Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/80

46 them by that post; and thus, if they are foreign letters, he may lose, perhaps, a week or a fortnight by waiting for the next packet.

The inconvenience in this and in some other cases, is of perpetual and every-day occurrence; and though, in the greater part of the individual cases, it may be of trifling moment, the sum of all these produces an amount, which it is always worthy of the government of a large and active population to attend to. The remedy is simple and obvious: it would only be necessary, at each letter-box, to have a light frame of iron projecting from the house over the pavement, and carrying the letters G. P., or T. P., or any other distinctive sign. All private signs are at present very properly prohibited from projecting into the street: the passenger, therefore, would at once know where to direct his attention, in order to discover a post-office; and those letter-boxes which occurred in the great thoroughfares could not fail to be generally known.