Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-01-03
ON THE POST OFFICE ESTABLISHMENT.

rEaPERkscE ADVOCATE
Mn. EpIroR The mail and the press are the two most
efficient tools with which civilization works. and every detail
promoting impeding the easy and beneficial operation of
postal system important to society The mail is of the
agents OF communion and, therefore, of equal or
similar importance with all the other Of communion
with printing roads, navigation, and language This ought
be remembered by the people, by their by
every one, time when the hand political questions
Of magnitude absorb the attention Of Congress- and on the
other hand Postmaster General known at the time of his
appointment to be hostile to cheap postage has made report
his department which requires the closest watching on the
part Of the people do review the whole report
Let me touch upon few points only.
The Postmaster General proposes to return the old
thod of charging by sheets and not by weight complaining
the time that persons make up bundle Of letters
paying postage in lump, and thereby saving good deal
Does be not know that this grievance he considers it.
sted in still greater extent under the old law, which
sonaby mixed the principle of weight and single sheets for
you remember that the postage for than four sheets
charged by weight There therefore man in Boston
who regularly made up mail for the New York packets
charging for these letters less than the then existing single
postage and makng nevertheless, ahandsome potb pay
ing postage according to weight for the whole bundle of
What does the Department contract and pay for weight
and weight alone it has in turn right charge for The
Postmaster General does to be acquainted with the
fact that nations ay, Austria and Russia have
abolished the troublesome, mean and Fostering principle
charging by Sheets with all its umbng and peepng
er and overchaging and opening the post Office and
injustice Of charging for Yes all nations have abo
much for single letter. take third quarter of ounce
they do in France but to recommend us of all nations
the obsolete principle ought to be stamped
by every paper it descrves-an act Of foil
Several years ago shown in elaborate article that
II the system Of prepayment works well for England il is in
ney advisable to adopt in the United States to
time trouble, and expense. With the Postmaster General
therefore, say by all let have the principle of pre-
payment II Congress will adopt the British principle OF pre-
payment make the postage Of nonpaid letter higher than
the prepaid one, het option still remains If Congress
viii adopt the stamps, which works exqusey in England
and add TO this law that the adhesive stamps shall be sold
liberal discount by the Department if thousand be bought
al once we obtain these advantages
The money would be in the hands the Department even
before il had carried the letters
We could hear of no defraudations.
The stamps would be carried all the land by the
TONERS, they distribute the letter paper.
And the whole money part Of the complicated postal sys-
at Washington.
IT. likewise proposed, the provision be added that
newspaper postage be also less if prepaid the editors would
charge along with the subscription and the Department
would at be freed from the ncumbeng and runous
of papers which never claimed.
am perfectly well acquainted with the fact that dis
ances and the sparseness of population require their
cuiar considerations but also know that the propositions
made here only agreeable circumstances but
the only which harmonizc with them and that in the
great movement of facilitating communication by mawhch
general feature that the future historian point il
out of the characteristics Of PERIOD and Rowland
hill as OF the prominent beneactors of our spece
that in this great the United Slater have strangely
Jagged behind other natonsthe quick movable American
even behind the stolid Austrian