A BRIEF STATEMENT EXERTIONS OF THE FRIENDS CHEAP POSTAGE IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: THE OBSTACLES ENCOUNTERED PRESENT REDUCTION OE POSTAGE AND THE OBJECTS CONTEMPLATED NEW YORK CPIEAP POSTAGE ASSOCIATION. BY BARNABAS BATES, Corresponding Secretary of the New York Ciieap Postage Association. REMARKS AND STATISTICS CHEAP POSTAGE AND POSTAL REFORM , GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES. A BRIEF STATEMENT. EXERTIONS OP THE FRIENDS OP CHEAP POSTAGE CITY OF NEW YORK. The pamphlet prepared by the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, and pub¬ lished by the Boston Cheap Postage Association, contains so ma¬ ny facts and arguments in favor of cheap postage, that the New York Cheap Postage Association resolved to publish another edi¬ tion, and circulate it among our citizens. Some portions of the original pamphlet are omitted in this edition, not because they were not valuable, but on the score of economy, and to compress the work into so small a compass that no one might be deterred from giving it an immediate perusal. We earnestly recommend it to the favorable attention of the public, as it will amply repay the time appropriated to its examination, as it gives in a short space a complete view of the cheap postage system in Great Britain, and the beneficial effects resulting from that very important measure. In republishing this pamphlet we have supposed it would not be uninteresting to the friends of cheap postage to accompany it with a brief statement of what has been dona by the friends of that measure in this city ; the obstacles they have had to con¬ tend with in effecting the present reduction of postage; the success which has attended their efforts in spite of the predic¬ tions of failure on the part of the opponents of the measure; and the objects which the New York Cheap Postage Associa¬ tion have in view. It is well known that in the year 1837, Rowland Hill, the fa¬ mous author of cheap postage in Great Britain, published his views in a pamphlet, which, in the year following, had attracted so much attention as to cause a large number of petitions to be presented to Parliament in favor of the plan he recommended ; the novelty of his scheme of cheap postage was calculated to ex¬ cite inquiry, and those connected with the Post-office in this country were anxious to learn how such a vast reduction, as he proposed, could be practicable. After having read his plan, the conclusion generally was, that if it was feasible in England, in consequence of the short distances the mails were carried, and the large number of letters sent through the Post-office, it could not be adopted in this country. However, there were some among us who believed that a radical reduction could be made in our rates of postage, which would ulti¬ mately increase the revenue of the Post-office Department. Ac¬ cordingly, early in 18-10, an article appeared in Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, written by Barnabas Bates, of New York, in favor of a reduction of postage, and postal reform. This, it will be re¬ membered, was before any information could have been obtained in this country as to the practical operation of Rowland Hill’s system in Great Britain, and was the first article over published in the United States in favor of cheap postage. It excited, at the time, considerable attention and was republished in several of the newspapers with approbation, except in those papers which were the special organs of the Post-office Department. They treated the scheme of cheap postage as chimerical, and the friends of the measure as inimical to Amos Kendall and the Post-ollice Department. It may not be improper here to remark, that the convenience of the merchants and the people of this city has never been an object of any special regard by the Post-office Department. In 1833, the letter carriers of this city were required to establish boxes in their respective routes for the reception of letters, and to deliver them daily at the Post-office in season to be sent out by the mails, free of expense. This was continued for a few years, but was then discontinued, greatly to the annoyance and inconve¬ nience of the citizens living at a distance of two or three miles from the Post-office. It is understood that the present Postmas¬ ter-General has ordered the re-establishment of such places ofde- posite, but it has hitherto been disregarded. In 1S35, when the Exchange was burnt, the Post-office was re¬ moved, contrary to the earnest remonstrances of the merchants, to the Rotunda, in the Park. After much intreaty, the Post-office Department conferred upon them the great boon of establishing a Branch Post-office down town, provided they would pay one cent for each letter deposited in, and two cents for ever;/ letter re¬ ceived from, that office ! Rather than be compelled to send to the Park Post-office for their letters, the merchants submitted to this gross imposition of Amos Kendall, Postmaster-General, and Jonathan I. Coddington, then Postmaster of this city. The re¬ venue at the Branch Post-office proved to be so large that even these gentlemen, becoming ashamed to tax the merchants so.enor- mously, consented to remit the cent on letters deposited in the Post-ollice, but still pertinaciously adhered to the payment of two cents on letters delivered. The income from this source alone, exclusive of the rent for boxes in the Park Post-ollice, and the cent on free, and drop letters, amounted to the enormous sum of sixteen thousand dollars per annum !! In 1841, a petition signed by the principal merchants and presi¬ dents of the Banks and Insurance offices, was presented by Messrs. Bolton and Bates to the Postmaster-General, WicklifFe, requesting that he would remove the principal office into the vicinity of Wall street, and remit the two cents tax on letters received from the Branch office. Being denied this, they then asked the privilege of having the ship and steamboat letters sent directly to the Branch office to be distributed, that there might he no delay in obtaining them; and although litis was recommended strongly by onr dele¬ gation in Congress, Messrs. Wood, McKeon, Roosevelt and Ferris, yet Mr. Wicklifie peremptorily refused to grant their request. These grievances the merchants had to hear, until by the energy and influence of John L. Graham, the best Postmaster this city ever had, the present convenient and handsome post-office was procured, and. the burdensome tax of two cents abolished. It was deemed proper to allude to these exertions to be relieved of this burdensome tax upon our merchants, as forming a-parl of the history of post-office exactions, which prepared the way for a vigorous effort to obtain a reduction of postage. John M. Miles, who succeeded Amos Kendall ns Postmaster- General, in his report to Congress in December, 1S40, recommend¬ ed a reduction of 25 per cent on the rales of postage. Mr. K T . therefore has the honor of being (he first Postmaster-General that recommended any reduction of the old tariff; and from that lime to the present he has always been the steady and faithful advo¬ cate of cheap postage. At the last session of Congress he reported a bill to the Senate, to be acted upon at. (he next session, recom¬ mending a uniform rate of three cents. This is the greatest re¬ duction ever before recommended by any member of Congress; and from his practical knowledge of the subject, having been for many years a post-master in one of our eastern cities, besides having held the office of Postmaster-General and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads, his opinions arc entitled to great respect. The reports from England of the success of Rowland Hill’s measure, by a vast increase in the number of letters, induced the friends of cheap postage in this country to renew their exertions in the good cause. The press in this city was generally favorable, and welcomed every communication on the subject. A series of communications appeared in the Journal of Commerce, over the signature of Rowland Hill, urging the necessity of “Post-office Reform,” and especially the reduction of postage and the abolition of the franking privilege. The Evening Post published nume¬ rous articles written by Beta, the tendency of which was to answer the objections of the opponents of the measure, and to rouse the attention of the people to the importance of cheap postage. The New World opened its editorial columns to the correspondent, of the Journal of Commerce and the Evening Post, who, in a series of editorial articles, described the “operation of cheap postage in Great Britain”—urged “a reform of our post- office laws and the reduction of postage”—exposed “the post-oflice monopoly, and the immoral tendency of the present system”—“ the franking privilege and its abuse, and the sure success of the cheap system. The editors of those papers ably and powerfully aided the cause with their pens and influence. The Herald, Tribune, Express and several weekly papers exerted themselves in behalf of cheap postage; but the spirited and liberal editor of the Jeffer¬ sonian printed at his own expense lens of thousands of his paper containing articles on this subject, lor which he neither received nor expected any reward except the consciousness of doing good. On the 24th of November, IS43, the first public meeting ever held in favor of cheap postage in the United States, took place in the Merchants’ Exchange in the City of New York. Curtis Bol¬ ton was appointed President; Eli Hart, Joseph Kelchum, Mark Spencer, and W. W. Todd, Vice Presidents; and P. M. Wet- more and Win. B. Townsend, Secretaries. The resolutions and petition prepared by 13. Bates, were read by Park Benjamin, who accompanied them with appropriate and spirited remarks. Seve¬ ral gentlemen addressed the meeting, among whom were Messrs. Mills, Lee, Charles, Greeley, Hale, and Bales. A committee of twenty-one was appointed to carry out the objects of the meeting, consisting of— Curtis Bolton, Mark Spencer, Wm. W. Todd, Wm. B. Townsend, Janies Brown, John J. Boyd, C. P. White, James Auchincloss, John 0. Sargent, M. H. Grinnell, E. Hart, Joseph Ketchum, P. M. Wetmore, Jonathan Goodhue, Park Benjamin, J. Depeyster Ogden, Horace Greeley, David Hale, George Douglass, Moses Taylor, Wm. C. Bryant. Several members of this Committee met and organized by the appointment of Curtis Bolton, Chairman, Jacob Harvey, Treas¬ urer, and Barnabas Bates, Secretary. Sub committees oil Finance, Correspondence, and Petitions, were appointed. These severally attended to the duties of their appointment. Funds were raised to carry out the objects of the meeting. A correspondence was opened with the members of Congress from the City of New York, who cordially agreed to co-operate with the committee in carrying out the objects of the meeting. From Wm. B. Maclay a.very able letter was received and ordered to be printed, contain¬ ing his views on the reduction of postage and the abolition of the franking privilege. Petitions were circulated, and several thou¬ sand names were forwarded to Congress in favor of cheap postage. We have been the more particular in giving an account of this meeting and the doings of this Committee, because it was the first public movement in this country in favor of cheap postage, and that which gave the impulse to the subsequent proceedings in other cities and states. Several of the State Legislatures this winter passed resolutions instructing their Senators and requesting their Representatives to vote in favor of the reduction of postage and the abolition of the franking privilege. Meetings were held also in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other states, in favor of cheap postage. In New York and Brooklyn public meetings were held in different places, and lectures were delivered by B. Bates, exposing the evils of the existing system, and urging the people to call upon Congress to reform them. The Committee appointed Messrs. Greeley, Bates, and Charles, ns delegates to bring this subject before Congress and the Post Office Committees, and by arguments to convince them that (lie prosperity of the Depaitment, as well as the wishes of the people, demanded the reduction of postage and the abolition of the frank¬ ing privilege. Many of the members of Congress entered fully into their views, while others treated the scliem ■■ as Utopian, and its friends with contempt. Mr. Merrick, Chairman of the .Senate Commit¬ tee, was in favor of a partial reduction, and repmied a bill to that effect, while Mr. Hopkins, Chairman of the House Committee, was opposed entirely to any change, except to enact a bill of pains and penalties, with a view of breakingdown the private expresses and to prevent any letters or papers being transmitted in any way except by the mails. Mr. Dana, to the contrary, on the part of the minority of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Hoads, made, an able report to the House, recommending, but in a very modest and cautious inanoer, the reduction ol the rates of postage and the abolition of the franking privilege. The minority con¬ sisted of Messrs. Dana, Griimell, and Jenks. This report placed in contrast with Mr. Hopkins’, will appear to great advantage. It treats this subject in a candid, enlightened, and statesmanlike manner, while that of the majority displayed an ignorance and want of candor and research, tin worthy of men appointed to legis¬ late in the nineteenth century. Another public meeting was held in the Merchants’ Exchange, January IS, 1S44. The meeting was called to older by the late Col. Edward Clarke, and I he following gentlemen were appointed officers: J. Depeyster Ogden, President. Siewarl Biown, Theo¬ dore Sedgwick, Silas Wood. Anson G. Phelps, James Monroe. E. K. Collins, Duncan C. Pell, Paul Spolfoid, J. A. Underwood, Abram Bell and Wm. A. Mary, Vice Presidents, and A. M. Coz- zens and Jacob Harsen, Secretaries. A reporl bv B. Bales, Iroin the committee, was read by Prosper M. Weimore, and unanimous¬ ly adopted bv the meeting This report, detailed the proceedings ■ of the committee, the prospects of success in earn ing out the ob¬ jects for which they were appointed, and, asking to be disclaimed, recommended the appointment of a new committee, whose leisme would enable them to prosecute the subject with greater vigor. The meeting was addressed by Theodore Sedgwick and Paik Benjamin, wiio supported a series of spirited resolutions, recom¬ mending the reduction of postage to a uniform rate of five cents, and the abolition of the franking privilege. A committee of nine was appointed by the President, whose duly it was to raise the necessary funds, and use every proper ex¬ ertion to accomplish the objects of the meeting. The next public meeting was called in consequence of the in¬ troduction of a bill into the Senate, recommending a uniform rate of five cents. This was held in the Merchants’ Exchange, on Tuesday, the 13th February, 1845. The object of the meeting, as stated in the call, was “ to express their opinion on the bill pass¬ ed by the Senate of the United States, to reduce the present rates of postage on letters to a uniform rate of five cents for a letter weighing half an ounce, &c.” “ The meeting was organized by the selection of the following gentlemen as officers: JAMES BROWN, President. Jacob Harvey, Curtis Bolton, William Chamberlain Prosper M. Wetmore, , . Caleb Barstow, | Secretaries. Mr. Brown, the President, explained the object for which the meeting had been called, and expressed a hope that it would be unanimous in its support of the bill which had passed the Senate, and was now before the House of Representatives, and to urge the House to pass it without amendment.