Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/105

Rh distribution separate from the general one, to a slight extent. No inconvenience would, however, arise from employing the same receiving-houses for both.

Having shown the practicability and even fairness of a uniform and low rate of postage, (the primary conditions of the simplicity of arrangements, and of the extension in the number of letters which we have contemplated,) our next step is to show the means by which such postage might be conveniently collected in advance, and accounted for by the collector.

The following is a sketch of two modes of collection, both of which I would submit for consideration. It is drawn out with reference to the metropolis, but a few very slight and obvious modifications would adapt either mode to any other town.

In either case the number of receiving-houses must be considerably increased, and one division, or more, of the principal offices in St. Martin's le Grand and at Charing Cross must be converted into receiving houses similar to the others.

First mode of Collection.—The receiving-houses to be open shops: the slits through which letters are now passed to be employed for franked letters and newspapers only; a legible inscription to that effect being placed over each: all chargeable letters to be