322,000,000, and, finally, to 346,000,000 in the ninth year, while the very latest reports show an increase of £100,000 in the net revenue of the postoffice, for the tenth year ending the 5th of October, requiring an addition of 24,000,000 letters for its production; these facts prove that when once the impulse of cheap postage is begun to be felt, it will go on indefinitely; or, in other words, the more letters people write, the more they wish to write. From writing annually, they will wish to correspond monthly, and from monthly, weekly, and from weekly, daily. When the number of letters shall have increased in this country to 300,000,000, or only four times the present number, what freights of love and friendship will be continually borne from one extremity of the land to another, thrilling every day a million of hearts with kind and pure sympathies! Cheap postage will do this.

A gentleman of eminence in the legal profession, who has been employed professionally in a large number of divorce cases before the courts, remarked that a large proportion of those unhappy marriages originated in some slight interruption of affection, occasioned by temporary absence, during which there was not a constant intercourse kept up by letter. And he had no doubt that the establishment of cheap postage would, in thousands of cases, forestall these little alienations, by the facility it would afford for the continued interchange of sympathies, by frequent correspondence. What father, driven by the demands of business or benevolence, or in the public service, to be absent from his home, would not feel the frequent letters of his sons, his daughters, the childish first scrawls of his little ones, coming by every mail, to be like guardian angels, hovering around him to keep off every contaminating breath, and fanning with their wings the pure flame of domestic love in his heart! Children, too, absent at school, boys put to trades, or in counting-rooms, young persons pushing their fortunes in any of the thousand forms of enterprise created by our busy Anglo-Saxon race, would find that the frequent “letters from home "the kind greetings of father and mother, of sister and brother, would surround them as with a continual presence of home, with all its blessed restraints and genial influences. It would so strengthen the stakes of the paternal tent, that the heart could never be torn from its hold; and it would so lengthen its cords, that it would cover every member of the household, however far removed. The old roof-tree would send its fibres, and spread out its shadow, to embrace and shelter every wanderer who had been born at its root. Preserve the domestic affections, and you have almost a sure guaranty for the domestic virtues, the foundation of all good morals. And even if a young man should be led by temptation away from the path of virtue, these incessant letters from home will find their way to his heart, and win him back to the hallowed circle, because they have never allowed him to sink into the cold isolation of confirmed vice. All this ministry of heavenly beneficene is the effect of cheap postage.

The usefulness of cheap postage, in aiding the various enterprises of benevolence and reform, should not be lost sight of, in this recital. Hundreds of thousands of our citizens are interested in behalf of some one or other of these objects; and will welcome anything as a boon to themselves which will make them more efficient. The power of the newspaper press to advance these enterprises, has apparently reached its acme. We have secured about as much newspaper material as can be read. Nearly every attempt to crowd in new papers to sustain new movements is a failure, or, at best, short lived, and of limited influence. But cheap postage, by making these efforts direct and personal, carrying their message from an individual to an individual, will

open a new surface to the influence of truth; will awaken to activity new and deeper tissues of sensibility; and, by combining as well as arousing, by union as well as action, will reduplicate, to a thousand fold, the benevolent and moral energies thus produced. A pleasant illustration of the working of this sort of "mind-machinery," may be seen in Mr. Burritt's description of the preparatory process which preceded Mr. Cobden's motion in Parliament, in favor of the great Peace measure of international arbitration :

First of the dynamics of this mind-machinery of popular opinion, planted in a little upper room," and opened upon the Legislature of the greatest empire in the world, was the PENNY POST. For the six months' "agitation" of the national mind, which the Peace Congress Committee had originated and conducted, in fa vor of the measure to be brought forward by Mr. Cobden, the Penny Post had been plied with unremitting activity. Nearly 50,000 letters, and other missiles, in manuscript or lithograph, had been sent out in every direction, like radiating veins of thought, through which "the one idea" was kept in lively circulation. Thus it acquired a constituency of earnest minds, in almost every town in the kingdom, which sent a representative to Parliament; and that representative had perhaps been surprised to receive at St. Stephen's by the Penny Post, communications from his own constituents, requesting him, with the emphasis of electors, to give his voice and vote for Mr. Cobden's motion. Then hundreds of thousands of printed leaves, elucidating "the one idea," had been scattered with a sower's hand among the masses of the people, which they had read eagerly on their way to the field or factory; and the silent conviction of myriads of men, women and children of the laboring classes, who had no votes to give or withhold, had strengthened the pressure of the people's mind upon Parliament. Then every night, for six months, a public meeting in some city, town, or village, had given an utterance to "the one idea," which the press echoed and re-echoed among the populations far and near. Thus, one hundred and fifty assemblies of the people, from Land's End to John O'Groat's, embracing the active minds of as many communities, had thrown into the gathering tide of public opinion the force of their sympathies. And the great meeting in Exeter Hall was to give a great voice to these convictions and sympathies of the people, and to speak to Parliament the last words of the nation in favor of the measure to be discussed in the House of Commons on the ensuing evening.