- “ James Depeyster Ogden explained the provisions of the bill as being liberal in its character, and such as would command the approbation of the whole country.” “ Barnabas.Bates presented a preamble and resolutions for the consideration of the meeting, which were unanimously adopted. He gave a history of the different rates of postage since the forma¬ tion of our Post-Office Department, and of the exertions which had been made in Great Britain and in this country for the establish¬ ment of cheap postage. He paid a merited compliment to that benefactor of the human race, Rowland Hill, who by his perseve¬ ring and indefatigable exertions had compelled the British Gov¬ ernment to establish the penny postage in 1840, which had pro¬ duced such a vast increase in the correspondence of that country.” “Cheapness,” he said, “was the order of the day, and we must have cheap postage in this country as well as in Great Britain, because the free people of this country will never consent to see the subjects of Qmeen Victoria have cheaper postage and enjoy greater privileges than themselves. Cheap travelling, cheap newspapers, and cheap postage will go band in hand: and it is nothing but cheap postage that will resuscitate and strengthen the drooping energies of the Post-Office Department.” Among the resolutions adopted at this meeting was the follow¬ ing: “ Resolved , That we respectfully but earnestly recommend to the members of the House of Representatives, the Post-office Committee, and especially to the delegation from this city, the Hon. Messrs. Phoenix, Maclay, Leonard and Fish, to use their utmost endeavors to effect the passage of the Senate bill for the reduction of the rates of postage, without any alteration or amend¬ ment; believing that should it be returned to the Senate, the \ Vice t Presidents. shortness of the present session will not allow sufficient time to pass that body.” The House, however, amended the Senate bill so as to make the rates of letters five cents upon a half ounce for three hun¬ dred miles and under, and ten cents over that distance, and in this shape it finally passed the Senate, and received the signature of the President, on the 3d of March, 1S-J5. Fears were enter¬ tained by some, that the President would not sign it, owing to the violent opposition of Mr. Wickliffe, McDuffie, Cave Johnson, and many other distinguished southern and western members, who predicted that if it became a law, it would prove destructive to the interests of the Post-office Department, and be repealed within one year. But in spite of all their evil prognostications, we have seen that it has more than realized the sanguine expecta¬ tions of its friends, and forever silenced the opposition of its ene¬ mies. The final passage of this law, producing such a radical reduc¬ tion of the rates of postage as fifty per cent , besides making the rate of postage depend upon weight, and not on the number of pieces contained in a letter, was a subject of too much importance not to be watched with deep interest by those who had been in¬ strumental in effecting this object. It was known that the new Postmaster-General was hostile to the measure, for he had voted against the bill in the House of Representatives, and had no faith in its success, although he said “ he would give it a fair trial.” We have no doubt that he faithfully performed his promise, and the result happily proved that all his fears were groundless, for in one year after the law went into operation, it was ascertained that the number of letters in some offices was doubled, and their income nearly equal to what it had been under the old dear sys- Accordingly, on the first of July, lS4ti, the first anniversary of the operation of the new postage law, a meeting was held at the American Institute by the friends of cheap postage, “to give an expression of their views in relation to the new postage law, and their gratitude to those who had been instrumental in effect¬ ing this great reform.” Each year succeeding the passage of llie law reducing the rates of postage, proved the salutary eli'ecls of the measure. The letters have increased in two years over one hundred per cent., and the revenues of the department nearly amounted to a sufficient sum to meet, its expenses, so that the Postmaster-General was dis¬ posed to recommend a further reduction to a uniform rate of five cents. But such a rate by no means satisfies the friends of cheap postage. They contend for a uniform rale of two cents, and the papers throughout our city and country abounded with articles re¬ commending a further reduction. In April last, Messrs. Bates and Charles visited Washington with a view of calling the attention of Congress to this subject. They found a very different state of feeling towards them not only in Congress, but in the Post Office Department, from that which they witnessed in 1844, when they endeavored to get a hearing from the House Post Office Committee, and were refused it, by George W. Hopkins, the chairman 1 Messrs. Niles and Goggiu were willing to abolish the obnoxious and burdensome features of the present law, both as regards the franking privilege and the rales of postage on letters and newspapers, but it seems that they were restrained by the other members of the commit¬ tees. It is really surprising, the hostility that is manifested by some members from the South and West to any kind of postage reform. After much difficulty, a number of gentlemen of the press held a meeting, in which they passed resolutions favorable to a reduction of postage to a uniform rate of five cents ! This reduction was by no means satisfactory to several of the gentle¬ men who attended the meeting, but they were willing to accede to this proposal, rather than do nothing on the subject. In May last, J. P. Blanchard, a delegate from the Boston Cheap Postage Association visited this city with a view to induce our citizens to form a similar association. After several preliminary meetings held in the American Institute, it was determined to form n Cheap Postage Association in this city, and to call a public meetiug for that purpose. The following is the report of the proceedings which took place on that occasion. IE Merchants’ Excha: s called to order by Silas ^cmiviiicu a.-, o...vo. a .—Stewart Brown, Presidcm ,_... . lins, Caleb Barstow, and Win, Chamberlain, vice-presidents Winslow, Jr., and Bache McEvers, secretaries. B. Bales, in behalf of the committee, presented a draft of a ciation, a list of officers, and a report, which were adopted. The following gentlemen were appointed officers of the Ass< James Brown, President. Barnabas Bates, Corresponding Secretary. Isaac Winslow, Jr , Recording Secretary. Lewis Tappan, Treasurer. -- tt ...^’’asWood, P.M. of Cheap.Postage—May 26, . who nominated the following Phelps, Edw’d. IC. Col- CONSTITUTION OF THE NEW YORK CHEAP POSTAGE ASSOCIATION, ORGANIZED MAY 26, 1818. This Association shall be ca Article 2.—Objcct. The object of this Association is to effect a postal reform, by which letters under half an ounce shall be carried for two cents to all distance! United • States, with higher rates for letters not pre-paid; and a corres It was not to be expected that the law could be easily changed, which was viewed with favor hv sortie fourteen thousand post¬ masters, whose income find privileges would he curtailed ; or by members of ( engross who would lose the franking privilege which enabled them to secure a re-election, or by the heads ol departments and bureaus who enjoyed the franking privilege ad libitum. Many persons maintained that the post office should support ilsell.” Until ls4,'r. i< tiad not only supported itself, hut had per¬ formed a.II the mail secure of the several departments of the genera): government without tiny compensation whatever. The friends of cheap postage had to combat this doctrine by showing first, that it was no more inctimleni upon the post-office to sup¬ port itself than the army, navy nr judiciary; and secondly, that it it did support itself, it was not right in require it to support the other departin'"tils. Hippily ibis is hero ning 'all obsolete idea.” The people and. Congress begin to see that there is no department. XV of the government of so much importance to the happiness and intelligence of the peoplf and the preservation of our lihcrlies and the Union as the post-ollico, and that money cannot lm belter appropriated, should n hecoine necessary, than to give cheap postage to the people. Whenever the subject of cheap postage was proposed, the lirst objection started would he, will the department be able m sup¬ port itself? Cali it he carried on wilhon' abridging mail lacili- ties, if you reduce the rates of postage? .And when it was an¬ swered that a reduction of postage would increase the revenue, Mr. Hopkins, chairman of the committee, would very gravely shake his head and say t.iat “ the attempt to augment the revenue by lessening the tax is delusive and chimerical.” In his iamoiis Report, in lilay, 1S44, he maintained that the only mode of sus¬ taining the post-office department was by the enlorcem- lit ol the existing laws and rates of postage by pains mid peimliies. “ Pen- allies are provided,” says he, “ in the bill we submit both rgainst the person who sends, and the person who takes a letter out of the mail,” and “regarding it ns a flagrant wrong, morally and po¬ litically, that the will and interests of the nation as involved in the nssurnpiion and exercise of the post office power, shnnl 1 he defeated to create employment for individuals and graiify the spirit of private gain, we propose to punish the transaction in whatever form carried mi or undertaken Fortunately, however, Congress was not disposed to pass his bill of pains and penalties, and his recommendations were passed over without any atten- The result of the cheap postage experiment in England which had been in operation four years, failed to convince him of its utility or success. “We are assured,” says he, “that the tax may In- diminished without affecting the revenue, unless in the wav of augmenting it. Opportunely for us, this extraordinary theory in finance has been put to the lest. Some four years since, England adopted the penny postage system. She did so, after the most laborious investigations by the Committee of the House of Commons, mid upon the fullest assurance that the revenue would not bo impaired. I he experiment has signally falsified ihe principle and the prediction.” Could any sane man imagine for a moment that the income of the post office would not be diminished for the first lew years, when so great a change was mads as to reduce the postage from an average of 7d. to Ihe uniform rale of one penny ? What will he say now, when the revenue is nearly equal to what it was under the dear system ? Surely he will not reiterate his former declaration that “the experiment has signally falsified the prin¬ ciple mid the prediction.” It was frequently urged, also, that none but “sharpers and spe¬ culators" desired the reduction of postage, that the forme's mid mechanics were not interested in the subject, and that it would he unjust to takeoff the lax front those who used the post-office and impose it : on those who did not. XV i The Madisonian, at this time the organ of the administration and under the special direction of Mr. Wicltlifle, the Po.-tuiasler- General, was loud and bitter in its denunciations against all wi.o were In favor of the reduction of postage. “As for tlie matter of post-office reform and the. reduction of the rates of postage,” says that paper, “there are not one thousand considerate and re¬ flecting people in the Union who desire anything of the kind. The commercial and mercantile classes have not desired reform, aiftl the rural and agricultural classes, the planters at the Smith' and the corn and wheat growers of the West, the mechanics and laboring classes, are not disposed to he taxed enormously to sup¬ port a Post-office Department to gratify the avarice and cupidity of a body of sharpers and speculators.” Not only the Madiso- viianflmt the JVeto Hampshire Patriot, Phil. JY. American, Cleve¬ land Herald, Kentucky Yeoman, Charleston Mercury, and a host of other papers were arrayed against the reduction of postage. Extracts from those papers will be found in Mr. Leavitt’s pamph¬ let, showing their hostility to this measure, and in what light its friends were viewed by the opponents of reform. Attempts were made, but not very successfully, to give the mea¬ sure a political character. Decease its active friends were princi¬ pally in the Eastern Stales, they were charged with desiring to throw the Department on the Treasuty for its support, in order to justify tin increase of the tariff. This was the expressed opinion of Messrs. McDuffie, I). S. Reid, and others in Congress, the former of whom denounced “ the lull as unjust.” “ It re.roves the bur¬ den,” says he. ‘-from those who ought to bear it, the manufactu¬ rers and merchants of the North, and throws it upon the farmers of the. South and West, who are already oppressed by the larilf, and who will have to pay the expense by a tax on their necessa¬ ries. You will sacrifice the intelligence of the people to the ra¬ pacity of the manufacturers. He could not imagine that the agriculturist anywhere cotud feel postage as a burden.” Says Mr. Held, “The reduction of postage will cause a diminution in the post-office revenue which must be supplied by the general Tieasttry. The Treasury collects tile revenue which must sup¬ ply this deficiency by a duty levied on imports, so that the lax taken oil’ the mail correspondence will have to be collected mi salt, iron, sugar, and blankets, and oilier articles which we buy from the stores. The Manufacturing Stales profit by this be¬ cause it aids tit a protective policy.” Fortunately, however, for the cause of reform, its friends were not confined to any political party, nor acre they influenced in this enterprise by considerations of such a paltry nature. Their principal object was to give the masses the privilege of holding intercourse with each other at the cheapest possible rate,, while at the same time they were convinced, ns the experiment has fully proved, that the only true way of resusitating the drooping ener¬ gies. and increasing the revenues and popularity of the Post- office Department, was to reduce the rates of postage. It was also urged aguiust this, reform, that the mail.facilities would he curtailed ; that the postmasters in all the small offices would resign, and in*u.: would he round to fill their places. '1 he Kentucky Yeoman says, “ Mr. McDuffie is leporied in have made the following correct and just remarks, showing lie understands well the operations of that Department. If the lull shall become a law, our word lor n, tioit in less than six months one-hnirtli of the offices in the Union will he discontinued, because tmliody will he found to fill tin in. But let the hill go into operation, and ill less than twelve mouths the very clamoters tor low tales of postage will become so side of it that they will he the first to unite in demanding its repeal.” If one Postmaster hits resigned on this account, there have been ten ready to take his place; and instead of "the dammars for low postage becoming sick of it, and demanding the repeal of the law,” they now demand a more radical reduction of the rates of postage. Where there was one in favor o( cheap postage, at the time the present bill was passed, there is now one thousand ; and even among those wdio voted against its passage, and were opposed to the reduction, are now in favor of a lower rate. So much for the predictions of Mr. McDuffie. Every one is aware tint, with a few honorable exceptions, the whole Post-office Department, horn the Postmaster-General down to the smallest Postmaster of the smallest post-office in the Union, were opposed to the reduction of the rales of postage. Besides, the abolishing of the franking privilege was, to many Postmasters, of mote importance than the emoluments of the office. 'Phis they fell to be a serious evil, and consequently the proposed reform very naturally excited their opposition. A great number of the members of Congress opposed the reform because it proposed to curtail their privilege of franking. However, in the passage of the bill they took care of themselves and retained their own privileges while they cut them off from the Postmasters who were better entitled to them. Besides these, all the mail contractors were opposed to a reduction of postage, as they sup¬ posed it would diminish the revenue of the Department, and thereby compel the Postmaster-General to be more economical in making his contracts. Unfortunately throughout this struggle, the chairman, Mr. Hop¬ kins, of Virgifuh, and a majority of the post-office committee were opposed to any reduction whatever. They would not even conde¬ scend to admit, any of the friends of cheap postage then in Wash¬ ington to come before the committee to explain what they wanted, and to give the reasons for their petitions. Mr. Hopkins, with a self-sufficiency unbecoming a man of his station, and totally igno¬ rant of post-office affairs, absolutely refused to liave an interview with any of t lie delegates on the subject; and thus all access was denied to a majority of the committee. Fortunately, however, lor the cause, there were three gentlemen, Messrs. Dana, Grituiell and Jetiks, on that commiltoe, who were not only willing to re¬ ceive information on the subject, hut had intelligence and indus¬ try sufficient to examine and understand it in all its bearings. In May, 1814, they presented a minority report, embodying a mass of valuable information which had never been before Congress, accompanied with unanswerable arguments in favor of reducing the niles of postage and abolishing the franking privilege. When placed in contrast with the report of Mr. Hopkins made at the same time, it must strikingly convince ant one of the vast differ¬ ence there is between the production of an ignorant political dema¬ gogue, and a liberal and enlightened statesman. HI. THE PRESENT STATE OP THE POSTAGE QUESTION, AND THE SUCCESS WHICH 1IA3 ATTENDED THE PARTIAL REDUCTION. Notwithstanding the exertions of the opponents of cheap postage both in and out of Congress, the present law was passed and went into operation July .1, 1845. The enemies of the measure finding they could not defeat the passage of the bill, succeeded in pre¬ venting its going into operation at. the beginning of the next quar¬ ter. It was passed on the third of March, but Was not suffered to take effect until the first of July, four months after its passage. This law secured two desirable objects, one was the reduction of the rates of postage to five cents on a letter under three hundred miles, and ten cents over that distance; and the second, that the rales should he regulated by weight, and not o.i the number of pieces of paper a letter might contain. The rates of postage on newspapers are not materially altered, except that the.enormous price of three cents is requited to be pre-paid on nil transient news¬ papers. This, perhaps, is one of the most obnoxious and unreason¬ able taxes ever laid upon knowledge, and has created more disaf¬ fection and ill feeling towards lhe Post-Office Department than any other tax levied upon (lie people. A paper from the office of puli- licalion can he sent by mail two thousand miles for one and a half cents, but a transient paper, so culled, cannot he sent two miles (to Brooklyn or Williamsburg) without pre-paying three cents. The effect of this law is to prevent the ciiculation of intelligence, by requiring of the citizen, whether the paper arrives at its desti¬ nation or not, the pre-payment of two hundred per cent more than a regular subscriber and Its original Cost. If the object was merely to prevent the arcimmlalinn of dead newspapers in the post-office, one cent /■ re-paid would he amply sufficient for the pm pose. By the act of 1845, the inland postage was considerably reduced, but at the same lime the postage on ship letters was increased to an enormous and burdensome extent. Fmmerly letters could be sent to any part of the wot Id by our ships and packets on the pay¬ ment of one cent at the post-office, and might lie received, if by mail, by the addition of two cents to the inland postage, and at the port of tleslinalton, by the payment nf«s cents on each letter or package, though tlie package contained a dozen letters. Bat by the'act “lo provide for the transportation of the mail between the tluiled : Slates and foreign countries,’’it was enacted, that all letters, &c., transported in the U. S. mail, between any of the pbrtaof ther United States- end the ports 1 df Edgland and France, nr any ntlier foreign pnrt, tint less tlinn 3,000 miles disiam, tirenty- fmr cents Ini' .mi nun re, forty-eight cents for ,■ n ounce, anil un¬ even iiililuitiuul lui!l oiuiee 01 haclioii (il nn ounce JiJtioi ants, he-aiies 1 1 it; inlnuil po-miot'.” Ami 11 hcivvecn Ihe L mil'll Suites mill mi V H' I lie vVe>i I nil a Mu mis, or islmuls in I lie Gull ol .Vexi- cn ten ants, twenty rents iijioii hum's weighing an oi.iiit, mid five cents lor every mill luui.il liull ounce or Iriirlum ol mi ounce, mid three cents upon eueli new-pa per or pmnplilei, wiili ilie inlmul pn.