Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/31

 the little seed which has now attained so gigantic a growth.

Prepayment of postage by means of stamps has now become so universal a practice that to many persons it may seem incredible that, in 1839, Sir Francis Baring, and some other earnest advocates of Sir Rowland Hill's reforms, believed it would be almost impossible to induce the public to prepay their letters. This necessary change of habit was, indeed, regarded by them as a dangerous rock ahead, upon which the scheme might possibly be wrecked. To prepay a letter in those days (unless addressed to a person of very inferior social position) was considered quite as contrary to good manners as it would now be for one gentleman, when writing to another, to enclose a