Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/13



OF

the many beneficent measures for which the first fifty years of Her Majesty's reign will always be gratefully remembered, few, perhaps, have conferred greater blessings upon the public at large, especially upon the poorer classes, than the reforms effected during that period in our postal system—reforms which, commencing in the United Kingdom soon after Her Majesty's accession, have now been extended to every civilised country in the world.

t is just fifty years since Sir Rowland Hill, with whom the great reform originated, published (in February, 1837) his celebrated pamphlet, and in the belief that it will be interesting to many now rejoicing in Her Majesty's Jubilee to be enabled to glance for a moment at the condition in which the public found itself in postal matters at the commencement of her beneficent reign, we reprint the