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38. His delicate health gave way under the strain of these duties, and he was obliged to retire from them in 1833. But he only changed the scene and subject of his occupation; for he was soon appointed Secretary to the South Australian Commission. In 1837 he broke ground in the great and crowning work of his life, and brought out several pamphlets on his proposed reform in the postal system of Great Britain. The chief and most effective of these brochures was one entitled "State and Prospects of Penny Postage." In this he developed the great principle which has already won such a triumph in different countries besides England. That is, uniformity of charge; or taxing weight and untaxing distance, so that the Post Office Department should no longer "levy black mail" on remote provincial towns, to punish them for their distance from London. At that time England had more distance rates, if possible, than we had in America. The lines were drawn as sharply and severely as with us. And every line was a postal frontier over which a busy and ingenious smuggling business was carried on daily, but by night more especially. When a man's house was cut through in the middle by such a line, and his parlour was on the shilling and his kitchen on the sixpenny side, of course he would post his letters from the kitchen door. Then the Post Office lost as much through the franking privilege