Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/768

 748 POST them four leagues apart, and requiring them to be ready night and day to carry government messages as rapidly as possible. Similar posts, the riders of which were called nuncii, were es- tablished in England in the 13th century, exclu- sively for the transmission of government de- spatches. As late as the 15th century, butchers or drovers, who went about buying cattle, were the principal carriers of private letters. In the 12th century the university of Paris established a body of pedestrian messengers, who bore let- ters from its thousands of students to the va- rious countries of Europe from which they came, and brought to them the money they needed for the prosecution of their studies. The great development of commerce following the crusades, and the geographical discoveries of the Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards, cre- ated a necessity for business correspondence about the beginning of the 16th century. The royal nuncii, or post riders, had already found it for their advantage to use their surplus horses for the conveyance of passengers, and thus the system of posting, or travelling with post horses, came into vogue. These posts were now used for the carriage of private let- ters, at first irregularly, and without fixed compensation or regular periods of arrival or departure, but eventually with considerable order and system. The earliest of these posts for general accommodation in Europe was es- tablished in 1516 between Brussels and Vien- na by Franz von Thurn and Taxis. His suc- cessors received from the emperors of Ger- many repeated enfeoffments of the imperial post, and extended it over the greater part of Germany and Italy. Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, and Naples were thus connected with Ham- burg, Bremen, Lubeck, and Frankfort, and the active commerce which had sprung up among these cities- was greatly facilitated. The counts of Thurn and Taxis retained this postal monopoly till the dissolution of the German empire in 1806. In 1524 the French posts, which previously had only transmitted the letters and messages of the king and nobles, were permitted to carry other letters. In 1581 Thomas Randolph was appointed chief postmaster of England, but his functions seem to have pertained more to the establishment and supervision of post houses, and the regu- lation of fees for posting, than to the trans- mission of letters. In Peru, in 1527, the Spanish invaders found a regular system of posts in operation along the great highway from Quito to Ouzco, and messages as to the progress of the invasion, as well as other subjects, were forwarded to the inca by fleet-footed runners, who wound around their waists the quipu, a species of sign writing by means of knotted cords. The complete or- ganization of a system of postal communica- tion in England did not take place till the reign of James L, who soon after his acces- sion constituted the office of postmaster of England for foreign parts, and appointed Matthew Le Quester the first postmaster. In 1635 the postmaster general was ordered to establish a running post between London and Edinburgh, to go night and day, and come back in six days. In 1644 Edmund Prideaux, then a member of the house of commons, was appointed master of the posts, and first estab- lished a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts of the kingdom. In 1656 an act was passed to settle the postage of England, Scot- land, and Ireland, fixing the rates of letter postage and the prices for post horses. The rates of postage previous to this act were for a single piece of paper: under 80 m., 2d. ; be- tween 80 and 140 m., 4=d. ; above 140 m., Qd. ; and on the borders and in Scotland, 8d. The act of 1656 raised these rates (which were in all cases for a single letter) to 14^. for a dis- tance of more than 300 m., from which sum they were diminished according to the dis- tance down to 2d. for 7 m. and under. Be- tween this period and 1838 more than 150 acts relative to postal affairs were passed, but the rates of postage were not materially changed. These rates operated as an almost prohibitory tariff on letters through the mails, and all manner of devices for avoiding the payment of postage were adopted. The franking privi- lege, which at an early period had been granted to members of parliament and offi- cers of the government, was much abused. In 1838 the franked and privileged letters amounted to 30 per cent, of the whole number transmitted through the mails. In 1784 the net revenue of the post office did not exceed 150,000 ; but by the introduction of fast mail coaches soon after that date, it had risen in 1815 to about 1,600,000, at which point it remained stationary for more than 20 years, in consequence of the abuse of the franking privilege, and the methods adopted to evade the payment of postage. In 1837 Row- land Hill, who was not then connected with the post office department, published a pam- phlet on post office reform; his plan was adopted by parliament in 1839, and went into operation in 1840, under the supervision of its originator. Its principal provisions were : the reduction of all inland postage to a uni- form rate, Id. for a single half ounce; the weight of a letter, and not the number of pieces, to form the basis of the rate ; the en- tire abolition of the franking privilege; the despatch of the mails at more frequent peri- ods; and increased speed in the delivery of letters. To these were subsequently added payment by stamps and prepayment. In 1848 the transmission of books by post was granted, at first at Qd. per Ib. This was subsequently modified so as to give increased facilities for forwarding proofs, pictures, and indeed every- thing except manuscripts and letters, at low prices. The rates to the colonies are also such as to encourage the transmission of letters and small packages thither by mail. On the intro- duction of Hill's system there was a falling off