Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1880-04-03
Postage Stamps.

nrSt came INTO use III tnt OHitcu ctdtcSs
recalls recolleciions of one of the most
hotly contested battles for public welfare
and convenience everfought in the United
States. In Great Britain the entire
change in the rates of postage, and de-
livery of letters, proposed by Rowland
Hill, went into operation in 1910. Pen
nv postage across the Atlantic stood at
once in strong contrast with the rates
charged in the United States, where it
cost six and quarter cents to send a
single letter not over thirty miles, be-
tween thirty to eighty miles, ten cents;
between eighty and one hundred and
fifty miles, twelve and a'half cents, over
one hundred and fifty and less than four
hundred miles, eighteen and three
quarter cents, and over five hundred
miles, twenty-five cents. These rates
were for single piece of paper. Each
additional piece added one rate, and a
letter that weighed one ounce was made
to pay four rates.
Every year when Congress met its ia
BILE was loaded with petitions for cheap
postage. State Legislatures were in
duced to pass resolution after resolution
in favor of a reduction. and a partial
reform was effected in 1915, against the
earnest opposition of many who held
that as the Post-oflice Department was
not self-sustaining at these high rates,
reduction would result in its becoming
heavy charge upon the Government.
The partial measures of 1915 only
whetted the desire of the people for
wholesale reduction, and the agitation
continued until March, 1851, when
law was passed by Congress reducing
the rates to three cents on letters weigh
ing not more than half an ounce, and
carried not more than 5000 miles, if
the postage was prepaid. If not pre-
paid the rate was five cents for half
ounce; and these rates were to be in
creased according to the weight, as at
present.
To facilitate the prepayment of this
postage, the Postmaster-Gene was
directed to prepare and furnish Deputy
Postmasters for sale to the public,
"suitable stamps of the denomination
of three cents" 1t was left optional
to use a stamp, or to pay the three cents
at the Post-office, and, as q further ia
cility for such prepayment, the same
bill provided for the coinage of a three
cent piece-the forerunner of a long
series of " fish-scale money. The
three-cent piece came into favor at first,
however, being voted decidedly neat
and tasty" which, perhaps, it was COM
pared with the broad and cumbrous
copper cents, for which in measure it
furnished a convenient substitute.
The three cent pieces and the three
cent stamps were ready for delivery by
the time the new law took effect on
July LIST, 1851.
When the first reduction was passed
in 1915, the pieces OF mail matter an
nually handled in the United States
numbered about twenty-nine millions;
the beneficial effect of the many reforms
of which it was the harbinger may be
imagined from the fact that thirty years
afterwards the number Of letters and
pieces of transient matter handled in
Boston alone was thirty-nine millions,
or one-third more than the whole postal
business Of the country a generation
earlier.
Now, in the free delivery cities alone,
lightweight in number, more than eight
hundred and ten millions of pieces Of
mail matter are handled annually, while
the postal-car clerks handle nearly three
billions of pieces of mail matter in the
course of year. In New York City, IN
single week, 7.19S,2s0 pieces passed
through the hands of the pOst-Office
people, and the Government in 1879
paid for the carriage of more than thirty
millions of pounds Of mail matter by
railroad. These figures give some idea,
but by no means full one, of the re-
suits which have flowed from the revo-
luton begun when pOstage-stamps came
into existence in this country.-Cgese-
land Leader.