Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/159

Rh orders to two or more London tradesmen; these are frequently written on one large sheet, and addressed as a single letter to one party, who divides the sheet, and distributes the several parts. The whole number of such letters is perhaps not very large, but it may fairly be considered as the exponent of a multitude which are altogether suppressed by the restrictions which lead to such cumbrous artifices.

With respect to letters between friends, it may be first remarked, that the observation made above, with reference to the practice of waiting till there is such an accumulation of matter as will justify the expense of postage, applies with at least equal force here. There is oftentimes a desire to communicate at short intervals, as once or even twice per day, some single fact; as the state of a person suffering under severe illness: and it would excite much surprise in those whose station places them quite above such considerations, to learn how high in the scale of society economy in postage is found to operate as an obstacle.

Nothing is more common than for persons in comfortable circumstances to write letters simply because they have had the good fortune to obtain franks, or to find opportunities for sending by private hand; and when it is considered that a person residing in a distant town, a gentleman upon a tour, or a commercial traveller on his journey, could, at the expense of 30s. per annum, send a daily bulletin of his health and progress, some faint idea may be formed of the extent to which this species of correspondence is likely to increase. And here may be noticed, as corroborating this probability, the very common practice of sending a newspaper with some short phrase, single word, or conventional mark, illicitly inscribed, or at least conveying information by the hand-writing of the address.

Some years ago, when it was the practice to write the name of a member of parliament, for the purpose of franking a newspaper, a friend of mine, previous to starting on a tour into Scotland, arranged with his family a plan for informing them of his progress and state of health, without putting them to the expense of postage. It was managed thus:—He carried with him a number