There is one other social interest on which cheap postage will bear with a benign effect, which should secure its speedy adoption, and the favor of every lover of his country and her institutions. It will ensure forever the continuance of our glorious Union. This precious interest has ever been a subject of the most tender solicitude to every patriotic bosom. The Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address to the People of the United States, gives utterance to his solicitude in these memorable words :

It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of our National Union; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourself to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

Since these oracular exhortations were given, fifteen States have become thirty, and others are already pressing for admission to the Union. The multiplication of interests, the expansion of our territory to so vast an extent, and the convulsions with which the world is agitated, have multiplied the dangers of disunion, and increased the solicitude of the statesman. One of the

foremost of our senators has not hesitated to commit his reputation to the prophecy, that it is impossible to extend the cords of our Union so as to embrace the new empire which is to rise on the shores of the Pacific. But we must surely try; and no man deserves the confidence of the American people, as a legislator, who is not ready to do all and everything that is within the constitutional power and the reasonable ability of the government, to make our Union as lasting as time, whatever may be its extent. Canals and railroads, commerce and education, the circulation of newspapers, and the habit of meeting by our representatives in the halls of national legislation, may do much to preserve the Union. But no intelligent citizen will affirm that these ties of political connection and pecuniary interest afford a satisfactory guaranty for the perpetuity of the Union in all contingencies, or make it what all wish it to be-INDISSOLUBLE. We need a more intimate intercourse of individuals; such interchange of individual thoughts and feelings as will make our nation "E Pluribus Ünum," all one heart. The strength of the three-fold cord, proverbial from the time of Solomon, is derived from the intertwining of innumerable small fibres. And this principle has received a new illustration, in the wire cables, which have just completed a solid communication at Wheeling, between the oldest of the "Old Thirteen," and the "Territory north-west of the Ohio." Where solid bars of iron would fall assunder by their own weight, these twisted wires easily sustain the tread of an army. Cheap postage will strengthen the fibres and twist the cables of living thought and feeling, which will make our Union as lasting as human nature on earth.

Cheap postage, in its various forms of influence, secures our Union from danger, by its operation upon all the causes of danger. The safety-lamp, invented by Sir Humphrey Davy, renders the explosive gases of the coal mine harmless, by dividing them, and forcing them through the fine meshes of the wire screen. The flames that light our city are not dangerous, because the inflammable gas is made to pass through capillary tubes. Cheap postage will perform the same function in regard to all noxious principles, and all enlightening processes in the body politic. The agitations of controversy, the measures of reform, even the machinations of the malcontents of every description, will become innocuous; while the true advancement of society will advance with steady course, aided, not endangered, by every wind that blows, and every wave that rolls and rocks.

This has been its effect in England. While it quickens all the elements of political and social reform, it has made the government and social order of the country stable and secure, while all the rest of Europe has been tossed upon the billows of revolution and civil strife. Cheap postage disarmed Chartism, and brought the friends of the written charter to strive for their object solely by peaceful agitation through the forms of the constitution. Cheap postage repealed the Corn-Laws, and gave the starving millions the blessings of free bread. Cheap postage has just repealed the Navigation Laws. Cheap postage has repeatedly interposed the veto of the minority, and defeated favorite schemes for consolidating the power of the aristocracy, in legislating for the benefit of the few against the many. In the year 1843, the writer of this spent a few weeks in England, where his attention was turned to the examination of the workings of cheap postage. Shortly after his return home, he penned the following description, and published it as an editorial leader, in a daily paper, of which he then had the control. The pledge with which it concludes has never been lost sight of. From that day

to this, he has lost no opportunity of urging upon the community, and upon Congress, by all means in his power, the importance of the adoption of ROWLAND HILL'S SYSTEM OF CHEAP POSTAGE.

