Her Majesty's Mails

But this was not all. The expenses of the department, or the secondary distribution, might be much reduced by simplifications in the various processes. The existing system resulted in a complicated system of accounts, involving great waste of time as well as offering inducements to fraud. The daily work of exposing letters to a strong light, in order to ascertain their contents, also offered a constant temptation to the violation of the first duty of the officers of the State, in respect to the sanctity of correspondence. If, instead of charging letters according to the number of sheets or scraps of paper, a weight should be fixed, below which, whatever the contents of a letter, a certain rate be charged, much trouble would be saved to the office, not to speak of any higher reason. Again, he suggested that if anything could be done to expedite the delivery of letters by doing away with the collection of postage from door to door, a great object would be gained; that five or six times the number of letters might be delivered with the existing machinery, and this even in less time than under the old system. The only requisite was, that some plan for the prepayment of letters should be devised, so that the Post-Office might be relieved from the duty of charging, debiting, &c. and the letter-carriers from collecting the postage. The Post-Office authorities had had the question of prepayment, by means of some kind of stamp or stamped covers, under consideration prior to this time. The Commissioners of Post-Office Inquiry deliberated on the measure in the early part of 1837 (after Mr. Charles Knight had suggested a penny stamp, or stamped cover, for collecting the now reduced postage on newspapers), considering it very favourably. Hence it arose that that part of the proposals relating to prepayment by stamped labels or covers, formed part of Mr. Hill's scheme, and was considered with it.