Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/289

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

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��Office ; the pen-and-ink sketch for the penny stamp by Wyon ; and the first perforating machine, for which the inventor, Archer, was awarded 4,000?.

Through the courtesy of Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode I am in 1906, Sept 8. possession of the Third Report of the Postmaster-General, issued Third Post in 1857. It is a handsome folio of 64 pages, and is out of print ; Office Report, but my copy is as clean and fresh as if just issued from the press. The statistics date from the 31st of December, 1839. The total number of letters for that year was 82,470,596, including 6,563,024 franks. This enormous number of franks will show how the privilege was abused. Members of Parliament could receive an un- limited number of letters free of postage, of any weight even a pianoforte, a saddle, or a haunch of venison and they might send out fourteen a day. With the new Act franking was abolished. The Queen cheerfully volunteered to resign the privilege, and pay postage like her subjects. For the year 1840, the first of Penny Postage, the total was 168,768,344, being an increase of 122 per cent. In 1841 the total reached 196,500,191, being another increase of 16^ per cent., after which the increase was more gradual. The Exhibition of 1851 did not bring such an increase as one would have expected, it being only 4 per cent, on the previous year. For the year 1856 the total reached 478,393,803.

The money orders issued during 1839 in the United Kingdom were 188,921, the amount being 313,124?. ; while in 1856 the total number was 6,178,982, and the amount 11,805,562?. It is curious to note that as regards Ireland during the famine years 1846-7 there was an increase on the previous years. In 1845 the number issued was 232,525, for a total of 391,692?. ; in 1846, 258,144, of the value of 435,330?. ; and in 1847, 299,521, the value being 519,877?.

There was also a considerable increase in the money orders paid in Ireland during 1846-8. In 1846 the amount was 483,339f., being an increase of nearly 100,000?. on the previous year. In 1847 this reached 611,320?., while in 1848 the large amount of 806,770?. was paid. In the following year there was a drop of 160,000?. A good Irish money- order story is related by Charles Dickens in Household Words. Early in 1852 he visited the Alders- gate Street office, and Mr. Frederic Hill, who acted as his guide, Frederic Hill, told him how an Irishman, who left his hod at the door, applied for an order for five pounds on a Tipperary post office, for which he tendered (probably congratulating himself on having hit on such a grand investment) sixpence ! It required a lengthened argu- ment to prove to liim that he would have to pay the five pounds into the office before his friend could receive that amount in Tip- perary.

The Report gives the profit or loss during the preceding ten years. There were only two years in which there was a loss. In

��Money orders.

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