Note 57 — I THE RATE FOR LETTERS
Reading edition
"If the present hours fixed at all the offices of the Kingdom with the greatest care and attention to that regular plan of correspondence which has been established after long experience were to be altered it would throw into the greatest confusion for the present and would be many years before it could be restored to the degree of perfection it now has."—Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr. Draper, District Surveyor (British Official Records, 1783).
"Indeed, it is a pity that the Author of the Plan should not first have been informed of the nature of the Business in question, to make him understand how very differently the Posts and Post Offices are conducted to what he apprehends, and that the constant Eye that has been long kept towards their improvement in all Situations and under all Circumstances has made them now almost as perfect as can be without exhausting the Revenue arising therefrom."—Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr. Hodgson, District Surveyor. Ibid.
"Upon the whole it appears impracticable upon a general System to convey the Mails by Machine."—Observations on Mr. Palmer's Plan by Mr. Allen, District Surveyor. Ibid.