1862.] on the Post-office. 465 



advantageous to the department. In the first years the service entailed 

 a loss, which for 1847 amounted to 10,000/. In 1860, it brought a 

 profit of 28,000/. Intercommunication of every kind told upon the 

 increase of letters, and no doubt the last addition to the benefits con- 

 ferred by the Post-office, namely, its Savings-banks, now rapidly spread- 

 ing over the land, will be followed by similar consequences. 



From the various causes thus co-operating to the increase of letters, I 

 pass to effects. The number of chargeable letters delivered from the 

 British offices in the last complete year before the reduction of postage 

 was, as I have said, taken at 76 millions. The number in 1861 had risen 

 to the stupendous amount of 593 millions, being nearly an eightfold 

 multiplication of the former number. Let us study the proportion of 

 letters to population at the two extremes. In 1839, it stood thus : — 

 In England and Wales four letters per annum to each individual, in 

 Ireland one, in Scotland three, being an average of three to each per- 

 son in the United Kingdom. In 1861, it had grown in England and 

 Wales to twenty-four per head, in Ireland to nine, in Scotland to nine- 

 teen, being an average of twenty per head for the United Kingdom. 

 This enormous increase might be placed in still another light. The 

 total weight of letters, exclusive of newspapers and other matter, 

 during the year 1839, was 758 tons. In 1861, it had risen to 4300 

 tons. The increase of the average daily mileage of the mails is very 

 striking. It was estimated that in 1839 it did not exceed 54,000 miles 

 per diem ; whereas in 1861 it had risen to 149,000, being six times the 

 circumference of the globe. The staff" of oflPicers of all ranks and both 

 sexes constantly employed in the labours of the Post-office was in 1839, 

 by rough estimate, about 8000. In 1861, it was by exact enumeration, 

 25,473. In addition to this force many persons are engaged for a 

 portion of their time. The gross revenue in 1838 was 2,346,278/.; 

 in 1861, upwards of three millions and a half. Hence it appears that 

 notwithstanding the wonderful reduction, whereby the public now ob- 

 tains far more of the article postage for the same price than it did 

 formerly, yet that its expenditure in postage exceeds by more than 

 one-half the amount so spent under the old exorbitant rates. The net 

 revenue for the last year exceeds 1,500,000/., so that, as regards both 

 gross and net revenue, the facts have gone beyond Mr. Hill's original 

 estimate. Nor is the promise for the future less brilliant than the ex- 

 perience of the past. Correspondence is still advancing by rapid 

 strides. One feature in this vast accession cannot but give rise to 

 sanguine expectations. Whatever the vicissitudes in our harvests — 

 whatever the fluctuations of our commerce — whether we are in the en- 

 joyment of peace or suffer the privations of war — each revolving year 

 adds to the mass of our correspondence. The tide of our letters, like 

 that from the Pontic to the Propontic Sea, knows no ebb. 1861, 

 though by no means a year of unclouded prosperity, added an influx of 

 twenty-nine millions — an addition even beyond the average of former 

 years. Such, then, is the success of Penny Postage, and such are its 

 prospects. Still, though no peril can be discerned, the instinctive feel- 