-i- iiiie il 'll d.” In March, 1847, jl was enncleil, “ ilim all lellers conveyed In mid I'roin Glimjies shall lie dunged wiili twenty rents pu-mige, mid nil lellers conveyed to llnvnnn shall lie subject 10 twelve ctnd cl half ccn's pnslage, mid lellers lo or liout Panama shnll pay u poslnge ol thirty cents, any lellers lo or from Asioria or nnv Ollier place on the Pacific ronsl. v iiliin llie terrilorv of the Uniied Sinies shall pay forty cents postage.” Il mils' appear al a glance of these rales of posiage, ihm ihev arc such us inns! ell'eciiinlly exclude the punier cla.-.-es of mu citi¬ zens from lioldiii" iiileicomse will] I heir friends nemss ihe Ailmi- lic, especially so long ns ihe retaliatory posluge, law between the Uniied Slates and Great Britain remains in tiperaiion. Take, fur example, a pour German lahnrer, residing in Illinois, who writes lo his wife in Bavaria, Germany. On a single leiier lie juu-t pre¬ pay al Ihe posl-nffice where lie resides 34 cenls, then 24 eenis in England, and 22 cenls in Bavaria, making SO cenls, and ihe same amount on ihe answer to (his leller, consequently lo send a single leller and receive an answer lo il, lie mill pay ihe enor¬ mous lax of one dollar and sixty cents ! Or if you should write to a friend in Asioria, your leller mid answer will cost you eighty The abolition of ihe franking privilege has always been insisted upon hy the people in their petitions lo Congress; hut, so far from being heeded, il. was hy the Act, of March 1, 1847, enlarged, so ihat members of Congress can send their lellers, &c.. free of posiage, during tlie whole of the term for which they me elecled, and uni il ihe meeting of ihe next Congress, t lint is eight months after I heir term of service expires. By the law of 1845, Ihe franking privilege was laken from the heads of Departments mid Bureaus, and from all ihe postmasters, but the members of Congress did mil loach their own privilege. But, by a subsequent act, ihe postmasters, whose animal emolument did not exceed Iwo hundred dollars per minimi, had the franking privilege restored to them; and instead of keeping an account of the free mailer which passed through the mails, and paying ihe Post-Office Department for the same, Congress passed an act appropriating in lieu thereof two hundred thousand dollars, a sum I hat does not pav for one- quartef of ihe franked mailer which passes through the mails. The Editor of ihe Evening Post animadverted upon these acts in ihe following severe language. “Two Acts in relation to Post-Offices and Mails wt,^ Congress, one of which we have already published. It provides further comp... J 1 ‘ public docu- re passed at the recent session of Tiie franking privilege lias also been extended to the army during- the war with Mexico. “ Letters, newspapers, and packets not exceeding one ounce in weight, addressed to any officer, mu¬ sician or private in the at my of the United Slates in Mexico, or at any post or place in the frontier of the United Slates bordering on Mexico, will pass free in the mails. The law was to continue in force during the war with Mexico, and for three months after its termination.” It was estimated hv the Postmaster-General, that Jive millions of free letters were carried by the mails the last year, that is about one-tenth of the whole number which passed through (he post-office. Thus it will appear that by the present laws. Congress so far from regardingthe petitions of the people and the recommendations of the Postmaster-General to abolish the franking privilege, have actually enlarged it, and to such a degree as to cause the mails to be loaded down with franked documents and speeches. “The franking privilege,” says a correspondent of the Evening Post, “is die great obsta- cle to the speedy reductipn ofpostages to the trifling sum of two cents on all pre-paid letters, and the great simplification of post-office accounts. From the first of December last, to this time, the free matter passing under the frank of Members ofCongress throueh the mails, ex¬ ceeded in weight all other matter transmitted through it Before the close of the last session, onineasuring'the matterfranked by members through the Washington office, for seven suc¬ cessive days it was found to exceed 2,000 bushels, being about 285 bushels per day, weigh¬ ing, in the whole,35.550 lbs., or over7,078 lbs. (three tons and a half) perdny. For some time past, since the adjournment, the matterpassiug under the frank, at the same office, has varied fiomCO to 300 bushels, or from 1600 to over 6000 pounds, averaging, probably,150 bushels, or a ton and a half per day. The amount thus franked at other offices must swell It ip, however, encouraging to the friends of cheap postage, that there has been an increase of letters even under ibis partial reduc¬ tion of postage. It. was feared by many that, this partial reduction, while it. greatly diminished the revenue upon letters on long dis¬ tances, the diminution on short distances was not sufficient, to in¬ duce the people to send such letters through the post-office. This no doubt lias been the case. Few letters comparatively .to the villages and towns around our large cities pass through the post- office. It is highly probable that not a lentil part of the letters passing between this city and Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Newark, Paterson, &e.,are sent by the mails. The same maybe said of the lowi.saround B .ston and other cities. Had the postage been reduced to two cents, nearly every letter would he sent through the post-office, and instead of fifty millions, the number would have been ninety or a hundred millions the last year. The I’ostmnsler-General made out his Iasi animal report when the law of 1845 had been in operation bill two \ ears, yet lie Irank- lv acknowledges that the “ revenues of the Department have in¬ creased mncli beyond the expectation of the liiends of the cheap postage system,”—“and that the Department is in a condition to support itself without furlhei aid from the lieasury.” The num¬ ber of chnr. R. fiuddlestone, superintendent of the ship-letter office, gave an account of the illicit sending of letters front London to the outports to go by sea. He said they were customarily sent in bags from the coffee-houses, and bv the owners of vessels, in the same wav as front the ship-letter office, and no means had been devised which could put a stop to it. Of 122,003 letters sent fiom the port of Liverpool in a year, by the Ame¬ rican packets, only (9,111)0 passed through the post-office. The number oi letters re¬ ceived inwards, from all p irts of the world, by private ships, was 960,1100 yearly; the number sent outwards through the post-office was but 2 5,000. In the year ending Oc¬ tober 5, 1SJ7, there were forty-nine arrivals of these packets, bringing 282,000 letters. The number of letters forwarded front London by port to Liverpool for these line?, was 11,000; the number received in London front these lines was 51,000 a year. Mr. Banning, postmaster at Liverpool, stated that, in return for 370,000 ship letters re¬ ceived at his office in a year, addressed to persons elsewhere than at Liverpool, only 78,000 letters passed through that office to be sent outwards. And yet the masters of vessels assured hint that the number of letters they conveyed outwards was quite equal to the number brought inwards. Mr. Maury, of Liverpool, said that on the first voyage of the Sinus steamship to Ame¬ rica, only five letters were received at the post-office to go by her, while at least 10,000 were sent in a bag from the consignee ol the ship. Mr- Bates stated that the house of Baring & Co. commonly sent two hundred letters a week, in boxes, from London to Liverpool, to go to America—equal to 10,000 a year. These things were done tinder the very eye of the authorities, and yet no means had been found to prevent it. What police can our government establish strict enough to do what the British government publicly declared itself unable to do? 8 The correspondence of the manufacturing towns, it appeared, was carried on almost entirely in private and illicit channels. In Walsall, it was testified that, of the letters to the neighboring towns, not ono-fiftieth were sent by mail. Mr. Gobden said that not one-sixth of the letters between Manchester and London went through the posi-otlice. Mr. Thomas Davidson, of Glas¬ gow, stated the ease of five commercial houses in that city, whose correspondence sent illegally was to that sent by post in the ratio of more than twenty to one ; one house said sixty-seven to one. In Birmingham, a system of illicit distribution of letters had been established through the common carriers to all the neighbor¬ ing towns, in a circuit of fifteen miles, and embracing a popula¬ tion of half a million. The price of delivering a letter in any of these places was Id., and for this the letters were both collected and delivered. Women were employed to go round at certain hours and collect letters. They would collect them for 2d. per hundred, and make a living hy it. The regular postage to those towns wtis 4d., besides the trouble of taking letters to the post- office. Hence there was both economy and convenience in the illicit arrangement. The practice had existed for thirty years, and when it was brought in all its details to the notice of parlia¬ ment, no man seems to have dreamed that it was in the power of the government to suppress it by penal enactments. The Committee, in their lepoit, concur in the opinion expressed by almost all the officers of the department, that it was not hy stronger powers to he conferred hy the legislature, nor hy tigor in the exercise of those powers, that illicit conveyance could he sup¬ pressed. The post-office must, he enabled to recommend itself to the public mind. It must secure to itself a virtual monopoly, hy the greater security, expedition, punctuality, and ciikapnkss, with which it does its work, than can be readied by any privaie enterprise. The evidence seems to have produced a universal and settled conviction, that as far as the contraband conveyance of lelteis was an evil, either financial or social, there was no remedy fur it hut an absolute reduction of the postage to Id. There were large portions of the country in which the government could control the postage at a higher rale, 2d, or even 3d.; hut in the densely po¬ pulated districts, where the greatest amount of correspondence arises, and where are also the greatest facilities for evading post¬ age, no rate higher than Id. would secure the whole correspon¬ dence to the mails. They therefore left the penal enactments just as they were, because they might he of some convenience in some cases. Mr. Hill declared his opinion that it would be per¬ fectly safe to throw the business open to competition, for that the command of capital, and other advantages enjoyed by the post- office, would enable it to carry letters more cheaply and punctu¬ ally than can be done by private individuals. And the result shows that he was right; for the contraband carriage oi letters is put down. The Companion to the British Almanack, lor 1842, says, “The illicit transmission of letters, and (lie evasions prac¬ ticed under the old system to avoid postage, have entirely ceased.” All this experience, and all these sound conclusions, are doubt- less applicable in the United Stales, with the additional consi rations, of the great'exlent of country, the limited powers of government, the entire absence of an oiganized, police, and fact that the federal government is to so great a degree regan as a stranger in the Slates. Shall a surveillance, which the 1 t.ish government had abandoned as impracticable, be seriously i dertaken at this day by the Congress of the United Slates'? III. The Postage Law of 1845. The Postage Act, passed March 3, 1845, which went into o ration on the 1st of July of that year, was called forth by a del initiation to destroy the private mails; and this object gave cl racter to the act as a whole. The reports of the Pustmaster-gei ral, and of the post-office committees in bolh Houses of Congre show that the end which was specially aimed at. was to ov throw these mails. The Report of the House Committee, p seated May 15, 1844, savs: which it was confidently estimated that the revenues of the de¬ partment, for the first year of tins new system, would lie $4.S90,- 5U0; and that the nuuiher of chargeable letters would be sixty millions. Thu House Report recommended stringent measures ■ to suppress the private mails, with the. abolition of franking-, without any reduction of postage, except to substitute federal coin lor Spanish. It estimated the increase of letters to be pro¬ duced by reducing the rates to five and ten cents, at only thirty per cent, in number, thus reducing the postage receipts at once to two and a half millions of dollars. It will be seen that each of these calculations has been proved to be erroneous. The great postage meeting in New York, held in December, 1S43, had asked (or a uniform rate of five cents. After stating the advantages of the English system, their committee still hung upon the length of the routes in this country as a reason against the adoption of the low rale of postage. They said, of the liiitiuiinl revenue, to siiilnin'lhe p-t-oliii-e l.v mivrate- wt.at if 1,nVillc l0Ucrs ’ vl " d ' "^' Hl r wri "'’ The bill was passed, but the franking privilege was continued, and yet the Postmaster General has told ns that the current in¬ come of the department is equal to its expi uses. Thu predictions to the contrary were very confident. Some of the gloomy tbre- bodings then uttered are worthy of being recalled at this time. 11 The actual deficiency lor the year ending June 30, 1846, was only $589,837 ; an d for the second year above alluded to, ending June 30, 1847, it was but $33,677. And the Postmaster-Gene¬ ral’s report for December, 1847, estimates the resources of the de¬ partment for the year ending June 30, 1848, at $4,313,157, and the expenditures at $4,099,206, giving an actual surplus of $213,- 951. If this expectation should be realized, (and there is hardly a possibility but that it should be exceeded,) the income will ex¬ ceed the annual average receipts for the nine years before the re¬ duction of postage, $51,467. The Postmaster-General ascribes the increase solely to 11 the reduction in the rates of postage,” while nearly a million of dollars are saved in the expenditures by the provision of the law of 1845, directing the contracts to be let to the lowest bidder, without reference to the transportation in coaches. So far, therefore, the triumph of the law of 1845 has been complete. It has proved that the same economic law exists here as in England, by which reduction of price leads to increase of consumption. On the other point, however, of meeting the wants of the peo¬ ple, so as to bring all the correspondence of the country into the mails, its success is very far from being equally satisfactory. The five and ten cents postage does not have the effect of suppressing the private mails and illicit transportation of letters. The report of the House Committee in 1844, showed before¬ hand that such a reduction could not have the effect here, just as the parliamentary report had shown in 1S3S, that nothing but an absolute reduction to Id. could suppress the private mails in Eng¬ land. “Individuals can prosecute on all the large railroad and steamboat routes between the great towns, as now, a profitable business in conveying letters at three and five cents, where the government would ask the five and ten cents postages.” Hill’s New Hampshire Patriot said, shortly after the act went into ope¬ ration : In his last report, December, 1847, lie also says that, expresses still continue to be run between the principal seriously affect the revenues of the department, from tli adequate powers for their suppression.” The cotnplaii nually, of a want of adequate powers to suppress the The law of 1845, has gone as far as could be desired in rity of penalties and the extent of their application, in\ heavy fines every person who shall send or receive let every stage-coach, railroad car, steamboat, or other veil! sel—its owners, conductors and agents, which may kno employed in the conveyance of let lets, or in the com any person employed in such