The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"Another potent reason for the abolition of the franking privilege, as now exercised, is found in the abuses which seem to be inseparable from its existence. These abuses, though constantly exposed and animadverted upon for a series of years, have as constantly increased. It has been often stated by my predecessors, and is a matter of public notoriety, that immense masses of packages are transported under the Government frank which neither the letter nor the spirit of the statute creating the franking privilege would justify; and a large number of letters, documents, and packages are thus conveyed, covered by the frank of officials, written in violation of law, not by themselves, but by some real or pretended agent; while whole sacks of similar matter, which have never been handled nor even seen by Government functionaries, are transported under franks which have been forged. The extreme difficulty of detecting such forgeries has greatly multiplied this class of offences; whilst their prevalence has so deadened the public sentiment in reference to them, that a conviction, however ample the proof, is scarcely possible to be obtained. The statute of 1825, denouncing the counterfeiting of an official frank under a heavy penalty, is practically inoperative. I refer you to the case reported at length by the United States attorney for the district, as strikingly illustrating this vitiated public opinion, reflected from the jury-box. The proof was complete, and the case unredeemed by a single palliation; and yet the offender was discharged, unrebuked, to resume, if it should please him, his guilty task. This verdict of acquittal is understood to have been rendered on two grounds--first, that the accused said he did not commit the offence to avoid the payment of the postages; and second, that the offence has become so prevalent that it is no longer proper to punish it. These are startling propositions, whether regarded in their legal, moral, or logical aspects."