Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/111

Rh Letter Receiver, all over the kingdom, should be required to keep them on sale: a discount, such as is now given on stamps, would render it their interest to do so. Stationers also would be induced to keep them.

The stamp of the receiving-house should be struck upon the frank-stamp, to prevent the latter being used a second time.

For the forgery of these stamps their low price would leave but little temptation; and the account of their issue, compared with the account of the number of letters passed through the Post Office, (kept as already described by the tell-tale stamp,) would lead to the detection of any extensive fraud.

Should experience warrant the Government in making the use of stamped covers universal, most important advantages would be secured; advantages, indeed, of such magnitude, that before any exception whatever is admitted, the policy of such exception should be very fully considered.


 * 1) The Post Office would be relieved altogether from the collection of the Revenue, and from all accounts relating to that collection. Distribution would be its only function.
 * 2) The receipt of letters would be much more simple even than it now is; as the present trouble of receiving money for the post-paid letters would be avoided.
 * 3) Any necessary exception to the uniform rate of