Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/22

 Mr. Cobden stated:—

Mr. Henson, a working hosier of Nottingham, stated:—

The average postage on a letter in 1837, even including the penny letters which circulated by the local posts, was as high as 6¼d., a sum which in those days formed a far larger fraction of a working man's daily wages than it now does; and the difficulty the poor had in paying such a postage was well shown in the evidence of Mr. Brewin, of Cirencester, a member of the Society of Friends. "Sixpence," said he, "is a third of a poor man's daily income. If a gentleman, whose fortune is a thousand pounds a year, or three pounds a day, had to pay one-third of his daily