The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-03-27 00:00:00

THE PENNY POSTAGE.

The returns relative to the working of the new postage
scheme are now published. The first returns are made to
show the number of letters and the amount of postage re-
ceived in the London district between the 6th December,
1838, and the; 10th January, 1839, between the 11th January
and the 14th February, 1839, and the number of letters and
the amount of postage received in the five weeks of 1839 and
1840, (corresponding to the first period,). under the fourpenny
postage rate, and received in the bye weeks of 1840, (cor-
responding to the second period,) under the penny rate.
Under the old rate, the number of letters received in five
weeks, in the London district, was 923,917, including ship
and foreign letters (rather more than one-fifth) and excluding
all franks. The amount of postage was X 57,300. From
this, however, must be deducted £3637 paid for government
letters, making the revenue X 53,663. Under the fourpenny
rate, the number of letters was 1,328,993, and deducting
£1316 paid by the government, the amount of revenue was
£37,376. There was, therefore, under the fourpenny rate,
an increase of 405,076 letters, or about forty-four per cent.,
and a decrease of revenue of £16,287, or about thirty-five
per cent.
Under the old rate, taking another five weeks to corres-
pond with five weeks in which the penny rate has been in
operation, excluding franks, and including ship and foreign
letters, the number of letters received in five weeks in the
London district was 930,215, and the amount of revenue, de-
ducting the sum paid by the government departments
(X 4,624) was £55,436. Under the penny rate the number
of letters received was 2,286,385, and the amount of revenue,
deducting the sum paid by the government offices (X 858),
was £39,668. The increase in the number of letters, there-
fore, was 1,356,170, or nearly one and a half, and the de-
crease of the revenue was £15,768, or about thirty-two per
cent.

The great amount of government correspondence which
has paid at all times, such as that of the customs and excise
departments, feels the advantage of the reduction in the rate,
and is reduced from £4624 to £B5B. It must, however, be
noticed that the government correspondence which was here-
tofore franked, and is now to be paid, accounts being kept at
the Post-office with the former franking departments, is not
included in this return. Neither does the return take any
notice of any increase in the expense of the Post-office de-
partment, which must, we presume, have been considerable,
to carry the new arrangements into effect.
There were also returns of the London district post, in
which, as comparatively little reduction has been made, and
in some cases, in fact, the rates of postage have been in-
creased, there is no corresponding increase to that in the
general post department which we have above quoted. The
returns from Ireland are confined to the amount of postage
collected in the Dublin district in five weeks under the old
rate, under the fourpenny and under the penny rates, which
were respectively £6850, £l4lB, and -X2843. The returns
from Scotland give a similar account of the postage collected
in the Edinburgh district in five weeks under the three rates,
which were respectively £4416, £3132, and £2478, so that
the increase of the number of letters must have been pro-
portionately greater in Edinburgh than in Dublin, as the
reduction of the postage is so much less. The number of
letters for the Edinburgh district cannot be estimated ; in
the Dublin district, they were respectively, under the three
rates, 212,000, 280,000, and 444,316.
The total number of letters delivered in the United King-
dom, in the week ending the 24th November, 1839, under
the old rates, was 1,585,973 ; in the week ending the 22nd
of December, 1839, under the fourpenny rate, was 2,008,687,
and in the week ending the 23rd of February, 1840, 3,199,
637. As might have been expected, the increase in the
London district is much above the average increase in the
whole empire.

HYDROPHOBIA.—We regret to announce that a case of
this terrific malady has recently occurred in this county, in
the person of a respectable farmer named John Langton, of
Blanchfield-park, on the estate of Lord Clifden. He was
bitten by a dog which had strayed into his farm-yard about
seven weeks since. The unfortunate man did not show de-
cided proofs of hydrophobia until Friday last, and he died on
the following Monday. From the first moment of his attack
he constantly refused medical assistance, resisting it with all
the energy of despair, and expressed the deepest apprehension
lest, in the progress of his disease, he might inflict any injury
on his family. Two pigs and a horse, which had been bitten
by the same dog, were also attacked with hydrophobia, and
shot.—Kilkenny Journal.
STATISTICS OF GAS.—For lighting London and its
suburbs with gas, there are eighteen public gas works; 12
public gas-work companies • £2,800,000 capital employed in
works, pipes, tanks, gas-holders, apparatus; £450,000 yearly
revenue derived ; 180,000 tons of coal used in the year for
making gas ; 1,460,000,000 cubic feet of gas made in the
year; 134.300 private burners supplied to about 400,000 co-
nsumers ; 30,400 public or street consumers.—About 2,650 of
these are in the city of London.-380 lamplighters employed;
176 gas-holders, several of them double ones, capable of
storing 5,500,000 cubic feet; 890 tons of coal used in the re-
torts on the shortest day, in 24 hours ; 7,120,000 cubic feet
of gas used in the longest night, say 24th December; about
2,500 persons are employed in the metropolis alone in this
branch of manufacture ; between 1822 and 1827 the quantity
nearly doubled itself; and that in fire years ; between 1827
and 1837 it doubled kind( again'