The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

To a large proportion of the poorer people of this country the charges were an almost prohibitive burden. Weight, of course, was also a considerable factor in determining the rate, and there is an instance of a packet weighing 32 ounces which was sent from Deal to London and the postage was £6, four times as much as the charge for an inside place by the coach. A large amount of irregular carriage of letters was continually going on; and there were other means of evading the charges. There is the familiar instance of Coleridge, who, when wandering through the Lake District one day, saw a poor woman refuse a letter which the postman offered her. Coleridge, out of sympathy for the poor woman, paid the money she could not raise, but the letter when opened proved to be a blank sheet of paper not intended for acceptance but sent by her son, according to preconcerted agreement, as a sign that he was well. Smuggling in letters was practised almost openly, not only by private individuals but by large firms. A publisher and school agent openly boasted that he adopted evasions of the postal laws which enabled him to receive letters from Glasgow for 2d. on which the Post Office would have levied at least 1s. 1d. Out of every 236 private letters which he received, 169 came to him otherwise than by post. A man starting on a tour in Scotland arranged with his family a plan for informing them of his progress and state of health without putting them to the expense of postage. It was managed in this way. He carried with him a number of old newspapers, one of which he put into the post daily. The postmark with the date showed his progress, and the state of his health was shown by the selection of the names from a list previously agreed upon with which the newspaper was franked. Sir Rowland Hill told the story, and he said he remembered that the name of Sir Francis Burdett denoted “Vigorous health.”