Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/110

42 penny each. Availing myself of this excellent suggestion, I propose the following arrangement:

Let stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to the public from the Stamp Office or Post Office, or both, as may be most convenient, and sold at such a price as to include the postage. Letters so stamped would be treated in all respects as franks, and might, as well as franks, be put into the letterbox, as at present, instead of being delivered to the Receiver.

Covers at various prices would be required for packets of various weights; and each should have the weight it is entitled to carry legibly printed with the stamp. The Receiver should take the packets from time to time from the box, examine them to see that the allowance of weight was not exceeded, and assort them as already described. If any packet exceeded the proper weight, it should be sent to the dead-letter office, opened, and returned to the writer: the delay thus occasioned, and the loss of the frank-stamp, being the penalty for carelessness. As a check on the Receiver, a few packets taken at random should be examined at the Central Office, and a fine levied for negligence.

Economy and the public convenience would require that sheets of letter paper of every description should be stamped in the part used for the address; that wrappers, such as are used for newspapers, as well as covers made of cheap paper, should also be stamped; and that every Deputy Post-master and