The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-06 00:00:00

MR. WALLACE OF KELLY.

(From the Aberdeen Herald.)
On Thursday afternoon the Freedom of the City was
presented by the Provost, Magistrates, and Council, to
Robert Wallace, Esq., of Kelly, the Member of Parlia-
ment for Greenock. The ceremony took place, at two
o'clock, in the Town- hall, where a splendid dessert of
fruits, &c., was laid out in the most tasteful style. About
170 gentlemen were present. The Provost was in the
Chair ; and the Dean of Guild and Mr. Haddon acted as
Croupiers.
After the usual loyal toasts,
The PROVOST said—Mr. Wallace, in accordance with
the unanimous resolution of the Magistrates and Town
Council of Aberdeen, I have the honour to present to
you the Freedom of this ancient City, in testimony of the
high respect they entertain for your valuable public ser-
vices in promoting the recent improvements in the Post-
office depar ment of the .kingdom.—(Cheers.) The
country owes a large debt of gratitude to the talented in-
dividual who originated and reduced to practice the
grand idea of one uniform and cheap rate of postage,
and to Rowland Hill is the just and willing tribute uni-
versally paid. But to your zeal and perseverance, in
successfully advocating the principles of the measure, in
fearlessly combating existing prejudices, and to your un-
wearied exertions generally in the good cause, both if:
your place in Parliament, as well as on all other fitting
occasions, are we indebted for the speedy adoption of the
great practical boon of Penny Postage, with all its at-
tendant advantages, which we now so fully enjoy.—
(Cheers.) Allow me now to congratulate you on be-
coming a freeman of Aberdeen, and to express the sin-
cere hope that you will long be spared to your family
and to your country.
Mr. WALLACE said—l beg to assure you that your
kindness, in conferring on me this unexpected mark of
your, esteem, the Freedom of your ancient and beautiful
City, is an honour of which I feel so proud, that I fear I
shall not be able to express sufficiently the pleasure that
it affords me. But I will not conceal the still greater
pride and pleasure which this occasion conveys, as an
expression of this great community in favour of that
national boon, the Penny Postage, which I humbly con-
ceive to be, in every respect, the greatest practical mea-
sure which has been conferred on this country in our
time.—(Cheers.) The obtaining of this measure was
beset with difficulties from the first, and you, Sir, have
most judiciously pointed to that distinguished individual,
Lord Lowther, who is now Postmaster-Genera], and
who I am proud to call my friend and coadjutor in
Post-office Reform, whose labours contributed greatly,
as a member of my Committee, in obtaining the Penny
Postage Act. And it should not be concealed that we
have still difficulties to combat, in the shape of preju-
dices, 'and the financial fears of-those who are now placed
at the helm of affairs. When I moved for a Committee to
inquire into Mr. Rowland Hill's proposal of Penny Postage,
I had to get over the ru'e of placing an official man only
as Chairman when the finances of the country had to be
dealt with. I felt the .respousibility of this situation,
and therefore selected the most able men from both
sides of the House to be members in that inquiry, which
happily resulted in passing the Act. In that Committee,
Lord Lowther bore a distinguished part, and I am glad
of this opportunity of stating how much the country is
indebted to Lord Lowther, as an able man of business
and inquirer into Post-office abuses, and for the practi-
cal knowledge which he has so long exhibited in the
improvement of that ill-guided department. When the
first division was taken in the Committee respecting
Penny Postage, there were five to three against it, of
which majority Lord Lowther was one.; but, after a se-
cond
discussion respecting a uniform twopenny rate, his
Lordship came over to the minority, making four on each
side, and left the humble individual who now addresses OU
to give his casting vote in favour of the adoption of that
great measure.—(Cheers.) The whole of the high Post-
office officials were against us; and we had many preju-
dices to overcome, of parties who looked upon the step
as likely to be permanently injurious to the public reve-
nue. Still, with the help of the parties to whom I have
referred, we were able to accomplish that great measure,
and obtain many other improvements that were loudly
called for in the old Sir Francis Freeling system. With
