Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1897-07-15
OLD POSTAL TSAGES.
CURIOUS PHASES Or THE MAIL sERv-
 ICE SIXTY YEARS AGO.

Rates on Ordinary Letters In lsnsiaad
 Were Almost rohib.tiys-Adoption Of
 the Penny Poat and the Queer ATza-
 raents Against It.
 When Queen Victoria ascended the throne, there were no telegraphs i'll this country and few railways. The mails were forwarded by coach, and the post ago rates were to all but the well to do pIohibitive. 1t cost from 4d. 10 1s. Sd. to send single letter under al nuHre in weight from one part of the kingdom to another. There were aome 10 charges, varying according to dis tanee, the average rate being 3d.. CT half tho days wage of a laborer. 4 single letter meant 3 single piece of paper (adhesive envelopes had not been inyented), and the addition of q second scrap of paper made the letter don blen one. The postage was paid on de- livery by the recipient, and as no cred- # was given the inearsion of postman into a poor neighboFhood was watched OH all sides with fear rather than hope.
 Calefidge the poet, saw poor wom- an declining to accept ! letter on the score of inability to pay. The good uat1raa bard tdoubtless with some diff euhy) found the required ninepence, despite the Woman's remonstranees When the postAs{n lad gone away, she showed CoIeridge that the letter was but blank sheet of paper Her brother fad arranged to send her at intervals such sheet, addressed in a certain fashion, as evidence that all was well with him, and she IS regularly, after inspecting the address, refused To accept it. Some humorist OH one occasion sent out large numbers of letters, each on . sheet as large as Il tahlecloth, all Of which had to be delivered as single missives.
 This system practically stified written intercourse among the working class aud pressed with severity upon the middle class, but the rich and highly placed entirely escaped postal taxation Tho privilege of franking covered the core spenaenee not only of ministers, peers and members of parliament but of their relatives, friends and acquaint- anees. While ill cue year early in the queens reign no less than 7,400, GOO letters were franked, single London finn paid annually e11 ,G60 for postage and a writer ill The Quarterly referred ffipPantly to so slight and rare m in- eident in laboFer' s life IS the receipt of letter '' Among the packets franked was a grand piano. An a1mr of clerks was employed 10 fix the charges to be collected, and the postal revenue remained stationary between 1915 aud l6a5, although ill tho same period the population increased from 19, 5G0, GOO 10 2s.G00 900.
 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, l840. The writer possesses a copy of The Quarterly Review of 1889, ill which q contributor believed to be Croker) fiercely denounces the scheme. fsWill 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. 4 gigantic exem- plifieation of the old proverb--Penny wise and pound foolish, '' etc.
 Macaulay says that the penny post, when first established, was the object of violent inyectiye, as a manifest con- trivance of the pope to enslaye the souls of Englishmen, It was described as "sedition made easy" The postal au- thorities, who is 1784 had opposed the institution of mail coaches, were im- plaeable enemies of penny postage The postmaster general of 1839, Lord Lich- field, based his objections on the curi- ous ground that the building at St. Mar tin s-le-Grand would not be large enough. The secretary, Colonel Maber- ly, constantly repeated, "This plan we know will fail .
 As we know, 1t succeeded, and the penny rate has been generally adopted in Europe as well as in the United States. Tine number of letters rose from So, GOO, coo ill 1887 to 299, GOO, GOO in 1847, and for the year ending on March 91, 1897, about 1,9oo, coo, 900. The postal surplus was in 1889 q, 669,5 and in 1896-7 a, 682, l33 The number Of letters, which was in 1887 about per head and ill 1854 l5 per head, is now 77 per head -Foftnightly Review.
 
 English folk are copying tbe Ameri-