conveyance, under penal for each letter transported. What the pusl-ofiice departm deem “adequate powers” for the suppression of illicit rying, may be seen in the following extract of a bill, \ actually reported by the post-office committee of the Ho presentatives, and “ printed by order of the House in the custody of the marshal until the fine cm! costs tire paid, or until otherwise dis¬ charged by due course of law.” The report of 1845, thinks there is “no jus!, reason why indi¬ viduals engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the same extent, a ooods; nor why the same means of detect! to the Post-office Department wh siirv.” That is, the power of detention at suspicion by the agent, ilnit. a per; would be tbe effect of carrying out Ibis tlie practice complained of, or what wen convenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough determina¬ tion in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of it, ail can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have seen, dared not. entertain such a proposition. I have no hesita¬ tion in saying, that such a system of coercion can never be suc¬ cessfully executed here. It is belter to meet, the difficulty, as the British government did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular vehicle of transmission, and the greatest, blessing which the government can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said, years ago: " smuggling should not be given ' given to the Trca- earch in all cases of •ing Iciicis. What em, in breaking up e the amount of Hi¬ lary and hi neighborhc City Hotel I have no doubt, that the cheap transmission of letters, out. of the mails, is now becoming systematized and extended between our large cities, and an immense amount of correspondence is also carried oil between tbe large cities and I lie towns around. The Boston Path-Finder contains a list of 240 “Expresses,” ns they are called, that is, of common carriers, who go regularly from Boston to other towns, distant from three miles to three hundred. Most of these men carry “mailable matter” to a great extent, in their pockets or hats, in the shape of orders, memorandums, re¬ ceipts, or notes, sometimes on slips of paper, sometimes in letters folded in brown paper and tied with a string, and not unfrequently in the form of regularly sealed letters. If we suppose eacli one to carry, on an average, ten in a day, a very low estimate, there are 750,000 letters brought to Boston in a year by this channel alone. Every thing which calls public attention to the subject of postage, every increase of business causing an increase of corres¬ pondence between any two places, every newspaper paragraph describing the wonderful increase of letters in England, will awaken new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify themselves irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is sea¬ sonably applied. In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there are many lines of business of which the 14 whole profits me made up of extremely minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material; and such concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when they etui get them take::, carried and delivered for two cents. The causes which created illicit penny posts in England are largely at work here, with the growth and systematization of manufacture* and trade; and they ate producing, and will produce the same results, until, on the best routes, not one-sixth of the letters will be carried in the mail, unless the true system shall he seasonably established. The evils of such a slate of things need no! he here set forth One of the greatest, yet one which would not. strike every mind, is the demo¬ ralization of the public mind, in abating the reverence for law, and the sense of gratitude and honor to the government. In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspond¬ ence which the duly of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful conveyances, and in winning the patiiotic regards of the people to the post-office, as to every man’s friend, the act of 1S45 has entirely failed. Il has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard toils productiveness, on the one hand, but il. has even convinced the highest, official authority that it has failed to prove itself to he the cheap postage, which the country needs and will support. In his last annual report, the Postmaster-General says: gested by this department for the improvement of its revenues, and the suppression of abuses practised underit, the present low rates of postage will not only produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a considerable surplus annually to be applied to the extension of the mail service to the new and rapidly increasing sections of our country, or would justify a still further reduction of the rates of postage. In the opinion of the undersigned, with such modifications of the act ol 1845, as have been suggested, an uniform less rate might, in a few years, be made to cover the expenses of the department; but by its adoption the department would be compelled to rely upon the .treasury for a tew years. At this time during the existence of a foreign war, im¬ posing such heavy burdens upon the treasury, it might no the wise or prudent to increase them, or to do anything which would tend to impair the public credit; account alone, recommendation for such a reduction is not made. “ Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon the rent sections of oureountry a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing, energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged, and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind; by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community, and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are cherished and preserved, and the Union itself more closely bound together.” Nothing can be more true than the position that “ postage is a tax,” anti that it is the duty of (he government to make this ‘‘tax’’ as light as possible, consistent with its other and equally binding duties. Nothing more sound than the doctrine that it is utterly wrong to charge postage with anything more than its own pro¬ per expenses. Nothing more just than the estimate here given of the benefits of cheap postage. The blessings he describes are 15 so great, so real, so accordant with the tone and benificent. design of civil government itself, and especially to the functions and duties of a republican government, that I do not think even the existence and embarrassments of a state of war, such as now ex¬ ists, are any reason at all for postponing the commencement of so glorious a measure. If it could be brought about under the ad¬ ministration of an officer who has expressed himself so cordially and intelligently in favor of cheap postage, and whose ability and fidelity in the economical administration of affairs are so well known, it would be but a filling response to the statesmanlike sentiments quoted above. I am now to show that, on the strictest, principles of justice, on the closest mathematical calculation, on the most enlarged and yet rigid construction of the duty imposed on the federal govern¬ ment by our constitution, two cents per half ounce is the most just and equal rate of postage. IV. What is the just Rule to be observed in settling the Rates of Postage 7 The posting of letters may be looked at, either as a contract between the government, and the individuals who send and re¬ ceive letters, or as a simple exercise of governmental functions in discharging a governmental duty. The proper measure of the charge to be imposed should be considered in'each of these as- . pects, for the government, is bound to do that which is right in ; both these relations. Viewed simply ns a contract, or a service rendered for an \ equivalent, what would be the rate to be charged I Not, surely, the amount it would cost the individual to send his own particular letter. The saving effected by the division and combination of ; labor is a public benefit, and not to be approptialed as tin exclusive j right by one. In this view, the government, stands only in the j relation of a party to the contract, just as a state or a town would : do, or an individual. No right or power of monopoly can enter ) into the calculation. We can illustrate the question by supposing ! a case, of a town some thirty miles from Boston, to which there has hitherto been no common-carrier. The inhabitants resolve to establish an express, and for this purpose enter into negotiations with one of their neighbors, in which they agree to give hint their business on his agreeing to establish a reasonable tariff of prices for his service. If the number of patrons is very small, they can¬ not make it an object for the man to run his wagon, unless they will agree to pay a good price for parcels. And the more nu¬ merous the parcels are, the. lower will be the rate, within certain limits, that is, until the man's wagon is fairly loaded, or he has as much business as he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that all the business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate or contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount of business, there should be ati fequitable apportionment of this advantage, a part to go to the 16 carrier forliis additional trouble and fair profits, and a part to go towards reducing' the general rale of charge. If, hotvevei, the carrier has an interest in a place live miles beyond, which he thinks may be built up by having an express running into it from Boston, although the present amount of business is too small to pay the cost, and if, for considerations of his own advantage, he resolves to tun his wagon to that place at a constant loss for the present, looking' to the rise of his properly for ultimate remuneialinn, it would not be just for him to insist, that the people who intend to establish an express and support it for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or exorbitant price for their own parcels, in order to pay him for an appendage to the enterprise, for which they have no occasion, and which he himself undertakes for personal con- siderations of his own. And if he should he obstinate on this point, they would just let him take his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded to make a new bar¬ gain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage. And if an appeal should he made to their sympathy or charity, to help the growing hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give charity out of their pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels; for then those would give who were able and wil¬ ling, and would know how much they gave. This covers the whole ease of arranging postage as a matter of equal contract. The just measure of charge is, the lowest, rale at which the wotk can be afforded by individual enterprise on the best self-supporting routes. Plainly, no other rate can he kept tip by open competition ori these routes. And if these routes are lost, by competition, you must charge proporlionably higher on the rest, which will throw the next class of routes into other hands, and so on, until nothing is left for you but the most costly and impracticable portions of the work. The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is an extensive and complicated combination of interests, among which the general convenience and even economy will be pro¬ moted by establishing a uniformity of prices, without reference to an exact apportionment of minute differences. It can be easily shown, that all these considerations would be harmonized by no rate of postage on letters, higher than the Eng¬ lish Id., or with 11s two cents for each half ounce. Considered as a business question, unaffected by the assumed power of mo¬ nopoly by the government, the reasonings of the parliamentary reports and the results of the British experiment abundantly esta- blish this rate to he the fair average price for the service rendered. A moderate business can live by it, if economically conducted, and a large business will make it vastly profitable, as is seen in the payment of four or five millions of dollars a year into the public treasury of Great Britain, as the net profits of penny postage. If we look at the post-office in the more philosophical and ele¬ vated' aspect of a grand governmental measure, enjoined by the people for the good of the people, we shall be brought to a similar 17 conclusion. The constitutional rule for the establishment of the post-office, is as follows: “Congress shall have power to — “Establish post-offices and post-roads.” This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the Unit¬ ed States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable ability of the government. This is one point of the “general welfare,” for which we are to look to Congress, just as we look to Congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable wants of the people, and the rea¬ sonable ability of the government. It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repealed rule, which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office must support itself. Still less, does it authorize Congress to throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase its useful¬ ness as a public convenience, because it cannot carryall those loads. The people must have mails, and Congress must furnish them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground that the alternative may he the discontinuance of public mails, the privation of this privilege to the people, and the wind¬ ing up of the post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government itself will soon wind up, or rather will be taken ill hand and wound up by the people, and set a-goittg again on better principles. The sole inquiry for Congress is, wliat is the best way to meet the reasonable wants of the people, by mentis within tile reasonable ability of the government'? The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its admi¬ nistration. are well set forth in the Report of the House Commit¬ tee in 1844; “ To content the man, dwelling more remote from town, with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means ol intercommunication ; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not for ever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love ; to prevent those whom the swel¬ ling tide of population is constantly pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state; to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government, worthy, by pro¬ per knowledge and intelligence of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of tiie government; to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and na¬ tional affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection.” These are the objects for which Congress is bound to maintain the post-office, and it is impossible that Congress should ever se- 18 rionsly consider whether they will not abandon them. The maintenance of convenient mails for these objects is therefore to be regarded as a necessary function of the government of the Unit¬ ed States. In the infancy of that government, while the govern¬ ment itself was an experiment, when the country was deeply in debt for the cost of our independence, and when its resources tor public expenditure were untried and unknown, there was doubt¬ less a propriety in the adoption of the principle, that the post- office department should support itself. But that state of things has long gone by, and our government now has ample ability to execute any plans of improvement whatever, for the advance¬ ment of knowledge, and for binding the Union together, pro¬ vided such plans come within the acknowledged powers conferred by the constitution. The post-office being, then, like the army and navy, a necessa¬ ry branch of the government, it follows that the charge-of postage for the conveyance of letters and papers is of the nature of a tax, as has been well expressed by the present Postmaster-General, in his last annual report, quoted above. Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon intelligence and knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social affections.” The question before us is, How heavy a “ tax” ought the govern¬ ment of a federal republic to impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human improvement answers sponta¬ neously, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate. The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of correspondence produced by cheap postage, and (he immense revenue accruing therefrom, demonstrate that TWO CENTS is not below the rale which the government can afford to receive. Let the people un¬ derstand that all beyond this is a mere “ tax,” not required by any necessity, and they will soon demand that the government look for its resources to some more suitable subjects of taxation than Another rule of right in regard to this “ tax” is well laid down in the Report of the House Committee, for 1844: “ As the post- office is made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it should derive aid and support from everything which it con¬ veys. No man’s private correspondence should go free, since the expense of so conveying it becomes a charge upop the correspond¬ ence of others; and the special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being extended to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither should the public correspon¬ dence be carried free of charge where such immunity operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen. There is no reason why the public should not pay its postages as well as citi¬ zens—no sufficient reason why this item of public expenses should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax paid into the trea¬ sury.” These remarks are made, indeed, with reference to the franking privilege, which the committee properly proposed to 19 abolish on the grounds here set forth. But it is plain that the principle is equally pertinent to the question of taxing the corres¬ pondence of the thickly settled parts of the country for the pur¬ pose of raising means to defray the expense of sending mails to the new and distant parts of the country. There is no justice in it. The extension of these, mails is a duty of the government; and let the government, by the same rule, pay the cost out of its own treasury. “ Postage,” says the same report, “in the large towns and contiguous places, is, in part, a contribution.” It is a forced contribution, levied not upon the property of the people, but upon their intelligence and affections. Our letters are taxed to pay the following expenses: 1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters. 2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents, which few people read at all, and most of which might ns well be sent in some other way—as would be seen the moment they should be actually subjected to the payment of post¬ age by those who send or receive them. “3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the new or thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own expenses. I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous than the government ought to establish ; but then the government ought to support them out of the gene¬ ral treasury. Many of them are necessaiy for the convenience of the government itself. For many of them the treasury is am¬ ply remunerated, and more, by the increased sale, of the public lands, the increase of population, and the consequent increase of the revenue from the custom-house. And the rest are required by thegreat duty of self-preservation and self-advancement, which is inherent in our institutions. 4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal number of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at existing rates, would amount to at least §175,000 a j'ear, and die greater part of which would be saved under the new postal system. Why should these burdens be thrown as a “tax upon corres¬ pondence,” or made an apology for the continuance [of such a tax'? It is unreasonable. Alf these expenses should be borne, “like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.” This would leave letters chargeable only with such a rate of postage as is needed for the prevention of abuses, and to secure the or¬ derly performance of the public duty. And a postage of two cents would amply suffice for this. Some have suggested that one cent isall that ought to be required. There is another view of the matter, which shows still more strongly the injustice of the present tax upon letters. “It is not matter of inference,” says Mr. Rowland Hill, “ but matter ol fact, that the expense of the post-office is practically the same, whether a letter is going from London to Burnet, (11 miles,)or from Lon¬ don to Edinburgh, (397 miles;) the difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have.” The cost of transit from London 20 to Edinburgh he explained to be only one thirty-sixth of a pen¬ ny. And the average cost, per letter, of transportation in all the mails of the kingdom, did not differ materially from this. Of course, it was impossiple to vary the rales of postage according to distance, when the longest distance was but a little over one- tenth of a farthing. The same reasoning is obviously applicable to all the productive routes in the United States. And we have seen the injustice of taxing the letters on routes that are product¬ ive or self-supporting, to defray the expense of the unproductive routes which the government is bound to create and pay for. Another view of the case shows the futility of the attempt to make distance the basts of charge. The actual cost of transit, to each letter, does not vary with the distance, but is inversely as the number of letters, irrespective of distance. The weight of letters hardly enters into the account as a practical considera¬ tion. Ten thousand letters, each composed of an ordinary sheet of letter paper, would weigh but one hundred and fifty-six pounds, about the weight of a common sized man, who would be carried from Bosion to Albany or New York for five dollars. The ave¬ rage cost of transportation of the mails in this country is a little over six cents per mile. For convenience of calculation, take a route of ten miles long, which costs ten cents per mile, and ano¬ ther of one hundred miles long at the same rate. There are some routes which do not carry more than one letter on the ave¬ rage. This letter would cost the department one dollar for car¬ rying it ten miles. On the route of one hundred miles we will suppose there are ten thousand letters to be carried, which will . cost the government lor transportation just one mill per letter. How then can we make distance the basis of postage? The matter may be presented in still another view. The go¬ vernment establishes a mail' between two cities, say Boston and New York, which is supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds to establish a mail between New York and Phi¬ ladelphia, which is supported by the postage between those places. Now, how much will it cost the government to carry in addition, all the letters that go from Bosion to Philadelphia, and from Phila¬ delphia to Boston ? Nothing. The contracts will not vary a dol¬ lar. In th’s manner you may extend your mails from any point, wherever you find a route which will support itself, until you reach New Orleans, or Little Rock; and it is as plain as the multiplica¬ tion table, lhaL it will cost, the government no more to take an indi¬ vidual letter from Boston to Little Rock, than it would to take the same letter from Boston to New York- The government is quite indifferent to what place you mail your letter, provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly running to it. This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were most intelligently and satisfactorily drawn—that the “prin¬ ciple of a uniform postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing letters in the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred with reference to their receipt at, and delivery from, the office, and that the cost of transit along the mail roads 21 is comparatively unimportant, and determined railter by the num¬ ber of letters carried than the distance that “ns the cost ol con¬ veyance per letter depends more on the manlier of letters carried thiia on the distance which they are conveyed, (the cost being frequently gieater for distances of a few aides, than I'm distances of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in propmiion to the cost, ought to inciease in the inverse ratio of the number of let¬ ters conveyed but it would be impossible to carry such a rule into practice, and therefore the commit lee were of opinion that “the nearest practicable approach to a fair system, would be to charge a uniform rate of postage between one post-office and another, what¬ ever may be their distance.” And the committee were further of opi¬ nion, “that such an arrangement is highly desirable, not only on account of its abstract fairness, but because it would lend in a great degree to simplify and economize the business of the post-office.” The adoption of this simple principle, of Uniform Cheap Post¬ age, was a revolution in postal affairs. It may almost be called a revolution in the government, for it identified the policy of the government with the happiness of the people, more perfectly than any one measure that was ever adopted. It prepated the wnv for all other postal reforms, which aie chiefly impracticable until this one is carried. We also can have franking abolished, as soon as cheap postage shall have given the franking privilege alike to all. We can have label stamps, and free delivery, and registry of let¬ ters, and reduced postage on newspapers, and whatever other im¬ provement our national ingenuity inay contrive, to the fullest extent of the people’s wants, and the government’s ability, just as soon as we can pi avail upon the people to ask, and Congress to giant, this one boon of Uniform Cheap Postage. V. Franking. The unanimity and readiness with which the franking privilege was surrendered by the members of the parliament—men of privilege in a land of privilege—is proof of I lie strong pressme of ; necessity under which the measute was carried. It is true, a few j members seemed disposed to struggle for the presenation ol this j much cherished prerogative. One member complained that the bill ] would be taxing him as much as £15 per aim.. Ano'her de- i fended the franking privilige on account of its benefits to the poor, j Hut the opposition melted away, like an unseasonable host, as | soon as its arguments were placed in the light of cheap postage. I And the whole system of fl anking was swept an ay, and cadi tie- I pttrtmeni. of the government was requited to pay its own postage, [ and report the same among its expenditures. 'The debates in par- ( liament show something of the reasons which prevailed. July 22,184S. The postage bill came up on the second reading: Sir Robert H-Inglis, among other tilings, otr privilege. He could not see why, because a ta: to be imposed on members. It would be to the.- — .—.-. least £15 a year, at the reduced rate of a penny a loiter. To the revenue the sv would be small, and he hoped the house would Jhe Chancellor of the Exchequer said the sat cel lor of I On a former day. July 5. the Chat: said concerning the abolition of the fri : Exchequer had lege: Undoubtedly, we other grounds, I be don the privilege, privilege under r - : is no member of the house who will notin' ready to v notion that honorable gentlemen should retain ...... they must have a more intense appreciation of the value ;ard for the value of lime, than 1 can conceive, if they All the peculiarities which distinguish Briush institutions from our own, might naturally be expected to make public men in that country more tenacious of privilege than our own statesmen. In a land of privilege, we should expect mere privilege to be coveted, because it is privilege. This practical and harmonious decision of British statesmen, of all parlies, in favor of abolishing the franking privilege, in order to give si length and consistency to the system of cheap postage, shows in a striking light the sense which they entertained of the greatness of the object of cheap postage. The arguments which convinced them, we should naturally sup¬ pose would have tenfold greater force here than there; while the arguments in favor of the privilege would have tenfold greater influence there than here. Can there be a doubt that, when the subject is fairly understood, there will be found as much magna¬ nimity among American as among British legislators? It was stated in the debates, that before the franking privilege was limited, it had been worth, to some great commercial houses, who had a seat in parliament, from £300 to £800 a year; and that after the limitation it was worth to some houses as much as £300 a year. The committee spoke of the use of franks for sci¬ entific and business correspondence, as “an exemplification of the irregular means by which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular instances. And like all irregular means, it is of most unfair and partial application ; the relief de¬ pends, not on any general regulation, known to the public, and according to which relief can be obtained, but upon favor and op¬ portunity ; and the consequence is, that while the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more forbearing dis¬ position pay the penalty of high postage.” It also keeps out of view of the public, “ how much the cost of distribution is exceed¬ ed by the charge, and to what extent the postage of letters is taxed” to sustain this official privilege. The committee therefore 23 concluded in llieir report, that “ taking into the account the se¬ rious loss to the public revenue, which is caused by the privilege of franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in nume¬ rous cases where no public business is concerned, it would be politic in a financial point of view, and agreeable to the public sense of justice, if, on effecting the proposed reduction of the post¬ age rates, the privilege of franking were to he abolished.” Only the post-office department now franks its own official correspond¬ ence; petitions to parliament are sent free; and parliamentary documents are charged at one-eighth the rate of letters. Letters to the Queen also go free. In our own country, the congressional franking privilege has long been a subject of complaint, both by the post-office authori- ties'and the public press. There are many discrepancies in the several returns from which the extent of franking is to be ga¬ thered. From a return made by the. Postmaster General to the Senate, Jan. 16, 1844, the whole number of letters passing through the mails in a year is set at 27,073,144, of which the number franked is 2,815,692, which is a small fraction over 10 per cent. The annual report of the Postmaster General in 1837, esti¬ mates the whole number of letters at 32.360,992, of which 2,100,- 000,or a little over 6 per cent, were, franked. In February, 1S44, the Postmaster General communicated to Congress a statement of an account kept of the free letters and documents mailed at Washington, during three weeks of the sit¬ ting of Congress in 1840, of which the results appear in the fol¬ lowing TABLE. Week ending Leaer-s. 1 | Public Hoc. Weight el Doc. May 2. 13,674 | 96,588 8,042 lbs. June 2. 13,955 108,912 9,076 July 7. 14,766 1 186,768 15,564 Total. 42,395 392.268 32,689 Average. 14.132 130,756 10,896 Session 33 w'ks | 466.345 4.314,948 359,579 Whole number of letters and documents in a session of thirty- three weeks, 4,781,293. Average weight of public documents, If oz. Of the 42,376 free letters, 20,362 were congressional, and 22,032, or 52 percent., were from the Departments. In the month of October, 1S43, an account was kept at all the offices in the United States, of the number of letters franked and received in that month by members of Congress. The number was 18,558, which would give 81,370 for 19 weeks of vacation. To these add 223,992 mailed in 33 weeks of session, and four- fifths as many, 179,193, for letters received, and it gives a total of 24 484,555 letters received and sent free of postage by members of Congress in a year, besides the public documents. The postage mi the. letters, at the old rates, would have been $100,000. ° From the same return of October, 1843, it appears that the number of letters franked and received by national and state offi. cers, was 1,021,11138; and by postmasters, 1,508,928; total, 2,592,. 998, the postage on which, at 144 cents, would amount to $376,- 073. These calculations would give the loss on free letters, at that time, $170,073. This is besides the postage on the public docu¬ ments, 359,578 pounds, the postage on which, at 2J cents per ounce, would come to $147,581. Total postage lost by franking, $623,054. Document No. US, printed by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1848, gives $312,500 as the amount of postage on trunked letters, and $200,000 for franked documents, making a total of $512,500. The report of the Post-cffice Committee of the House of Re¬ presentatives, May 15. 1844, contains a return of the number of free letters mailed and received at the Washington post-office, during the week ending February 20,1844, with the correspond¬ ing annua! number, and the amount,of postage, at the old rate —allowing the average length of a session of Congress to be six months. From this I have constructed the following Departments. received. Total No. Annually. Postage. House of Representatives.. 1,882 1,506 Senate.... 7,510 10,271 Total of Congress. 9,392 11,776 550.368 $114,697 President U. S... 304 174 24,856 4 895 Post Office. 6,041 3,615 502 112 102,474 State Department. 1,989 2,253 220.58-1 41,600 Treasury Department. ! 6.800 2,405 478,660 100,949 War Department. 1 2,592 2,626 271,336 61,475 Navy Department... ! 1,709 2,082 197,132 39,809 Attorney General. 52! 816' 45,136 10,67S Total. 2,290,184 $476,577 Whole number of letters franked at Washington -. - 2,290,184 Add, franked by members at home. 111,348 Franked by postmasters. 1,568,928 Total of free letters. 3,970,450 Add, franked documents. 4,314,948 , General total number. 8,285,39b The postage on all which, at the old rates, would be at least.