Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/92

24 all this trouble, and error, and fraud, exist in the complexity of the operations; a complexity arising out of the varying charges for postage, and the intermixture of paid and unpaid letters. The remedy must therefore be looked for in the means of simplification. If the postage of all letters were collected after their passage through the Central Office, something would be accomplished in simplifying the operations, but how much more would be effected if any means could be devised by which the postage of all letters should be collected before their passage through the Central Office!

For the purpose of estimating the advantages which would result from such an arrangement, suppose for a moment that all letters were post-paid, that the rates of postage were uniform, without regard to distance, (say a certain small sum per ounce,) and that the amount collected were transmitted to the Central Office, from the London Receiving-houses, and from the several post-towns, with the letters, or at least accounted for at the time of their transmission; the correct amount being ascertained and checked at the Central Office by weighing, and perhaps counting, the mass of letters received from each officer.

A little consideration will show the enormous effect which this arrangement would have in simplifying and accelerating the proceedings of the Post Office throughout the kingdom, and in rendering them less liable to error and fraud. Take as a