Note 290 — Chapter VI · PENNY POSTAGE. (1839-40.)

“We are all putting up our letter-boxes on our hall doors with great glee, anticipating the hearing from brothers and sisters,—a line or two almost every day. The slips in the doors are to save the postmen’s time—the great point being how many letters may be delivered within a given time, the postage being paid in the price of the envelopes, or paper. So all who wish well to the plan are having slips in their doors. It is proved that poor people do write, or get letters written, wherever a franking privilege exists. When January comes round, do give your sympathy to all the poor pastors’, and tradesmen’s and artizans’ families, who can at last write to one another as if they were all M.P.’s. The stimulus to trade, too, will be prodigious. Rowland Hill is very quiet in the midst of his triumph, but he must be very happy. He has never been known to lose his temper, or be in any way at fault, since he first revealed his scheme.”—Extract of a letter from Harriet Martineau. “Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography,” Vol. III., p. 250.—Ed.