your leave, I shall refer to a few of these.—(Cheers.)
The first was a most abominable practice, that prevailed
to an enormous extent, of opening letters, not only in
London, but at the various post-offices throughout the
country, on the pretext of discovering whether they had
been legally posted, and the consequence was inevitably
to lead to disclosures of private affairs of the most deli-
cate and embarrassing nature—a system of disclosure
alike disgraceful to a great and a free country, and to a
department which ought to be regarded as worthy of the
most unbounded Confidence. One single return of the
letters opened at various places was sufficient to put an
end for ever to the system, and to scare away the hungry
cormorants who had been feeding upon that department.
—(Cheers.) The next thing I shall notice is an improve-
ment that .was effected in the mail-coaches. I found
that, in Scotland and Ireland, and the provinces of Eng..
land, they were old, lumbering, insufficient, and uncom-
fortable machines that had been cast off in roads near
the metropolis, where it was deemed necessary to keep
up some show of fitness. These cast-off coaches, too,
were supplied by the contractor in London,at an enormous
expense to the Government—so much so, that when a
new arrangement was made, the monopoly was broken
in upon by contractors throughout the country, of whom
there were two in Scotland—one in Perth and one in.
Edinburgh ; and when those elegant, handsome, com-
modious, and comfortable vehicles which you now all
enjoy were substituted for the old vehicles, that were
unfit for a lady or gentleman to travel in, there was ac-
tually a saving to the Government of more than 17,0001.
a-year, besides 2,0001. snore that I found under a very
curious title—for " oiling. "—(Cheers and laughter.) It
is quite wonderful how the Penny Postage has wrought
already, although it has not had all the advantages
which the Committee bargained for. It has been ru-
moured, but I am exceedingly unwilling to believe it,
that some attempt is to be made to raise the postage.
It must not be overlooked, however, that many of the
Post-office officials would not be averse to such a change.
You all recollect that, before the Penny Postage came
into operation, a fourpenny rate was established, and
under the influence of novelty, and the pleasure the
public took in any reduction whatever, a great increase
in the number of letters actually took place. I hesi-
tate not to say, and I never thought otherwise, that the
adoption of this fourpenny rate was a trick intended to
throw disparagement on the penny rate, and provide
something that would look like evidence that, at some
future period, under an increased rate, the addition to
the correspondence would be sufficiently large. But I
trust, under the protection of Lord Lowther, the ene-
mies of the Penny Postage, if any such there be in in-
fluential quarters, will be prevented from tampering with
the great measure we have obtained—(Cheers)— a mea-
sure that, in a commercial, social, moral, educational,
and religious point of view, has done more good, and
will be the instrument of more good, than any other
alleviation of the people's burdens that could be proposed.
After a number of other toasts, followed by speeches,
the meeting separated.

INFLUENCE OF COLD ON LONGEVITY.--
Cold climates appear to be favourable to longevity. In
Norway, of 6,927 who were buried in 1761, 63 had lived
to the age of 100 ; and in Russia, out of 726,278 souls
who died in 1801, 218 were 100 years of age, and 220
above it, of whom four are said to have been above 130
years old. In the diocese of Aggherus, in Norway,
there existed, in the year 1763, 151 couples who had
lived together upwards of 80 years. Excessive cold,
however, is prejudicial to long lite : in Iceland and Si-
beria men attain at the utmost to the ages only of 60 or
70. Temperate climates are, however, most conducive to
health and long life. There the human frame is more
complete, the body more vigorous, the mind best formed,
the passions best regulated, and man in every respect
reaches, when well governed, the highest amount of per-
fection. The districts of Arcadia, JEtolia, and other
parts of Greece, were celebrated for longevity. More
old men are to be found in mountainous and elevated
situations than in plains and low countries.— Wins/ow in
Pula; technic Journal.

Yesterday after noon several of the Cabinet
Ministers had a meeting at the official residence of Sir
Robert Peel in Downing-street.