Her Majesty's Mails

The justice and propriety of a uniform rate was further shown, but in a smaller degree, by the fact that the relative cost of transmission of letters under the old system was not always dependent on the distance the mails were carried. Thus, the Edinburgh mail, the longest and most important of all, cost 5l. for each journey. Calculating the proportionate weight of bags, letters, and newspapers, Mr. Hill[84] arrived at the absolute cost of carrying a newspaper of an average weight of 1½ oz. at one-sixth of a penny, and that of a letter of an average weight of ¼ oz. at one-thirty-sixth of a penny. These sums being the full cost for the whole distance, Mr. Hill assumed, fairly enough, that the same rating would do for any place on the road. It was admitted on all hands, that the chief labour was expended in making up, opening, and delivering the mails; therefore the fact whether it was carried one mile or a hundred made comparatively little difference in the expenditure of the office. The expenses and trouble being much the same, perhaps even less at Edinburgh than at some intermediate point, why should the charges be so different? But the case could be made still stronger. The mail for Louth, containing as it did comparatively few letters, cost the Post-Office authorities, as the simple expense of transit, one penny-farthing per letter.