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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
107
At
Arbroath,
now
an
important
town,
the
revenue
was,
in
1763,
L76,
12s.
8d.,
and
the
postmaster's
salary,
L20.
At
this
figure
the
salary
remained
till
1794,
though
the
revenue
had
increased
to
L367,
13s.
5d.;
but
now
the
postmaster
appealed
for
higher
pay,
and
brought
up
his
supports
of
office-rent,
coal,
candles,
wax,
&c.,
to
strengthen
his
case.
In
Dundee,
in
the
year
1800,
the
postmaster's
salary
was
L50,
and
the
revenue
L3165,
9s.
5d.
At
Paisley,
the
postmaster's
salary
was
fixed
at
L33
in
1790
and
remained
at
that
figure
till
1800
when
a
petition
was
sent
forward
for
what
was
called
in
official
language
an
augmentation.
In
the
memorial
it
is
stated
that
the
revenue
for
1799
was
L1997,
1s.
11d.,
and
that
the
deductions
for
rent,
coal,
candles,
wax,
paper,
pens,
and
ink,
reduced
the
postmaster's
salary
to
from
L15
to
L20
a-year!
To
show
how
these
towns
have
grown
up
into
importance
within
a
period
of
little
more
than
the
allotted
span
of
man,
and
as
exhibiting
perhaps
the
yet
more
bounding
expansion
of
the
Post-office
system,
the
following
particulars
are
added,
and
may
prove
of
interest:--
At
Aberdeen,
at
the
present
time,
the
annual
value
of
postage-stamps
sold,
which
may
be
taken
as
a
rough
measure
of
the
revenue
from
the
carriage
of
correspondence
alone,
is
little
short
of
L30,000;
the
staff
of
all
sorts
employed
numbers
191;
and
the
postmaster's
salary
exceeds
L600
a-year.
Arbroath
is
less
pretentious,
being
a
smaller
town;
but
the
letter
revenue
is
over
L4000
a-year;
the
persons
employed,
14;
and
the
postmaster's
salary
nearly
L200.
Dundee
shows
a
postage
revenue
of
over
L35,000;
193
persons
are
employed
there;
and
the
postmaster's
salary
is
little
short
of
L600.
While
at
Paisley
the
revenue
from
stamps
is
nearly
L10,000;
the
persons
employed,
43;
and
the
postmaster's
salary,
L300.
Notwithstanding
the
vast
decrease
in
the
rates
of
postage,
these
figures
show,
in
three
of
the
cases
mentioned,
that
the
revenue
from
letters
is
now
about
twelve
times
what
it
was
less
than
a
century
ago.
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