, of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving numbers of letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms and shops, which are open. Most houses where letters are received daily, have letter-boxes by the door, fitted with an ingenious contrivance to guard against robbery, into which prepaid letters can be dropped from the street, to be taken out by a door that is locked on the inside. Thus the great bulk of the letters are delivered with little more trouble or loss of time to the carrier, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many letters are deliverable at one place, which of course lessens the amount of labor chargeable to each one.
There are ninety-five bell-men, who call at every door in their several districts once a day, and take letters to the post-office in time for the evening mails. Each one carries a locked bag, with an aperture large enough to drop in a letter, which can only be opened at the post-office. Any person having letters to go by mail, may drop them into this bag, pay the bell-man his fee of 1d., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening.
All these carriers are required to assist, at stated times, in the sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails. They are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent business, with chances for advancement in business and wages, according to length of service and merit.
A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Postmaster-General of the United States, by Barnabas Bates, Esq., of New York, one of the most able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing date February 7, 1847, urging the adoption of a similar system for the city of New York, and other cities—the postage to be in all cases prepaid. The advantages to be anticipated are thus set forth by Mr. Bates:
“The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue to the post-office department.
“1. It will be the means of diminishing the number of dead letters and newspapers, which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. The carriers will not carry out letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their pay, consequently the number of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead newspapers, they are sold by cart loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to carry out newspapers, especially if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the many complaints of editors that their subscribers do not get their papers.
“2. It will reduce the list of advertised letters which has increased within a few years more than three hundred per cent. The Sun and Tribune of last Saturday, advertised 1700 letters, which cost sixty-eight dollars; if this be the average weekly number, the post-office department or the people must pay for advertising, the sum of three thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars per annum! The list of advertised letters of the Boston post-office, which is semi-monthly, averages from fourteen to sixteen columns of the Boston Times. If efficient carriers were appointed to deliver these letters to their address free of expense, this list would be reduced more than one half; thus a saving would be made in advertising, besides the collection of a large amount of postage. I would further remark, that requiringfour centsto be paid for advertising, in addition to the postage, frequently deters poor people from taking out their letters, and thus the cost of advertising, as well as the postage, are lost to the General Post-office. An efficient free delivery would save the department thousands of dollars every year.
“3. A free delivery of letters would increase the revenue by causing the greater portion of the drop letters to be sent through the post-office, instead of the private offices now established in different parts of the city. The only reason why the City Despatch Post failed was, that they charged more than the private penny post offices. But if these letters were delivered free, charging only two cents as drop letters, nearly all the city correspondence would be conveyed through this medium. The increased income from this source alone would in a short time be amply sufficient to pay the salaries of all the carriers.
“4. The post-office would not only command all the drop letters, but afford such easy, safe, and cheap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the means of increasing the city and country correspondence to an extent which can hardly be estimated. Thousands and tens of thousands of letters which are now sent by private hands, or through the private penny post, would then be deposited in the United States sub post-offices, both for city delivery and to be forwarded by the mails.”
The extent to which such a system of Free Delivery could properly be introduced in this country, can only be determined by experiment. That is, to decide in how many and what towns there shall be a Free Delivery, and how far from the post-office the Free Delivery shall be carried, experience must be the guide. A city and its suburbs might all be included in one arrangement, as New York with Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Jersey City; Boston with Charlestown, Cambridge, Chelsea and Roxbury; and as population increases and intercourse extends, other places might be included.
Such a system would make a vast amount of business for itself, as people learned the advantages of so easy a correspondence—especially in those places which may admit of two or more deliveries a day. It would also tend to facilitate and stimulate and increase the general business of the place, and this would in turn increase the business of the post-office. The establishment of Free Delivery in any city or large town, would tend to increase the correspondence of the country with such town. Every addition to the number of letters delivered, would lessen the average cost of delivery of each letter, and thus increase the net profits of the institution. In these ways the department would feel its way along, in the extension of Free Delivery from one class of towns to another, until, at no distant day, it would be found that its benefits were far more widely diffusible than the most sanguine could now anticipate.
On the subject of the cost of delivery, the parliamentary committee obtained many valuable items of information. Mr. Reid, of London, said he got a thousand circulars delivered lately, for a foreigner. The gentleman had intended to send them through the post-office, paying the postage. Mr. Reid told him he would get them delivered a great deal cheaper. He gave them to a very trusty person, who delivered them all in the course of a week, at the expense of £1 2s. 3d. They were certain he delivered them; for nearly every time they sent him out, they took care to misdirect two or three, taking an account of the false direction, and he invariably brought back these letters, because he could not find the persons to whom they were directed. The postage of these circulars, at 1d. would have been £4 3s. 4d. Here was a saving of £3 1s. 1d. in one job. The expense of delivery was 1-1/14 farthing per letter. Of course, regular carriers, in their accustomed routes, could deliver prepaid letters at a much cheaper rate than this.
