Rock Island Argus., 1897-08-06
OLD POSTAL USAGES.
CURIOUS PHASES OF THE MAIL SERv-
ICE SIXTY YEARS AGO.

Rates ON Ordinary Letters In England
Were Almost Prohibitive-Adoption of
the Penny Post and the Queer ArEu-
ments Against 1t.
When Queen Victoria ascended tie
throne. there were no telegraphs in this
country and few railways. The mails
were forwarded by coach, and the post
age rates were to all but the well to do
prohibitiye. 1t cost from 4d. to Is. Sd.
to send a s'siHgle" letter under an
ounce in weight from one part Of the
kingdom to another. There were some
40 charges, varying according to dis
tance, the average rate being 3D., or
half the days wage of a laborer. A
single" letter meant a single piece of
paper adhesive envelopes had not been
invented), and the addition of second
scrap Of paper made the letter "dou-
BILE" one. The postage was paid on de-
livery by the recipient, and as no cred
it was given the incursion of postman
into a poor neighborhood was watched
on all sides with fear rather than hope.
Coleridge, the poet, saw poor wom-
an declining to accept letter ON the
score of inability to pay. The good
natured bard doubtless with some diff
culty) found the required nisepence,
despite the woman's remonstrances.
When the postman had gone away, she
showed Coleridge that the letter was
but blank sheet of paper. Her brother
had arranged to send her at intervals
such sheet, addressed in a certain
fashion, as evidence that all was well
with him, and she as regularly, after
inspecting the address, refused to accept
1t: Some humOrist on one occasion sent
out large numbers of letters, each on a
sheet as large as y tablecloth, all of
which had to be delivered as "single"
missives.
This system practically stifled written
intercourse among the working class and
pressed with severity upon the middle
class, but the rich and highly placed
entirely escaped postal taxation. The
privilege of franking covered the eorre-
spondence not only ofministers, peers
and members of parliament, but of
their relatives, friends and acquaint-
ances. While in one year earl; in the
queens reign no less than I, 400, 900
letters were franked, a single london
firm paid annually 81 ZOO. for postage
and writer in The Quarterly referred
f1ippantly to $50 slight and rare an in
cident in a laborer's life as the receipt
Of a letter." Among the packets
franked was grand piano. An army
of clerks was employed to fix the charges
to be collected, and the postal revenue
remained stationary between 1916 and
1875, although in the same period the
population increased from 10, 500, 600 TO
25,600, 600.
Moved by this state of things, parlia-
ment i'll 1889 adopted Rowland Hills
proposal of uniform inland penny post
age, which came into operation on Jan.
10, le!9. The>writer possesses copy of
The .QuaTterly Review of 1889, in which
contributor believed to be Croker
fiercely denounces the scheme. "Will
clerks, he says, write only to their
fathers and girls to their mothers? Will
not letters of romance or love, intrigue
or. mischief, increase in at least equal
proportions? We doubt whether social
and domestic correspondence will be
more than doubled. A gigantic exem-
plifcation of the old proverb-Penny
wise and pound foolish" etc.
Macaalay says that. the penny post,
when first established, was the object
OF violent inveceive, as a manifest con-
triyance OF the pope to enslave the souls
OF Englishmen. 1t was described as
"sedition made easy" The postal au-
thorities, who is 1884 had opposed the
institution of mail coaches, were i'm
placable enemies of penny postage. The
postmaster general of 1889, Lord Lich-
field, based his objections on the curl
Gus ground that the building at st. Mar
tin n's-le-Grand would rot be large
| enough. The secretary, Colonel Maber-
~, constantly repeated, This plan we
know will fall
As we know, it succeeded, and the
penny rate has been generally adopted
in Europe as we'll as in the United
States. The number of letters rose from
$4,000, 900 in 1887 to 2s9, 600. 600 in
1S47, and for the year ending on March
81, 1897, about 1900. 100000. The
postal surplus was in 1889 81, $50, $40
and in 1867 e3, 632, 133 The number
Of letters, which was in 1887 about 2
per head and in 1854 10 per head. is
now - per head. ad.-Fortnightly Review.