$1,000,000 25 The annual report of the Postmaster-General, December, 1847, estimates the number of free letters at five millions, the post¬ age on which, at present rates, would be at least §375,000, to which the postage on the documents should be added. The conclusion ol the whole matter is, that the postage due on the free letters and documents, if reckoned according to the old rates, would be at least one million, and under the present rales above half a million of dollars annually; equal to 12 per cent, of the whole gross income of the department. A serious objection to the franking system is, that it unavoida¬ bly tends to constant, strife and altercation between members of Congress and the department. The head of the depat intent, naturally and properly careful of the income of the post-office, sees with pain, the vast encroachment upon the revenue made by the franking system. He becomes rigid in the construction of the law; he deems every frank that does not. come within its letter an abuse; he adops the assumption that, franks were only de¬ signed for the personal accommodation of the individual, and not for his family or friends. He watches to detect, some unwarranted stretch, he finds a plenty ; he examines a flanked letter, he slops it ; complaint is made to the member whose signature has been treated will) disrespect, an explosion follows, the public service is hindered, and the honor of law is lowered. At this moment, there is a hill pending in Congress to protect, the franks of members, in conse¬ quence of a franked letter having been slopped, on the ground that the direction was not in the handwriting of him who gave tlie frank. Any espoinage upon men’s letters is plainly an intole¬ rable grievance in a republican government. The British govern¬ ment were compelled to allow franks of members to cover all that, was under them, and they therefore restricted them in weight, and number. Tiie only available met hod for us is to aboiisli the pri¬ vilege itself. The experience under the present postage law proves that it is impossible to aboiisli the privilege, except, by esta¬ blishing cheap postage. The act of 1S4-1, attempted greatly to restrict the franking privilege, but in three years every material restriction has been practically done away. There is no middle ground between boundless franking and no franking. The bill above referred to has passed I lie Senate, in spile of the most ear¬ nest remonstrances of the Postmaster-General, so that now the frank of a member of Congress covers all that is under it, within the prescribed limit of two ounces weight,. Those members who are so disposed can frank envelopes for their friends in any num¬ ber, and send them in parcels of two ounces, to be used anywhere, without any more meddling of the post-office clerks. The remedy will be, to reduce the rate of postage so low that it will he worth no person’s while to use the franking privilege, or to seek its bene¬ fits from those who hold it; or so that, if it is retained, those who use it will at least show that they “ have a more intense appreci¬ ation of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time,” than ordinary persons can conceive! It has been said that it \v ;l l be impossible to secure the services 4 26 of postmasters without giving them the franking privilege. Bin it will be found that the cheap and uniform postage, always pre¬ paid, will so greatly diminish the labor of keeping the post-office, as to remove the objection in most cases to taking the trouble. And for the rest, it is only for the department to demand that, if the people of any neighborhood wish a post-office they must, fur¬ nish a postmaster, and this difficulty is annihilated. VI. Letter Postage Stamps, for Pre-payment. In England, as a part of the system devised by Mr. Rowland Hill, the pre-payment of letter postage is greatly facilitated, and, of course, the tendency to pre-payment is increased, while the management of the post-office itself, in all its departments, is simplified to the highest degree by the use of adhesive postage- stamps. The stamp is a small oblong piece of paper, with a de¬ vice upon it, (Queen’s head,) so skilfully engraved and printed as almost to defy counterfeiting, against which indeed the small value of each one, the danger of speedy detection, and the high penalty for counterfeiting a royal signet, are equally effective safeguards. The stamp is coated on the back with an adhesive gum, which securely fastens the stamp to the letter, by being slightly wet and pressed down with the finger. These are printed in sheets, and are sold at all post-offices, at precisely their postal value; Id., 2d., or Is., as the case may be. The postmasters purchase them for cash, of the general post-office, and are allowed a deduction of one per cent, for their trouble. The small shop-keepers of all descriptions, who buy from the post-offices without discount, generally keep postage-stamps to sell for the accommodation of their customers and neighbors, just as they would give small change for a larger piece of money with the same view. Such a shop would lose favor by refusing to keep stamps to sell. Each individual buys stamps for his own use, in as great or small numbers as he pleases, always at the same rate. Yon keep them on your writing-desk, along with wafers and wax. You carry a few in your wallet, ready for use at any place. You seal your letter, and direct it, and then attach one of these stamps, drop it into the letter-box, or send it to the post-office, nnd that wonderful machinery takes it up, passes it about, finds the own¬ er, and delivers it into his hand, without any additional charge. Nothing can exceed the simplicity of the process but the perfec¬ tion of its working. As the current value of these stamps is the same in every part of the country, and is precisely identical with that of' the coin they represent, they serve as a currency to be used in payment of small sums at a distance. This is more useful in England than in the United States, because there they have no bank notes of small denominations. But even in this country, ns soon as they are in general use, they will be found vastly convenient in making small payments at a distance. 2 : Besides the label stamps, the English post-office manufactures and sells stamped envelopes, which will at once enclose the let¬ ter and pay the postage. The price of the envelope is half a farthing, in addition to the Id. for postage ; that is, eight stamped envelopes are sold for Od., or twenty-four for 2s. 3d. Stamped half sheets of paper are also furnished by the post- office, a farthing being charged for the paper, besides the Id. for postage. These are much used for printing circulars, for which they are very convenient. They are also bought by the poor to write brief letters on. It is a common practice, in writing to another person on your own business, to enclose a postage stamp to pre-pay the letter in reply. Some persons, who hav much correspondence, procure their own address printed in script on the hack of stamped en¬ velopes, and then send these enclosed to bring back the expected return. Persons doing a great deal of business with each other, through the post-office, keep each other’s envelopes on hand. The child at school, or the son in college, is furnished with his father’s envelopes, stamped and directed. The postage stamps are cancelled, by an obliterating stamp in the office where they are received, so that no postage stamp can ever be used a second time. Each post-office is furnished with a cancel stamp, and an ineffaceable ink for this purpose. There are five different forms of cancel stamps, one used for London letters, deliverable within the London District, one for letters mailed in London for places elsewhere, one for all oilier places in England and Wales, one for Scotland, and one for Ireland. Thus it is seen at a glance, from what section a letter comes. Sometimes the stamp denoting the place at which a letter is mailed, is not sufficiently plain. To meet this, and to serve some other conveniences, the cancel stamps have a blank in the centre, in which is inserted the number belonging to that office. Thus the shape tells the district, and the number the office from which each letter conies. The following are fac similes of the cancel stamps, the blank space containing the number of the of¬ fice in figures. The London stamp has a circular blank for let¬ ters that are mailed within the London circle, and deliverable also within it, and a diamond-shaped blank for letters going out of London. 27 Used in Scotland. Used i'll Ireland. The post offices in each section are all numbered consecu¬ tively, and each office is permanently known in all other offices by its number as well as its name. Each office has its number engraved in the blank space of its cancel stamp, as in the first and last above, so that the place from which the letter conies is known Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the manufacture of envelopes, may be doubtful. Probably it will be judged that the Label Stamps would afford all needed convenience, so far as the government is concerned, and the rest would be left to private enterprise. From the returns of the ac¬ tual expense of manufacturing envelopes, £359 per million— about a mill and three-quarters apiece, it will be seen that there is yet room for individul competition among ns, to bring down the current price to the rate of only a reasonable profit. The third assistant Postmaster General remarks, in his late report, that the demand for Label Stamps has mu been as great as was anticipated, the amount sold being but $28,330, which 29 would only pay for about 500,000 stamps. This is indeed a very great falling off from the number purchased in England, which must be not less than two hundred .millions of stumps in the year. He says that •“ many important commercial low ns have not applied lor iliun, and in others they are only used m trilling amounts. But it should be borne in mind, that people are more likely to invest a dollar in stamps, when they get fifty for their money, than when they only get ten or twenty. And when pur¬ chased. they are likely to use them tip a great deal more freely, when they look at eacll'one as only two cents. 'With so great a convenience afforded at so cheap a rate, it is not possible but that die demand must tie immense, and the use abundantly satis¬ factorily to the people and to the deparlment. These stamps would obviate the practical didiclllty apprehend¬ ed in the administration of the cheap postage system, m those parts of the country where the use of copper coin is not com¬ mon ; as it will always he easy to purchase stamps with dimes. 1 do not believe any person in this country would lie so fasti¬ dious on this point, as to he unwilling to send five letters for the same money that it now costs to send one. VII. New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage. The principles of cheap postage have been recognized from the beginning of our uoveiiiiui'iit, in reference to die postage on news¬ papers— the charge being regulated, neither by weight nor dis¬ tance, but, with a single exception, by the rule of simple uni¬ formity. The postage, on newspapers is one cent for eacli paper, within 100 miles, or within the state where printed, and a cent and a half for greater distances. The, act of 1S1<1, allowed all newspapers within 30 miles of the place where issued, to go free, but this militated so directly against every principle of equity, that it has been repealed. But cheap poslage on newspapers, for the sake of the general diffusion of knowledge of public affairs, has always been the policy of our government. Even during the war of 1812, when it was attempted to raise a revenue by letter postage, the postage on newspapers was not raised. No proposition whatever, to increase the cosi, or lessen the facility of the circulation of newspapers by mail, would be sanctioned by the people, under any conceivable exigency of the government. Yel it has never been slated, to my knowledge, by any admi¬ nistration, that the poslage of newspapers was any help to lhe deparlment, or even that it paid for itself. Many of the unpro¬ ductive routes, which add so much to I he expense, and so little to the income of the department, are demanded chiefly for the faci¬ lity of getting the newspapers, rather than for letters. We are a nation of newspaper readers. It is possible, indeed, that the pro¬ digious increase in the number of newspapers circulated by mail, which has taken place within twenty years, and especially within ten \ ears, may have reduced the average cost of each, so that now the newspapers may be productive, or at least remunerative. The 30 Postmaster-General slates the postage on newspapers and pamph- leis, lor I lie year ending June 30, 1S-17, at $043,160, which is an increase of $81,018, or 14i per cent, over the preceding year, and an increase over the annual average of the nine precediiw years, of $111,181, or 21 percent. ° The newspapers passing through the mails annually, are esti¬ mated at 55,0011,000. In 1S43, they were estimated at 43,500,000, of which 7,000,000 were free. If the calculation is made on the whole number, the increase is twenty per cent, in four years. But if, as is probable, the 55,000,000 in 1847 are chargeable papers, the increase is33J per cent. If anything can make the newspa¬ per postage pay for itself, it. will be the multiplication of newspa¬ pers, as it is well known that a great reduction of cost of indivi¬ dual articles is produced by the great number required. What fortunes are made by manufacturing cotton cloth, to be sold at six or eight cents per yard ; and by making pins and needles, which pass through so many processes, and yet are sold at such a low rate. Each yard of cloth, each needle, each pin, is sub¬ jected to all (hose several steps, and yet the greatness of the de¬ mand creates a vast revenue from profits which are so small upon each individual article as to be incapable of being stated in money; the cheapness of production extending the sale, and the extent of sale favoring the cheapness of production. An establishment like the post-office requires a certain amount of expenditure and labor to keep the machinery in operation, though the work be but little, not half equal to its capacity, and it can often enlarge its labors and its productiveness, without requiring, by any means, a corres¬ ponding increase of expense; and enlarged to a considerable ex¬ tent, perhaps, without any increase at all. Thus the cost of the British post-office, which was £686,768, in 1839, when the num¬ ber of letters was only 86,0000,060, w\\s increased only to £702,3 ID, but little more than 10 per cent, in the following year, when the number of letters was increased to 170,000,000. That is, the quantity of business was doubled, while the expense was only in¬ creased one-tent h. And in 1846, when the letters were 322,000,000, or nearly fourfold the former number, the expense was only £1,138,745, an increase of but 65 per cent., and the greater part of this—almost the whole—was for increased facilities given, and not owing to the increased number of letters. Had the cost kept pace with the increase of business, it would have been, in 1847, nearly £3,000,000 sterling. There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, aris¬ ing from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report: “The weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the mass of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities of the Union to every part of the country.’' Some of these newspapers, he says, weigh over two and a half ounces each. For more than twenty years, the weight of news¬ papers has been a cause of complaint in the department, for which no remedy has yet been devised, neither has any man been bold 31 enough to propose to exclude them from the mails. At. one time, rules were made, allowing mail carriers to leave the newspaper bags to be crrried along at another time. But this produced mo serious a dissatisfaction to be continued. The newspapers must vo, and they must go with the letters, for people are quite as sen¬ sitive at the delay of their newspapers as at the delay of their let¬ ters. Seven or eight years ago there was a clamor til the weight of certain mommoth sheets, as the New World and the Brother Jonathan, weighing each from a quarter to half a pound. But this extravagant folly of publishers litis in a great measure cured itself, and the grievance has ceased. The law of 1845 underioolc to make a discrimination against papers of exorbitant size, In- charging extra postage on all that were larger than 1,900 square inches. I cannot learn that any papers are taxed at this extra rate, and I venture to predict that, whenever the public convenincc shall he found to require newspapers of a larger size than 1,900 inches, the postage rule will have to he altered to meet the public demand. The people have so learned the benefits of uniformity and cheapness of postage on newspapers, that they will never re¬ linquish it. In Great Britain no difference is made among papers on tic- count of their weight, although their paper is almost twice as heavy as ours. Atid even when a supplementary sheet is issued, the whole goes as one newspaper covered hv one stamp. I have a copy of the London Herald, with three supplements, the whole weighing half a pound, which passed free in the mail, with only the principal sheet stamped. And the whole comes by the steam¬ er’s mail, the postage pre-paid, by a single 2d. stamp. In that country, however, it is not compulsory to send newspapers or sup¬ plements by mail, and a very large proportion are not sent in that way, but for convenience by carriers. Their method of circulat¬ ing newspapers, by sale instead of yearly subscription has led to a difference in this respect. I believe there is no restriction upon the carriage of newspaper packages out of the mail, by the same contractors, and the same carriages that convey the mails. It is probable that the interests of the department would be promoted, rather than injured, by such a rule, liberally interpreted, in this country. Twenty years ago, when our mails were all carried in conches drawn by horses, there were some routes on which the weight of the newspaper mails was a serious incuinbiance. But at present, so great has been the extension of steam power, that I question if there is a single route to which the number of newspapers sent would be a burden, unless, perhaps, it may he the route by the National Road, from Cumberland to Columbus. So great are the advantages of uniformity of rale, in facilitat¬ ing the administration of the post-office, that theie would he a greater loss than gain in attempting to introduce any rule of gra¬ duation in the postage of newspapers. It is easily seen that the difference of distance is no ground for such graduation, for the same reasons which are conclusive in regard to letters. And as to the difference of weight, if you deduct from the one cent post- age what it costs to teceive and mail and deliver each paper, and to keep the accounts and make the returns, the difference in the actual expense is too small to be made of any practical account, between a newspaper weighing two ounces and one weighing half an ounce. The Journal of Commerce, and papers of that size, weigh less than two ounces; and the number of newspapers printed on a sheet weighing over two ounces, is too small to be of any account. The only point respecting the postage on newspapers, on which the Cheap Postage Association are inflexibly fixed is, that the postage shall be uniform, irrespective of distance, and not exceed one cent per paper, pre-paid. If not pre-paid, the postage is to be doubled. It is supposed that a practical rule will obtain, like that which now prevails, of allowing regular subscribers to pay their postage quarterly in advance, at the office where they receive their papers. Only, the rule of pre-payment will be enforced, because double postage is to be exacted in all cases where there is not actual pre-payment. It will follow that all occasional papers will pay two cents postage, that is the same as a letter, unless the postage is pre-paid by the sender, at the office where the paper is mailed. In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay Id. each sheet. And all such stamped papers are carried in the mails postage free. Whatever be their date, or how many times soever they may have been mailed, they always go free by virtue of the stamp. Some at¬ tempts have been made by the post-office to limit the time after date, in which stamped papers are Iransmissahle free of postage. But the restrictions have ail been borne away by the public con¬ venience and the public will. The amount received for news¬ paper stamps, in the year ending January 5, 1S44, was £271,ISO. This goes to the treasury, and not to the post-office, although the Id. stamp duty was retained solely with a view to the post¬ age. This sum, ought, therefore, in strictness, to he added to the gross annual receipts of the post office ; and indeed, to the nett income of the post-office, for the whole expense of mailing, trans¬ porting and delivering is included in the yearly expenditures of the post-office, so that the amount of stamp duly is all gain to the treasury, saving the trifling cost of stamping. The cost of stamping paper for the newspapers was stated be¬ fore the Parliamentary Committee, by John Wood, Esq., Chair¬ man of the Board of Stamps and 'Paxes, lie says, “A great deal of time is employed in attaching the stamp to each sheet of paper, because each has to be separated from the quire or bundle, and the stamp separately applied to it. 1 calculate that sheets of paper might be stamped and delivered in London, at an expense not exceeding Is. per thousand. In that I include what is called the telling out and telling in, the counting the p iper before it is stamped, the stamping it, the counting it after it is stamped, and the packing and delivery of it in London.” As to the question of the liability to forgery, he said that “ the newspaper proprietors are all registered at Somerset House, they are all under bond, and the use of the stamps is confined to comparatively a small number of persons, so that they are very much under onr eye.” This stamp duty is paid by the publisher, who of course charges a price accordingly to his subscribers. There is no law against sending newspapers through any other channel, and no rule re¬ quiring them to be sent only by mail. It is thought that a practice something like this might be in¬ troduced in this country. The plan proposed, is to allow any publisher of a newspaper to have the paper stamped before print¬ ing, for his whole issue, by paying therefor at the rate of half a cent per sheet. 'This would be but half the rate paid by subscri¬ bers, at the office of delivery. But as an offset to this, many sheets would he .stamped which would never be carried by mail. In Boston there are above thirty millions of newspapers printed yearly. The stamps on all these, if paid in advance by the pub¬ lisher, would come to 81511,000. 1 do not suppose the Post-Office Department realizes from all the Boston papers one hundred thousand dollars. 'The cost of stamping, even in the British mode, would be less than a quarter of a mill per sheet. And Yankee ingenuity would soon devise some labor-saving plan, to reduce the cost of stamping to ten cents per thousand, or one- tenlli of a mill per sheet. This plan would secure the department against losses. It would greatly increase the business of the post-office, and its in¬ come from newspapers. It would lessen the number of dead newspapers with which our offices are now lumbered. It would aid in inducing and helping the publishers of newspapers to get into the cash system of publication ; and lints assist in training the whole comriiunitytothe habit of prompt payment. All newspapers, weekly or daily, that have or expect anything like a wide circu¬ lation by mail, would soon find it for their interest to fall in with this plan. A weekly paper would pay 26 cents for each yearly subscriber. In what way could he do so much with the same money to extend and consolidate his subscription list! A daily paper'would cost 81.55 a year for postage. Most daily papers would find iheiradvantage ill paying this, to have their papers go free, even though they might economize or retrench in something else. It would greatly facilitate the circulation of intelligence, tile diffusion of knowledge, the settlement and harmonizing of public opinion, and all in a manner to produce no burden in any quarter which would he felt. It is demonstrable that the post-office, under its present regu¬ lations, receives but a small part of the papers which are printed. The Postmaster-General, in his last report, estimates the whole number of newspapers mailed yearly at 55,000,060, and of pam¬ phlets 2,000,000, total 57,000,000, yielding to the department only the sum of $653,160. I have never seen any calculation of the cost of circulating newspapers, to determine whether the 5 34 business is profitable to the department or not. If it pays to cir¬ culate newspapers at a cent apiece, surely two cents apiece is enough to pay on letters, which do not weigh on the average a quarter as much as newspapers. If it does not pay the cost to carry newspapers in the mail, then the loss on newspapers ought to be a tax upon the treasury, and not a tax upon correspondence. A newspaper of the common size, say IIS by 24 inches, or 912 square inches, will weigh from 1J to ]£ oz. with the wrapper, in the damp state in which it is usually mailed. The New York Journal of Commerce, 28 by 46 inches, that is, 1288 square inch¬ es, weighs a little short of 2 oz. as mailed. A lot of 100 papers received in exchange by a publisher, weighed 1.2 oz., that is less than an ounce and a quarter. The average weight of all the news¬ papers published in the country is believed to be one ounce and a half; which would give 1066 newspapers to every 100 lbs. weight. The number of newspapers sent by mail was estimated in 1837, by Postmaster Kendall, as follows : Newspapers paying postage. 25,000,000 Free and dead papers. 4.000,000 Total. 29,000,000 In 1844, the number was estimated by Postmaster Wickliffe thus: Regular, chargeable.-38,334,548 Occasional • • 596,760 Free papers. 7,161,120 Total. 40,092,428 Pamphlets, periodical. 1,615,752 “ occasional. 205,056 Total. 1,820,808 Total papers and pamphlets. 47,913.236 Postage on do. $536,547 The report in 1847, by Postmaster Johnson, estimates the pay¬ ing newspapers at fifty-five millions, dead papers two millions, and the pamphlets two millions, being fifty-nine millions in all; paying postage to the amount of $643,160, being an increase over the preceding year of $81,018. The increase of newspa¬ pers in seven years, from 1837 to 1844, by these estimates, was eighty-nine per cent., or at the rale of about eight and one-half percent, a year. The increase from 1844 to 1847 was about twenty-four per cent, in three years, or eight per cent, a year. This, may be considered the natural rate of increase of newspa¬ pers without any increase of facilities. It may be reasonably calculated that the increased facilities offered by this plan will make the increase of numbers much more rapid. And this increase of numbers will by no means be attended with a corresponding increase of expense to the department. In 1837, when the number of papers was twenty-nine millions, there were 11,767 post-offices, and mails were curried 30,428,962 miles. In 1S44, the post-offices were 15,146, an increase of twen¬ ty-nine per cent., and the mail transportation was 38.887,809 miles, an increase of seven per cent., while the increase of news¬ papers was eighty-nine per cent.; and vet the expenditure was $3,380,847 itt"1837, and §3,979,570 in 1847 ; an increase of less than eighteen per cent. Deducting the necessary additional ex¬ panse of adding twenty-nine per cent, to the number of post- offices, and seven per cent, to the distance of transportation, and it will he fair to conclude that doubling the number of newspa¬ pers would not add above ten percent, to tile cost of transporta¬ tion. Make any reasonable allowance, even fifty per cent, for the labor in the post-offices, and you have still a net profit of forty per cent, on all the newspaper postage that shall be added. And this in addition to the benefits of the diffusion of knowledge, increasing the mutual acquaintance of the people of this wide re¬ public, and thus increasing the stability of our government, the permanence of our union, the happiness of the people, and the perfection ot our free institutions. VIII. Pamphlet mid Magazine Postage. The postage oil pamplets was regulated on the principles of cheap postage, with a special discrimination in favor of those pamphlets which were published periodically. This latter dis¬ tinction was construed so liberally, that u was allowed to in¬ clude among periodicals all pamphlets published annually, such as almanacs” college catalogues, reports of societies, and the like. The law of 1845 abolishes the distinction between periodical and occasional pamphlets, but makes a difference in favor of large pamphlets, bv charging two and a half cents on all pamphlets weighing less than' one ounce, and one cent for each additional ounce. I have a letter from the proprietor of a quarterly review, stating the effect which this change in the mode of rating pamphlet postage had produced upon his own calculation. Before the act of 1845, the postage on his review was 14 cents per number, or 56 cents a year Now it is 9 cents per number, or 36 cents a year, lhe consequence is, that where he formerly sent.100 copies by mail, yielding $56 postage, he now sends 500 copies, paying $180, in¬ creasing the income of the department $124. As there has been a material reduction ill the expenditure of the department, not¬ withstanding a great extension of the mail routes, it is plain that theexpeuse to the department is net at all enhanced by this addi¬ tional service As the labor of management is much diminished in the case of such large pamphlets, it is possible that future ex¬ perience may show the practicability of a still greater reduction in the case of such periodicals—perhaps allowing publishers to pre-pay at four cents for each half pound. In Great Britain, there has hitherto been no separate rale of postage for pamphlets, but they have been charged at the rate of letter postage, Id. per half ounce. This is about double, the presetu rate of pamphlet postage in the United States. The de¬ livery of parcels by stage coaches, railroads, and common carriers, is much more thoroughly systematized in that old country, with its dense population and limited extent, than it can be with ns, on our vast territory, so new and so untinished. Consequently, there is less necessity there for sending pamphlets by mail, and the thing is rarely done except in the case of small pamphlets, of an ounce or two weight, or in cases where despatch in transmission is important. Within the present, year, however, a new rule has been introduced into the British posi-otlice, by which “any book or pamphlet, exceeding one sheet, and not exceeding two feet in its longest dimensions, may be transmitted by post between any two places in the United Kingdom, at the uniform t itle of sixpence, pre-paid in stamps affixed, for each pound weight and fraction of a pound. Excepi itt the extreme length of two feet, and that, of course, no envelope shall contain more than one copy, there is no restriction whatsoever. Families residing in the remote parts of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where perhaps there is no good bookseller within forty or fifty miles, may henceforward procure for themselves, direct from London, Edinburgh, or Dublin, within four or five days at furthest, any work they may happen to re¬ quire, from the largest sized Bible or Allas, to the most trifling pamphlet or school-book. A delay of twenty-four hours in the despatch, after posting, is rendered iudispensible by the possibility there is of an overplus of such bulky packages otr paiticnlar oc¬ casions.” A rate of 6d. per pound, is at tire rate of .75, or § of a cent per ounce, being pre-paid in all cases. The rate I have proposed for large periodicals, pre-paid, is one-fourth of a cent below this, or less by one-third of the English rate. It. is doubtful whether a lower rate would be consistent with a due regard to the necessary speed of the mails, until railroad conveyance shall he more gene¬ rally extended than it now is. There is one class of pamphlets of extensive circulation, which come within a liberal construction of a newspaper. But the Post¬ master-General, always vigilant to take care of the pecuniary in¬ terests of the department, has ruled outmost of litem, to the in¬ convenience of the publishers, and the lessening of the income of the post-office. At the time when there was an attempt to com¬ pel the sending of all publications through the mail, a statement was made in regard to one of these periodicals, the Missionary Herald, that the postage on 2500 copies which are regularly sent to New York, would be $1050 a year; while they are carried by Express for one dollar a month. At this rate the difference oil all the routes would be more than $3000 a year. The rule was soon altered, and these periodicals were allowed to be carried through private channels. I think, considering the great number of these publications, and the many important interests connected 37 with them, there ought to be a rule allowing all periodical pam¬ phlets, published as often as once a month, and weighing not over three ounces, to be mailed, if pie-paid by the publisher, for one cent each. This will include, 1 believe, that highly valuable publication, Litiell’s Living -Age, and I hope give it'a circulation as wide ns it deserves. Almost all the religions denominations iu the country have one nr more magazines, cherished by them with much interest, which will obtain greatly increased circula¬ tion and influence in this way. I need not speak of the desire which every patriot must feel, to secure for our federal govern¬ ment by whomsoever administered, the respect and affection of the religious portion of the people. I do not know that any complaint is made against this rate of postage, as regards pamphlets in general. But the fraction of a cent is an absurdity, on account of the great additional labor it occasions in keeping accounts, and making returns, and settling balances. Few persons can realize the labor and perplexity oc¬ casioned to clerks in the General Post-Ofike, by having a column of fractions in every man’s quarterly return which they examine. The simplification of business would probably save to the depart¬ ment all they would lose by striking out this paltry fraction, so that the general pamphlet postage will stand at two cents for the first ounce, and one cent for each additional ounce. At this rate, the President’s annual message, with the accompanying docu¬ ments, weighing as sent out about four pounds, would b; (55 cents, and the 10°Ul)l) copies circulated by Congress would bring the de¬ partment, if tin: postage was paid as it ought to be, the pretty sum of §05111), for only one of tins hundreds of documents now sent from Washington by mail, as a tax upon the letter correspondence of the country. The postage on tile report of the patent-office, in 1S45, mentioned on page 30, would have yielded §27,511(1 if the postage had been paid. This is to he added to the §114,000 which it cost to print tile document. IX. Ocean Penny Postage. For the word and the idea lie re set down, the world is indebt¬ ed to R1 ill it Btirrilt, the “Lkaknkd Blacksmith,” and will he indebted to him lor tin; inexpressible benefits of the tiling itself, whenever so great a boon sh ill lie obtained. Having visited our mother country, on an e rand ol peace, lie soon saw the value ol the blessing of cheap postage, as it is enjoyed there; and by con¬ trast, through the object of his mission, lie saw how great is the influence of dear postage, in keeping nations estranged hum eacli oilier, and in perpetuating their blind and unjust prejudices, and thus hindering the advent of the days of “Universal Brotherhood.’ By putting all these tilings together lie wrought out the plan ol “Ocean Penny Postage,” by which all ship letters are to pay Id. sterling, instead of paying, as they now do in Liigland. Sd. when sent by a sailing vessel, and Is. when sent by a steam packet. He proposes 0 that'each letter shall pay its postage penny in 38 advance for ihe service it may receive inland, and a like sum, also in advance, for its transmission by sea, until it shall arrive at its port of destination. To this should he added, as fast as penny postage shall he propagated in other countries, an international arrangement for pre-paying llm inland postage of the country to which the letter is sent. Nothing can lie more simple in theory than such an arrangement, nothing easier or more niimingly jibt in execution. It would make the postage stamps of the cheap postage nations an international currency, better than gold and silver, because convertible into that which gold and silver cannot buy, the interchange of thought and affection among friends. In pressing his project first on the British nation, both because he happened to be then commorant in England, and because that government and not. ours had already adopted cheap postage as the rule for its home correspondence, he is not chargeable with any lack of a becoming respect for ills own country. I confess, however, that I feel strongly, what lie has not expressed, the de¬ sire that my own country should have both the honor and the advantage of being tile first to carry out this glorious idea. Mr. Burritt states the number of letters to and from places be¬ yond sea in 1846, through six of the principal seaports of Eng¬ land, at. S,640,45S Number of newspapers. 2,698,370 Gross revenue from letters and papers. £301,640 Letters sent to and from the United States. 744,1(18 Newspapers “ “ :l l: . 317,4(iS Postage on letters and papers. £46,54S Whole expense of packet service. £761,901) In addition, lie lias been so fortunate as to enlist the co-ope¬ ration of a distinguished member of parliament, of whom lie says: By the arrangement of the British Post-office, the postage on letters by the mail steamers to the..United States is now Is. per half ounce; and on newspapers 2d. each paper. Oil all letters and.papers sent from Great Britain the postage must be pre paid. If not pre paid, they are not sent; Imt 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 pre-payment that they can have their letters on procuring the pre-payiueut of the required shilling. I have more than once received a printed notice of this kind, designating the number by which my letter could he called for. No additional charge is made for tilts piece of attention. This fact is significant of the spirit of the cheap postage system. No provision is made by which postage can be pre-paid in this country, and consequently, He also tells the people of England very plainly what will be the effect if they first adopt the Ocean Penny Postage, Some of the same considerations ought to have weight with American citi¬ zens and American philanthropists, and especially with American statesmen, in producin'? the conviction, that it is heller fortlie United States to lose no time in adopting this system. 40 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. Btilain and the United Stales. These two great nations, the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood, are at this moment. “ trying to see which can do the other most harm,” by a course of mutual retaliation, which may be known in future history as the war of posts. It is the opinion of some philoso¬ phers, 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 prin¬ cipal 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 rale of ship postage on all letters in the American packet mails, which touch at a British port on their way to and from the coiltinent of Europe. Then the Postmaster-General of the United Stales suspends the agree¬ ment by which a mutual postage account is kept between bis de- parfment 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 twenty-four cents postage on every letter, and four cents on every newspaper, brought by the British mail steamers, as a lax to our own post-office, al¬ though the same postage has already been pre-paid by the sender in England. The tax thus imposed on our own people, in the prosecution of this postal war, will amount to $178,58b 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 (he number of emigrants is so rapidly increasing, and all the interests of huma¬ nity 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 per¬ haps 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 (lull Great Britain can stand the impost of double postage as easily and ns long ns 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 thomrlii 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 hun¬ ger, feed him; and if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shall 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 Is. per letter on the mails of the Ameri¬ can steamers hound to Geimnny, for barely touching at the port of Southampton, is the most gouging affair of any governmental proceeding within my knowledge. It seems to me that our own go¬ vernment would do itself honor by adopting almost any expedient rather than imitate so had an example, in this age of the world, as to lay a lax, amounting to a prohibition, upnn'the interchange of knowledge and the flow of the social affections among man¬ kind. It is submitted that the establishment of Ocean Penny Postage by our mail steamers, with an oiler of perfect reciprocity to all oilier countries adopting the same policy, will he t|iiiie con¬ sistent with our national honor. Willi the inleiesl which tin's sub¬ ject has already acquired in I he British nation, and the apparent disposition of that government to yield to the well-expressed wishes of the people, there can he no doubt that this would lend 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 anymore money for the transportation of its mails Ilian they pay now. This great boon can be given to the people wiihout a dol¬ lar’s additional cost. Our own experience under the postage act. of 1845, proves this. While I he number of letters is doubled, the whole expense of the post-office is diminished—especially that part which might most naturally lie expected to increase, that is, the transportation of the mails. The freight of a barrel of flour, weighing 2UU pounds, is about, fifty cents. Of course, the equita¬ ble price of ten thousand letters atided to any giveq mail, which would not weigh so much as a barrel of flour, would make no as¬ signable difference in tile cost upon a single letter. As both sail¬ ing ships and steam packets are becoming multiplied, individual •competition may now be relied on to keep the price of transporta¬ tion 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-oilice. In the first year of the penny postage in England, there were 93,000,000 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 O.lSld., less than two- tenths of a penny each for the added letters. In IS44, there were 21,000,000 of letters added to the circulation, and not a farthing added to the cost. These letters yielded about £90,000 in post¬ age, every penny of which went ns net gain into the treasury. I have no means of slating how much of £450,000 added to the yearly expenditure of (he British Post-office, is chargeable to the great increase of facilities and accommodations, both of the pub¬ lic 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 6 42 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 pro-paid 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, ns much reason to expect ocean postage to increase, ns to expect land postage to increase. And as it is proved that, on land, the reduction of price will in¬ crease the consumption, so as to produce an equal income, there can be no doubt that, in a little while, if tlie 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 lire United Slates, 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 num¬ bers whom passing events will drive to seek an asylum from Eu¬ ropean revolutions under the peaceful and permanent government of the American Union : Add to the increase of trans-allantic in¬ tercourse 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 patli of freedom and equality the old countries arc all striving to follow: How long will any man say it would take, with a rale of postage across the Atlantic not exceeding two cents per half ounce, before there would lie ten millions of letters yearly, instead of three-quarters of a million, the number now carried by the British packet mails 1 And these would yield more postage titan 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 1344, and the experience of Great Britain under the act of 1839, it would be u'nphilosopliical to set a longer lime than five years as the period that would be required to bring up the product of ocean postoge 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 lo the public revenues, would justify any government, on mere pecuniary con¬ siderations alone, in assuming a heavy expenditure, not only for five years, but permanently, to secure so great an object. 1 ad¬ dress to my own country, as the nation to whom it more appro¬ priately belongs, to take so great a step towards universal brother¬ hood, the fervid appeal which my friend Burrilt has made to England: “ Answer—lei her establish an Ocean Penny Postage.'' X. The Free Delivery of Letters and Papers in Large Toions. The simple adoption of Uniform Clieap Postage would hardly fail of seem ing, in llie end, till oilier desirable postal reforms. An act of Congress, in five lines, enacting that “ hereafter the postage oil all letters pie-paid, not exceeding half an ounce in weight, shall he two cents; and for each additional half ounce, twocenls; and if not pre-paid, 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 Id. was made for the delivery of letters by carriers, in the case of icilers that had been mailed; and for “drop letters,” or letters deliveied in the same town where they are posted, the. price was 2d. Now ail drop let¬ ters are charged at the uniform rale of Id. I lie same as mail let¬ ters; and the mail letters are delivered by carriers without addi¬ tional charge—the penny postage paying all. The Postmaster- General prescribes what place 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 (be people, charging Id. each for delivery, which is a private perquisite—the department, taking neither profit nor respon¬ sibility 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 distri¬ bution 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 44 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 slated hours, by persons employed for that purpose; those which are to be mailed are separated, and those which are for local delivery sorted and de¬ livered 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 benefilting the country and the government by the aid it furnishes to trade and genera! prosperity, would seem to be a guaranty that the department would be likely to extend the free delivery as far as it could pos¬ sibly 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 I d., pay¬ able invariably in advance. It was soon taken possession of by the government, and the same rate of postage retained until 1S01, 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 West¬ minster and the borough of Southwark, then all places within a circle of three miles, ail'd Anally to twelve miles from the General Post-Office. Within the three miles circle there are 221) 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 S, 10, and 12, in the morning, and I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon. Letters are required to he 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; Ave 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. The subjoined table, will show the hours of post¬ ing, and the time of delivery in the two inner circuits. Within 3 miles. Within 6 miles. Letters posted bofore 7 45, A. M. 8, A. M. Are delivered by 11, A. M. “ - “ “ 10, “ “ “ “ 1, P. M. « “ “ 12, M. 12, JI. “ “ “ 2, “ « “ “ i, r m. <• •• “ 3 ; “ ■■ “ I; a. m. 3, P. M. 45 In 1839, the estimated average of letters passing through the London district post was about one million every four weeks, of which SUU.UUU, or four-fifths were unpaid. In 18-12, the average was two millions in four weeks, of which only 1110,1)00, or mfe- tweiilielh, were unpaid—ninety-five percent, being p re paid. In 184~, the number was nearly three millions. These do not in¬ clude the “ General Postthru is, the country and foreign letters in London, but only tbuse that originate as weli as end within the twelve miles cncle. 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 nut 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 some¬ what 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-olfice 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 1,022,147, each four weeks, of which only one-sixth were pre paid. In 1847, they were S,501),000, of which - above ninety-four per cent, were pre-paid. This makes the whole number of letlers mailed and delivered in London, equal to above 140,ODD,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calcu¬ late that about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free Delivery. As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are pre-paid, the delivery is accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them, of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving miiuhersiof letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms ami shops, which are open. Most houses where letters ore re¬ ceived daily, have letter-boxes by the door, fitted with an inge¬ nious contrivance, to guard against robbery, into which pre-paid letlers 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 thecarrer, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many letlers 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 lake letlers 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 litis bag, pay the bell-man his fee of Id., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening. • All these carriers are required to assist, at stated times, in the 46 sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails, They are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent bnsi- ne-s, with chances for advancement in business and wages, ac¬ cording to length of service and merit. A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Post¬ master-General of the United Stales, by Barnabas Bales, Esq., of New York, one of tire most, able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing dale, February 7, 1S47, urging tire adoption of a similar system for the city of New York, and other cities—the postage to be in all cases'pre-paid. The advantages to be antici¬ pated are thus set forth by Mr. Bates : department. which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. T letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their i of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead c art loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to ea if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the ma their subscribers do not get their papers. ” “2. It will reduce theli.-t of advertised letters which 1 lost-office would not only command all the drop letters,but afford such ;ap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the means < city and country correspondence to an extent which can hardly be The extent, to widt h such tr system of Free Delivery could properly be introduced in this country, ettii only be determined by experiment. Thai 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 ; anti as population increases and intercourse extends, other places might be included. To show lhe working of multiplication and division in the in¬ crease of profits, and the very low rale at which a service similar to that of free delivery can be performed, let us look at the news¬ papers. The principal daily papers in Boston are served to sub- 47 scribers by carriers, at the expense of the publishers.- Deducting Sundays and holidays, theie are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost of 25 to 50 cents lor eacli subsetiber. Taking the highest cost, and you pay 1.6 mills for each paper delivered— less than one-sixth of a cent. The penny papers ate served to subscribers by carriers, who have regular beats, or districts; and who furnish their patrons lot- six cents per week. These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at 62 to 75 cents per 100, so that their ptolits on each paper are front one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper promptly every moiling and collect the mo¬ ney on Saturday; rumiimr, of course, some risk of-losses liy had debts, &c. And vet this business is found to he so profitable that some routes in New York have been sold, that is, lhe 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 1J to 1^ cents each. He paid the cost of bringing them by expiess finm New York. To guard against, failures, lie divided Ins bundles, and bad a par: sent by way of Norwich, and a pan by Sloning- lon. He then served lliem to subscribers till over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections on Saturday. This ma:: made money, so that in a lew years he sold ottl his mute and bu¬ siness in the New Yuik pnpei=, and purchased an intnr.-t mu flourishing penny paper in Boston; of which he is now one of the publishers. The Boston Parcels Post delivers parcels and packages any- wlittc in Boston, Ruxbury, or Charlestown, at the rales shown by the following (able 1 have added, in separate columns, the num¬ ber of half-ounce letters that, would make a parcel of equal weight, and the postage on them, at two cents eacli: Pat eels weighing less than 1 lb. are carried for 3 cts. 32 (Mcts. « « 3 lbs. “ 5 “ 96 SI-92 “ « « « 10 “ “ 7 “ 320 6.40 “ .c ic « 25 “ “ 10 “ Sill) 16 00 “ «