During the parliamentary investigations on the subject of cheap postage, a plan was suggested, of establishing what were called secondary mails, to reach every village and hamlet in the country. These secondary mails were to run from each post-town to the surrounding places, and deliver letters for an additional charge of 1d. But on consideration it was found impracticable to clog the general system with this addition. Uniformity was everything, to the system. And they could not establish any uniform rate which would answer both for the post-towns and for the hamlets. The rate which would pay for the towns, would not pay for mails to the hamlets. And the rate which was necessary for the hamlets, was too high for the towns, andthe contraband conveyance would still continue. Consequently,[pg 059]the post-office would have to distribute the letters to the smaller places, where the distribution is attended with the greatest cost and the smallest profits. In the end, the rule of uniformity was left unbroken, and it was left to future experience or local arrangement to meet the wants of the smaller places, not now reached by the mails. The local postmasters are to make such arrangements as they deem proper in their respective neighborhoods, as to the employment of penny-post carriers to distribute the letters at the houses of the people.
To show the working of multiplication and division in the increase of profits, and the very low rate at which a service similar to that of free delivery can be performed, let us look at the newspapers. The principal daily papers in Boston are served to subscribers by carriers, at the expense of the publishers. Deducting Sundays and holidays, there are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost of 25 to 50 cents for each subscriber. Taking the highest cost, and you pay 1.6millsfor each paper delivered—less than one-sixth of a cent.
The penny papers are served to subscribers by carriers, who have regular beats or districts; and who furnish their patrons for six cents per week. These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at 62 to 75 cents per 100; so that their profits on each paper are from one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper promptly every morning, and collect the money on Saturday, running, of course, some risk of losses by bad debts, &c. And yet this business is found to be so profitable that some routes in New York have been sold, that is, the good will transferred, for at least $500, just for the privilege of serving that district.
The two-cent papers from New York are regularly served to customers in Boston. A person engaged in this business used to buy the New York Express, Tribune, and Herald, for 1¼ to 1½ cents each. He paid the cost of bringing them by express from New York. To guard against failures, he divided his bundles, and had a part sent by way of Norwich, and a part by Stonington. He then served them to subscribers all over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections on Saturday. This man made money, so that in a few years he sold out his route and business in the New York papers, and purchased an interest in a flourishing penny paper in Boston, of which he is now one of the publishers.
XI.The Expense of Cheap Postage, and how it is to be paid.
It is quite important to have it understood, in all parts of the country, that the friends of postal reform have no desire to curtail the public accommodations now enjoyed, in the slightest degree—unless in cases of manifest abuse. Neither do they consider that too much money is paid by our government to furnish the people with the privileges of the mail. We desire rather to see the benefits and conveniences of the post-office greatly increased, as well as brought more within the reach of all the population. The bill for establishing cheap postage should therefore contain a distinct declaration that the mail facilities of the country shall not be curtailed, but shall be liberally extended, with the spread and increase of population, so as to give, as far as the ability of the government will admit, the best practicable accommodations to every citizen of the republic.
It ought also to be provided that the Postmaster-General shall have it in his power, according to his discretion, whenever justice may require, to continue the compensation of all postmasters equal to their present rates, in proportion to the amount of services rendered, or labor performed. It is not easy, at present, to decide how much the labor of keeping the post-office will be lessened, by the adoption of uniform rates, and prepayment. Certainly, the reduction will be very considerable. And experience will hereafter suggest a new scale of compensations adapted to the new methods of doing the business.
The falling off in the gross receipts of the British post-office, on the first adoption of the new system, was upwards of a million sterling, being nearly 43 per cent. on the whole amount. A corresponding reduction from the income of our own post-office would amount to $1,696,734. But the falling off would not be so great. The reduction of postage in that case was from 7-½d. on an average, to 1d., while in ours it would barely prove an average of 6-½ cents to 2 cents. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect a very rapid increase of letters, because the partial reduction in 1845 has already given the people a taste of the advantages of reduced rates of postage. The whole number of letters now sent by mail is 52,000,000. The number would, without doubt, be doubled in one year, which would give a revenue of above $2,000,000; $2,080,000 from letters. There would also be a very considerable increase of income from papers and pamphlets, and a great saving in the article of dead letters and newspapers. It is safe to estimate the revenue of the post-office, under the new system, at $3,000,000 for the first year, $3,500,000 for the second, $4,000,000 for the third, and $4,500,000 for the fourth, which will bring it up to what will then be the wants of the service, making the most liberal allowance for improved facilities.
As an illustration of the capability of retrenchment in expense, let it be remembered that the present Postmaster-General has effected a reduction of nearlya million dollars per annum in the cost of transportation alone. He says in his Report: