ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2012.COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2012THE MORAL AID SOCIAL BEIEFITS CHEAP POSTAGE. BY JOSHUA LEAVITT, SECRET AB Y OF THE BOSTON CHEAP POSTAGE ASSOCIATION. FROM HUNT’S MERCHANTS’ MAGAZINE For December, 1849. NEW YORK: GEO. Wé WOT), PRINTER, 15 SPfitfëE STREET. 1849.A ' 7nA ',yo>$\\ THE H MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHEAP POSTAGE. o t- A 4 m y m Cheap Postage is no longer an experiment; its success has justified the anticipations of its promoters, and silenced the cavils of incredulity. The principles on which it rests are no lopger theoretical. The arguments and calculations, which seemed so conclusive, when only seen on paper, have now been subjected to a trial-process, which must satisfy even those over-cautious minds that believe nothing they do not see. u Rowland Hill’s System of Postage ” is now as distinct a subject of study and of history, as Professor Morse’s System of Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs ; and the principles and rules of operation are as necessary to be understood, in order to successful 'application in practice. Dr. Franklin’s system of electricity will afford as much help in one case, as Dr. Franklin’s system of postage in* the other. It is Rowland Hill’s system which has wrought the wonders of cheap postage in Great Britain ; and that will do the same here, if applied according to Rowland Hill’s principles. That the expense of postage per letter is inversely as the number of letters, is seen in the fact that in 1839, under the old system, 76,000,000 letters cost, on an average, two-pence halfpenny per letter ; while in 1840, the first year of the new system, 169,000,000 cost less than a penny—a farthing, per letter; and, in 1847, the whole 322.000. 000 cost only three and a half farthings per letter. The distance, greater or less, which a letter is carried, is matter of small consequence. Ten letters carried a hundred miles may cost the government a dollar per letter; when 10,000 letters could be carried the same distance, and the transportation cost only one mill per letter. And if government runs one mail from Boston to New York, and another from New York to Philadelphia, it costs no more to carry the Boston letters to Philadelphia. Hence, distance is laid out of the calculation, and uniformity becomes the rule of postage. Hence> also, the productiveness of the post-office is proportioned to the increase of numbers ; and therefore the interest of the department requires it to do everything to increase the number of letters, by increasing the public accommodation. The genius of the new system is public accommodation ; and the measure of success in administration is the number of letters it induces the people to write, by the facilities it affords for their conveyance. The increase of letters in Great Britain, from 76,000,000 in 1889, to 169.000. 000 in 1840, and 346,000,000 in 1848, shows something of what4 The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. the system is capable of doing; while the fact that the addition of 93,000,000 letters the first year added only £101,678 to the expense, which is only at the rate of one farthing per letter, shows that the great increase of expenditure, £528,176, added between 1840 and 1848, was caused by increased public accommodation, rather than the increase in the number of letters. Our own “reduced postage,” established by the act of Congress of 1845, ¿contained only one solitary feature of Rowland Hill’s system—that of rating letters solely by weight—a great improvement, it is true. And in regard to letters going not more than thirty miles, which make up one-fifth of the whole, and were before carried for six cents, the reduction to five cents was too trilling to produce any considerable effect in increasing the number sent. And yet the results of the act of 1845 all go to confirm the soundness of Rowland Hill’s principles, and show that his system is just as applicable, and will prove quite as successful and beneficial in this country, as in Great Britain. It is quite remarkable, that while the whole cost of management of the British post-office is $6,712,368, that of the United States is only $4,346,850 —a difference of $2,365,518. And the cost of transportation, in which we should naturally expect the difference to be very great, on account of the immense distances traversed by our mails, is $2,229,763 in Great Britain, and $2,448,756 in the United States, which is only $210,993 more. There is, therefore, no shadow of a reason why the rate of postage on letters should be greater here than there. This system has been in operation for ten years, in Great Britain, before the eyes of the people of the United States. Thousands of our citizens, visiting England, have witnessed its facilities, and experienced its benefits, and have wished that our own country might enjoy the same blessing. Its practicability and adaptedness to this country have been demonstrated over and over again ; and yet we do not get cheap postage. None of our leading statesmen have made the cause their own, or have shown that they had taken pains to understand the elementary principles of the system. Congress meets and adjourns, without passing the bill, and the men by whose apathy or opposition so great a good is lost, hold up their heads before the people, and are reelected. Why does not Congress pass a bill establishing Rowland Hill’s system of cheap letter postage ? The true and only reason is, that the people—the people have never willed it, with that energy of purpose which Congressmen always understand and obey. The truth is, the people at large have hardly begun to be impressed with the real value of cheap postage. They like the idea very well, of sending their letters at a cheaper rate ; but the few letters which they now write, do not make their bill for letter postage much of a burden ; or, if their business requires many letters, the postage amount is a per centage so small, as to be but little thought of. The public mind has been too much occupied with the financial and pecuniary bearings of the question. On the first introduction of the subject, it found our public men so deeply imbued with the old saw that the “ post-office must support itself”—a principle grounded on nothing in the constitution, and contradicted by its own history for two years out of five, that the first objection everywhere to be met was, “ Will it pay ?” And we were obliged to wait until the department became convinced, by full experiment, that the old system could not be made to pay, before we could get the partial and unskillful reduction of postage, granted by the act of 1845. That reduction was made, avowedly, not with the idea of copying RowlandThe Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage, 5 Hill’s system, but mainly for the.purpose of putting down the private mails, by underbidding them. That reduction also relieved the business community so far, that it was impossible, for a time, to obtain the attention of the public to the claims of the true system of cheap postage. And when, at length, the question came up, early last year, in a form to awaken interest, the friends of cheap postage found themselves embarrassed by a strong prejudice, in the people and representatives of the more thinly settled parts of the country, who had imbibed the notion that the call for cheap postage came only from the cities, and was a mere scheme for the great merchants and manufacturers of the East, and in a strong impression, hastily taken up in high quarters, that the length of our routes was a good reason for insisting that cheap postage, in this country, should be three cents, rather than two cents, which is the nearest equivalent for Mr. Hill’s penny sterling. In meeting these and other minor difficulties, we have too much lost sight of the real object in view, the grand social and moral benefits of cheap postage, which make it one of the beneficent wonders of the age. It was a conviction of these benefits which, in the early part of last year, led a few individuals, in Boston and New York, themselves mostly discon nected either with the commercial or the publishing interest, to associate together for the purpose of awakening the public mind to the greatness of the loss which our country is suffering every year that we remain without cheap postage. It is in this light that we wish the people to regard it. And when they once begin to consider what cheap postage will do for society, they will be so earnest in demanding it that their rulers cannot choose but yield and grant the boon. The post-office is, by its very constitution, a great social machine, intended to weave a net-work of personal intercourse between the people all over the country. The authors of the Federalist so understood it. In their decisive plea for our present constitution, (No. 42,) they argue for the establishment of a post-office by this simple consideration, that “Nothing which tends to FACILITATE INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE STATES, CAN BE DEEMED UNWORTHY of the public care.” That ought to be the spirit of all legislation and administration for the post-office—to facilitate intercourse. When the post-office does this most effectually, it best subserves the object of its creation. To facilitate intercourse is to advance society, in all its great interests. The interchange of thought is the advancement of society. Where this interchange is hindered or clogged, thought is stifled, inquiry suppressed, affection chilled, enterprise hampered, freedom chained. In proportion to the actual exercise of this interchange, mankind vise, and advance, and grow, in all that constitutes the glory of humanity. To “ facilitate intercourse ” is about the only positive act for the. advancement of society which the constitution empowers our national government to put forth. To this power alone it has interposed no limitations, but those which bound the resources of the government, and the capacities of the people. Congress has, from the beginning, acted in the spirit of this principle, in one remarkable particular—the postage of newspapers. To “ facilitate intercourse among the States,” the charge for newspapers has approached to uniformity, and has been fixed at a rate very far below the expense incurred. Even with the very great increase of newspapers, within the last five years, they do not pay above two-thirds of wffiat they cost the department. Yet Congress has carried them from one end of the country to the other, and the sole reason has been, that by this liberality, the government could “ facilitate6 The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. intercourse among the States.” Rowland Hill’s system itself’ glorious as it is, niay be considered as little more than an application with a slight emendation of our plan of newspaper postage to the postage on