The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-29
OLD POSTAL UsAGES.
Curious Phases of the Mail Service
When Victoria Assembled the
Throne


From the Fortnightly Review.
When Queen Victoria assembled the throne
there were no telegraphs in this country
and few railways. The mails were for
warded by coach, and the postage rates
were to all but the well-to-do prohibitive.
1t cost from pence to l shilling pence
to send Single" letter under an ounce
in weight from one part of the kingdom
to another. There were some forty
charges, varying according to distance,
the average rate being pence, or half
the days wages of a laborer. A ''sln-
gle' letter meant a single piece of paper
adhesive envelopes had not been invent
ed, and the addition of a second scrap of
paper made the letter a double one.
The postage was paid on delivery by the
recipient; and as no credit was given, the
incursion of a postman into poor neigh
borhood was watched on all sides with
fear rather than hope.
Coleride, the poet, saw poor woman
declining to accept a letter on the score
of inability to pay. The good-natured
bard doubtless with some difficulty
found the required pence, despite the
woman's remonstrances. When the post
man had gone away she showed Coler-
idge that the letter was but a blank sheet
of paper. Her brother had arranged to
send her at intervals such a sheet, ad-
dressed In a certain fashion, as evidence
that all was well with him, and she as
regularly after inspecting the address, re-
fused to accept it. Some humorist on one
occasion sent out large numbers of let
ters, each on a sheet as large as a table,
cloth, all of which had to be delivered as
Single missives.
This system practically stfled written
intercourse among the working class, and
pressed with severity upon the middle
class, but the rich and highly placed en-
tirely escaped postal taxation. The priv
ilege of ranking covered the correspond
ence not only of ministers, peers and men,
bers of parliament, but of their relatives
friends and acquaintance. While in one
year early in the queens reign no less than
100000 letters were franked, a single
firm paid annually Eli, 900 for postage, and
writer in THE Quarterly" referred flip
PANTY to 80 slight and rare an incident
in laborer's life as the receipt of a let
ter" Among the packets" ranked was
grand piano. An army of clerks was
employed to fix the charges to be collected
and the postal revenue remained station
airy between 1915 and 1896, although in the
same period the population increased from
19, 100000 to % 100000.
Moved by this state of things, parlia-
ment in 1899 adopted Rowland Hill's pro-
posal of uniform inland penny postage
which came into operation on Jan 10. 1870
The writer possesses a copy of 1.-The Quar-.
terly Review" of 1899, in which a contribti.
tor (5elieved to be Croker fiercely de.
nounces the scheme. ''Will clerks" he
says, write only to their fathers and girls
to their mothers? Will not letters of 70.
nance or love, intruge or mischief, in.
crease in at least equal proportions? We
doubt whether social and domestic cores
pondence will be more than doubled A gi
gantic exemplification of the old proverb-
Penny wise and pound foolish" etc.
Macaulay says that the penny post
when first established, was the object OF
violent invective, as a manifest coiftriy.
ance of the pope to enslave the souls Of
Englishmen. 1t was described as "sedi
ton made easy" The postal authorities
who in 1884 had opposed the institution OF
mail coaches, were implacable enemies o.
penny postage. The postmaster general o,
1899 Gord Lichfield) based his objection.
on the curious ground that the buildins
at St. Martin s-le- Grand would not b,
large enough. The secretary. Col. Maber
ly, constantly repeated, This plan We
know will fail"
As we know, It succeeded, and the penn!
rate has been generally adopted in Eu
rope, as well as in the United States. TIL,
number of letters rose from $4,000. 900 in
1887 to 299,000,OOO in 1877; and for the yea
ending on March 81 1897, they must b,
| about 1896, 100000. The postal surplus wa
in 1899 Fl 659, $40, and in 1867 f3 632 133 TIT
| number of letters, which was in 1887 abou
three per head and in 1854 fifteen per head
| is now seventy-seven per head.