Note 76 — Chapter III

“When at length I obtained precise information, I found that in taking care not to make my estimate too low, I had made it considerably too high; and I think the history of this rectification too curious and characteristic to be omitted. Two years later, the Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider my plan ordered, at my suggestion, a Return on the subject, when, to my surprise and amusement, the Report of the Post Office gave as the cost of the mail the exact sum estimated by me—viz., £5. Struck with this coincidence, the more so as I had intentionally allowed for possible omission, I suggested the call for a Return in detail, and, this being given, brought down the cost to £4, 8s. 7-¾d. In the Return, however, I discovered an error, viz., that the charge for guards' wages was that for the double journey instead of the single; and when this point was adjusted in a third Return, the cost sank to £3, 19s. 7-¾d. When explanation of the anomaly was asked for, it was acknowledged by the Post Office authorities that my estimate had been adopted wholesale.” (Rowland Hill in the “Appendix to the Second Report of the Select Committee on Postage, 1838,” pp. 257-259.) In estimating the real cost of a letter between London and Edinburgh we must therefore seek for a fraction still smaller than the one indicated by my father's calculations.