letters. As he has demonstrated, and experience in England has proved, that the application of the same principle to letters is practicable, and within the reasonable ability of the government, what the friends of cheap postage now ask is, that Congress will apply their own principle to letters, as they have always done to newspapers. The chief emendation is the adoption of absolute uniformity of rate, which is grounded on the discovery that there is no practicable difference in the expense. , Cheap postage on newspapers has made us a newspaper-reading people ; cheap postage on letters would make us a letter-writing people. The power and practice of writing one’s thoughts is itself an advanced stage of education. The mere ability to read the Bible, to write one’s name, and to tell the numbers on a bank-note, is an achievement of great value, compared with the absence of that ability. And one reason why so many remain without even this medium of learning, in this land of schools and Bibles, can be no other but the lack of an operating motive to learn, brought to bear upon the mind in early life, when the opportunity was enjoyed. Cheap postage furnishes that motive. All the educational systems in the world cannot be a substitute for it. The proverb says—“ A child can lead a horse to the water, but ten men cannot make him drink.” Neither can legislation compel the youthful mind to dip and drink at the fountain of knowledge. The expectation of writing letters, to be sent by mail for two cents, will make millions of young eyes glisten with enthusiastic determination to master the mysteries of reading and penmanship. And the practice of writing thus encouraged, and of course commenced with the first ability to shape a letter with a pen, will train, and stimulate, and discipline, and strengthen the minds of a rising generation to a pitch of intellectual advancement far beyond their predecessors. And then, the practice of writing will keep knowledge always bright, and the intellectual powers continually advancing. Vast multitudes of people never advance in the knowledge of letters beyond their attainments at school. Perhaps at that time they would indite a letter, in tolerable English. But the cost of postage has stood in the way of frequent letter-writing ; and, in fact, the man or woman of five-and-thirty finds it an irksome task to write a few lines of necessary information, and, at sixty, has lost the faculty altogether. Cheap postage would have made them good letter-writers in youth, and would have kept them continually improving in that faculty, even to old age. Lord Bacon tells us that “Reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man.” There is no more salutary discipline of the mind than the exercise of mastering its thoughts, and arranging them in order, so as to express them to its own satisfaction with the pen. Conceive of a whole community trained to this exercise, and continuing in it always, and you have the idea of a people more intellectual than ever lived. And cheap postage will do it. It is impossible to give in books, or magazines, or newspapers, that precision and particularity of information which is necessary for the practical application of the knowledge they disseminate. Individuals have their own questions to ask, and their own difficulties to remove. A single word of personal inquiry would often save much laborious study, preserve from embar-The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. 7 rassing mistakes, and make knowledge practically available, in cases where now it conies to no fruit. In the prosecution of philosophical investigations, in historical research, in the construction of machinery, in the application of useful improvements, in looking up evidence for the support of just claims, every facility given to correspondence is of immense value. By cheap postage, the minutiae of knowledge will be diffused among mankind, as they never can be by printing. And the collection of knowledge will be equally facilitated. The number of seekers and of dispensers will be indefinitely increased. Innumerable researches will be set on foot. Truths, buried in the minds of obscure individuals, will be brought out. Facts that will soon be beyond the reach of human inquiry, will be gathered up and preserved. All the treasures of wisdom—even the golden sands will be collected and added to the common stock of useful knowledge. Who can tell how much of the advancement of science in Great Britain is to be traced to the influence of the 350,000,000 letters annually written there ? Cheap postage will do more for us than it lias done for them, because it will act upon a more active and inventive people. Cheap postage is much more essential to the cultivation of the affections than of the intellect. The wise statesman will carefully cherish the social affections among the people, for there courage and honor, patriotism and public spirit, the vital energies of the republic, have their seat. In this eager and money-getting age, we are in no small danger of suffering a deterioration of the kindly sympathies, which bind man to man, and sweeten life, and keep the mind from sinking into sordid avarice, or unrelenting ambition. The government has the power, by the grant of cheap postage, to rekindle and preserve, in glowing freshness, the warm sympathies of millions of hearts towards each other, which are now languishing and ready to die, for the mere want of personal intercourse. Distance, and other difficulties, render visiting impossible. But the frequent interchange of letters, which would certainly take place if the postage was “only two cents,” would be a precious and effectual substitute. It would be hazarding nothing to predict that a million of persons, who now write but rarely, would write letters to distant friends within the first week after they became acquainted with the existence of cheap postage. And the still continuing increase of letter-writing in Great Britain, from 169,000,000 the first year, to 195,000,000, to 200,000,000, to 220,000,000, and 242,000,000, and 271,000,000, and 299,000,000, and 322,000,000, and, finally, to 346,000,000 in the ninth year, while the very latest reports show an increase of £100,000 in the net revenue of the post-office, for the tenth year ending the 5th of October, requiring an addition of 24,000,000 letters for its production ; these facts prove that when once the impulse of cheap postage is begun to.be felt, it will go on indefinitely ; or, in other words, the more letters people write, the more they wish to write. From writing annually, they will wish to correspond monthly, and from monthly, weekly, and from weekly, daily. When the number of letters shall have increased In this country to 300,000,000, or only four times the present number, what freights of love and friendship will be continually borne from one extremity of the land to another, thrilling every day a million of hearts with kind and pure sympathies ! Cheap postage will do this. A gentleman of eminence in the legal profession, who has been employed professionally in a large number of divorce cases before the courts, re* marked that a large proportion of those unhappy marriages originated in some slight interruption of affection, occasioned by temporary absence, during8 The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. which there was not a constant intercourse kept up by letter. And he had no doubt that the establishment of cheap postage would, in thousands of cases, forestall these little alienations, by the facility it would afford for the continued interchange of sympathies, by frequent correspondence. What father, driven by the demands of business or benevolence, or in the public service, to be absent from his home, would not feel the frequent letters of his sons, his daughters, the childish first scrawls of his little ones, coming by every mail, to be like guardian angels, hovering around him to keep off every contaminating breath, and fanning with their wings the pure flame of domestic love in his heart % Children, too, absent at school, boys put to trades, or in counting-rooms, young persons pushing their fortunes in any of the thousand forms of enters prise created by our busy Anglo-Saxon race, would find that the frequent “ letters from home ”—the kind greetings of father and mother, of sister and brother, would surround them as with a continual presence of home, with all its blessed restraints and genial influences. It would so strengthen the stakes of the paternal tent, that the heart could never be torn from its hold ; and it would so lengthen its cords, that it would cover every member of the household, hoWever far removed. The old roof tree would send its fibres, and spread but its shadow, to embrace and shelter every wanderer who had been bom at its root. Preserve the domestic affections, and you have almost a sure guaranty for the domestic virtues, the foundation of all good morals. And even if a young man should be led by temptation away from the path of virtue, these incessant letters from home will find their way to his heart, and win him back to the hallowed circle, because they have never allowed him to sink into the cold isolation of confirmed vice. All this ministry of heavenly beneficene is the effect of cheap postage. The usefulness of cheap postage, in aiding the various enterprises of benevolence and reform, should not be lost sight of, in this recital. Hundreds of thousands of our citizens are interested in behalf of some one or other of these objects ; and will welcome anything as a boon to themselves which will make them more efficient. The power of the newspaper press to advance these enterprises, has apparently reached its acme. We have secured about as much newspaper material as can be read. Nearly every attempt to crowd in new papers to sustain new movements is a failure, or, at best, short lived, and of limited influence. But cheap postage, by making these efforts direct and personal, carrying their message from an individual to an individual, will open a new surface to the influence of truth ; will awaken to activity new and deeper tissues of sensibility; and, by combining as well as arousing, by union as well as action, will reduplicate, to a thousand fold, the benevolent and moral energies thus produced. A pleasant illustration of the working of this sort of “ mind-machinery,” may be seen in Mr. Burritt’s description of the. preparatory process which preceded Mr. Cobden’s motion in Parliament, in favor of the great Peace measure of international arbitration :— First of the dynamics of this mind-machinery of popular opinion, planted in u a little upper room,” and opened upon the Legislature of the greatest empire in the world, was the Penny Post. For the six months’ “ agitation ” of the national mind, which the Peace Congress Committee had originated and conducted, in favor- of the measure to he brought forward by Mr. Cobden, the Penny Post had been plied with unremitting activity. Nearly 50,000 letters, and other missiles, in manuscript or lithograph, had been sent, out in every direction, like radiating veins of thought, through which “ the one idea ” was kept in lively circulation. Thus it acquired a constituency of earnest minds, in almost every town in the9 The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. ipngdom, which sent a representative to Parliament; and that representative had perhaps been surprised to receive at St. Stephen’s by the Penny Post, communications from his own constituents, requesting him, with the emphasis of electors, to give his voiee and vote for Mr. Cobden’s motion. Then hundreds of thousands of printed leaves, elucidating “the one idea,” had been scattered with a sower’s hand among the masses of the people, which they had read eagerly on their way to the field or factory; and the silent conviction of myriads of men, women and children of the laboring classes, who had no votes to give or withhold, had strengthened the pressure of the people’s mind upon Parliament. Then every night, for six months, a public meeting in some city, town, or village, had given an utterance to “ the one idea,” which the press echoed and re-echoed among the populations far and near. Thus, one hundred and fifty assemblies of the people, from Land’s End to John O’Groat’s, embracing the active minds of as many communities, had thrown into the gathering tide of public opinion the force of their sympathies. And the great meeting m Exeter Hall was to give a great voice to these convictions and sympathies of the people, and to speak to Parliament the last words of the nation in favor of the measure to be discussed in the House of Commons on the ensuing evening. There is one other social interest on which cheap postage will bear with a benign effect, which should secure its speedy adoption, and the favor of every lover of his country and her institutions. It will ensure forever the continuance of our glorious Union. This precious interest has ever been a subject of the most tender solicitude to every patriotic bosom. The Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address to the People of the United States, gives utterance to his solicitude in these memorable words :— It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of our National Union; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourself to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. Since these oracular exhortations were given, fifteen States have become thirty, and others are already pressing for admission to the Union. The multiplication of interests, the expansion of our territory to so vast an extent, and the convulsions with which the world is agitated, have multiplied the dangers of disunion, and increased the solicitude of the statesman. One of the foremost of our senators has not hesitated to commit his reputation to the prophecy, that it is impo ssible to extend the cords of our Union so as to embrace the new empire which is to rise on the shores, of the Pacific. But we must surely try ; and no man deserves the confidence of the American people, as a legislator, who is not ready to do all and everything that is within the constitutional power and the reasonable ability of the government, to make our Union as lasting as time, whatever maybe its extent. Canals and railroads, commerce and education, the circulation of newspapers, and the habit of meeting by oUr representatives in the halls of national legislation, may do much to preserve the Union. But no intelligent citizen will affirm that these ties of political connection and pecuniary interest afford a satisfactory guaranty for the perpetuity of the Union in all contingencies, or make it what all wish it to be—indissoluble. We need a more intimate intercourse of individuals; such interchange of individual thoughts and feelings as will make our nation “E Plnribus Unum,” all one heart. The strength of10 The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. the three-fold cord, proverbial from the time of Solomon, is derived from the intertwining of innumerable small fibres. And this principle has received a new illustration, in the wire cables, which have just completed a solid communication at Wheeling, between the oldest of the “ Old Thirteen,” and the “ Territory north-west of the Ohio.” Where solid bars of iron would fall assunder by their own weight, these twisted wires easily sustain the tread of an army. Cheap postage will strengthen the fibres and twist the cables of living thought and feeling, which will make our Union as lasting as human nature on earth. Cheap postage, in its various forms of influence, secures our Union from danger, by its operation upon all the causes of danger. The safety-lamp, invented by Sir Humphrey Davy, renders the explosive gases of the coal mine harmless, by dividing them, and forcing them through the fine meshes of the wire screen. The flames that light our city are not dangerous, because the inflammable gas is made to pass through capillary tubes. Cheap postage will perform the same function in regard to all noxious principles, and all enlightening processes in the body politic. The agitations of controversy, the measures of reform, even the machinations of the malcontents of every description, will become innocuous ; while the true advancement of society will advance with steady course, aided, not endangered, by every wind that blows, and every wave that rolls and rocks. This has been its effect in England. While it quickens all the elements of political and social reform, it has made the government and social order of the country stable and secure, while all the rest of Europe has been tossed upon the billows of revolution and civil strife. Cheap postage disarmed Chartism, and brought the friends of the written charter to strive for their object solely by peaceful agitation through the forms of the constitution. Cheap postage repealed the Corn-Laws, and gave the starving millions the blessings of free bread. Cheap postage has just repealed the Navigation Laws. Cheap postage has repeatedly interposed the veto of the minority,, and defeated favorite schemes for consolidating the power of the aristocracy, in legislating for the benefit of the few against the many. In the year 1843, the writer of this spent a few weeks in England, where his attention was turned to the examination of the workings of che^fp postage. Shortly after his return home, he penned the following description, and published it as an editorial leader, in a daily paper, of which he then had the control. The pledge with which it concludes has never been lost sight of. From that day to this, he has lost no opportunity of urging upon the community, and upon Congress, by all means in his power, the importance of the adoption of Kowland Hill’s System of Cheap Postage. (From the Boston Morning Chronicled) No person can realize the value of the “ British system ” of postage, who has not experienced its benefits. It is the most beautiful manifestation of pure beneficence in human government, that can be found upon earth. By it, the government comes to every man, every woman, every child, every day in the year, (Sundays excepted,) and for a compensation so small as hardly to differ from mere gratuity, offers to carry all their letters of business, affection, or philanthro-phy, to any and every spot in the empire, with the utmost speed and the most unfailing certainty that human ingenuity and power can attain. It is a complete leveler. The poorest peasant, the factory-girl, the match-vender, the beggar, even, enjoy the benefits of the cheap postage, as they do of the vital air, on precisely the same terms with the richest banker, the proudest peer, or royalty itself. It is the grand conservative power of the realm, as well as one of the most ef~The Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. 11 fective instruments of reform. It equalizes excitement in all parts of the body politic. It draws the thunder from every threatening cloud by innumerable conducting points. It allows the blazing gas to burn with complete freedom,'because the millions of capillary orifices create no danger of an explosion. It is a system full formed, and all but perfect, at its first trial. No invention, no deduction of science, no experiment in legislation, was ever brought forth so complete in all its results. And then it is so simple, in every one of its parts and movements, bringing out so many effects with so little complication of causes, that in this respect it approximates more nearly to the works of the infinite Creator than any other human device or discovery on record. Indeed, its working and its effects are so much in conformity to the mind of God, that we are bound to place it high among those “ good and perfect gifts which are from above, and come down from the Father of rights.” Now the simple question is, whether the people of this republic shall continue to have the channels of business and social intercourse obstructed by an enormous tax, or shall be allowed by our rulers to enjoy the same privileges that the British monarchy allows to its taxed and pitied Subjects. We shall aim to hold the public mind to this question. The American system has failed, and cannot be restored, The British system has been tried, and proved to be both practicable and capable of self-support. In Great Britain it is already, in four years, a source of revenue. With our wide-spread territory, but lower salaries, we have no doubt in four years it will support itself, with all the privileges now afforded. A system which is proved to be so simple, so economical, so perfectly practicable, and fraught with such vast benefits to the highest interests of the nation, ought to enlist the earnest support of every good citizen, both to secure its adoption by Congress, and to aid its working, when it goes into effect. By the uniformity and cheapness of rate, it is made dependent for its success entirely upon the perfect accommodation it affords to the public, so as to induce the greatest possible number of letters to be sent by the mail. And this necessarily leads to the utmost simplicity and economy in the details, the most compact and methodical arrangements in all branches of the service, and inspires every faithful functionary with its own spirit, which is to diffuse its utmost advantages to every citizen, with the fewest possible disap» pointments and failures. The British post-office, though very far from perfection, and though loaded still with many cumbrous appendages retained from the old system, is yet in its practical working as a means of conferring benefits upon the people, the most complete piece of governmental machinery ever adopted by man. It is the glory of the government of God, to accomplish numerous and complicated results, by few and simple means—as seen in the manifold operations of electricity, gravitation,