1862.] on the Post-office. 463 



same as the whole journey, and yet Mr. Hill found on laborious inves- 

 tigation, that such was the fact — the sum for the whole journey only 

 amounting to one-ninth of a farthing ! Thus, it is clear that strict 

 justice, to say nothing of convenience to the Post-office, which means 

 economy, is more closely approached by making no variation of charge 

 in respect of greater or smaller distances of conveyance than could be 

 attained by acting on any differential scale imaginable, unless, indeed, 

 we had a coinage descending far below farthings. By the result of 

 this investigation, which I think I am justified in calling a discovery, 

 all objections to adopting the principle of uniformity were fully 

 answered, and Mr. Hill's case was complete. The Committee reported 

 in his favour ; the project was embodied in a Bill ; passed the Legis- 

 lature the next session, and, at the commencement of the year 1840, 

 was carried into operation. 



And here time warns me to break off my narrative. I will con- 

 clude with a brief comparison of postal affairs as they stood at the pub- 

 lication of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan with their present state ; premising 

 that the results which I have now to exhibit could not have been ob- 

 tained without hearty and intelligent co-operation on the part of many 

 gentlemen in the Post-office, who in the discharge of their respective 

 duties have laboured with fidelity and devotion to promote the new 

 system to the best of their ability. I cannot bring myself to pass their 

 exertions by in utter silence, although I have no space for a more 

 explicit notification of their services. As late as the year 1 838, of the 

 2100 districts of the registrars of births, deaths, and marriages in Eng- 

 land and Wales, about 400, then containing 1,500,000 inhabitants, were 

 destitute of a single post-office. The average extent of each district 

 was nearly 20 square miles. Several of these postal deserts were con- 

 siderably larger than the county of Middlesex ! The average population 

 of the chief place of each district was 1 400, and its average distance 

 from the nearest post-office between four and five miles. Yet the rami- 

 fications of our postal system pervaded England far more thoroughly 

 than they did the remaining divisions of the United Kingdom. Many 

 other English and "Welsh districts, though possessing post-offices, were 

 yet so scantily supplied with them in proportion to their area, that in all 

 probability 4,000,000 of the population of England and Wales, amount- 

 ing at that date to one-quarter of the whole, must be held to have been 

 destitute of postal accommodation. The great extent of the deficiency 

 might be also gathered from the single fact that, while England and Wales 

 contain about 11,000 parishes, the total number of their post-offices of 

 all descriptions was only 3000. At the present day the comparison stands 

 thus. The number in England and Wales has increased to 11,000, 

 making it scarcely possible that any one of the registrars' districts 

 should now remain unsupplied with a post-office. The offices in Scot- 

 land and Ireland have also received considerable augmentation, the 

 number in the United Kingdom having risen from 4518 to 14.358. In 

 1838 Mr. Hill suggested the institution of day mails to facilitate the 

 despatch of letters. Now a mail by day as well as by night is despatched 