(From the Boston Morning Chronicle.)

No person can realize the value of the "British system" of postage, who has not experienced its benefits. It is the most beautiful manifestation of pure beneficence in human government, that can be found upon earth. By it, the gov ernment comes to every man, every woman, every child, every day in the year, (Sundays excepted,) and for a compensation so small as hardly to differ from mere gratuity, offers to carry all their letters of business, affection, or philanthrophy, to any and every spot in the empire, with the utmost speed and the most unfailing certainty that human ingenuity and power can attain. It is a complete leveler. The poorest peasant, the factory-girl, the match-vender, the beggar, even, enjoy the benefits of the cheap postage, as they do of the vital air, on precisely the same terms with the richest banker, the proudest peer, or royalty itself.

It is the grand conservative power of the realm, as well as one of the most effective instruments of reform. It equalizes excitement in all parts of the body politic. It draws the thunder from every threatening cloud by innumerable conducting points. It allows the blazing gas to burn with complete freedom, because the millions of capillary orifices create no danger of an explosion. It is a system full formed, and all but perfect, at its first trial. No invention, no deduction of science, no experiment in legislation, was ever brought forth so complete in all its results. And then it is so simple, in every one of its parts and movements, bringing out so many effects with so little complication of causes, that in this respect it approximates more nearly to the works of the infinite Creator than any other human device or discovery on record. Indeed, its working and its effects are so much in conformity to the mind of God, that we are bound to place it high among those "good and perfect gifts which are from above, and come down from the Father of rights."

Now the simple question is, whether the people of this republic shall continue to have the channels of business and social intercourse obstructed by an enormous tax, or shall be allowed by our rulers to enjoy the same privileges that the British monarchy allows to its taxed and pitied subjects. We shall aim to hold the public mind to this question. The American system has failed, and cannot be restored. The British system has been tried, and proved to be both practicable and capable of self-support. In Great Britain it is already, in four years, a source of revenue. With our wide-spread territory, but lower salaries, we have no doubt in four years it will support itself, with all the privileges now afforded.

A system which is proved to be so simple, so economical, so perfectly practicable, and fraught with such vast benefits to the highest interests of the nation, ought to enlist the earnest support of every good citizen, both to secure its adoption by Congress, and to aid its working, when it goes into effect. By the uniformity and cheapness of rate, it is made dependent for its success entirely upon the perfect accommodation it affords to the public, so as to induce the greatest possible number of letters to be sent by the mail. And this necessarily leads to the utmost simplicity and economy in the details, the most compact and methodical arrangements in all branches of the service, and inspires every faithful functionary with its own spirit, which is to diffuse its utmost advantages to every citizen, with the fewest possible disappointments and failures.

The British post-office, though very far from perfection, and though loaded still with many cumbrous appendages retained from the old system, is yet in its practical working as a means of conferring benefits upon the people, the most complete piece of governmental machinery ever adopted by man. It is the glory of the government of God, to accomplish numer

VOL. XXI.-NO. VI.

39

ous and complicated results, by few and simple means-as seen in the manifold operations of electricity, gravitation, &c. Men, on the contrary, are forced to combine numerous and complicated instrumentalities for the production of isolated effects. In the establishment of cheap postage, human government seems to approach toward this glorious model, and shows itself in some measure worthy of its claims to a divine origin, for it presents itself as a wise and benificent dispenser of impartial favors upon all its subjects. It is the best answer that can be given to the allegation that all government is usurped and tyrannical, and will go far to justify the position taken in Scripture, that "the powers that be are ordained of God." Who can limit the good effects of a system, which every day presents the government of the country traversing every village in the land with its visits of kindness, and rendering its services to every family at a rate so cheap as to be all but gratuitous?

Unless the bill to establish cheap postage is passed by Congress early in the session, it will be impossible to complete all the arrangements for working the new system with success, in time for the act to go into operation on the first of July, the beginning of the "fiscal year," as it is termed, by which it is convenient to regulate all the business of the government. What is needed, therefore, is such a general expression of earnest desire, on the part of the people, as shall convince Congress that, in adopting cheap postage, they shall be giving effect to the public will. It is desirable, especially, that all the classes of citizens who take an interest in the advancement of society, in education, in social happiness, in morals and religion, should give utterance to their views through every appropriate channel. The press, and especially those portions of it particularly devoted to the general interests of mankind, should speak out, with fervor and force, with frequency and constancy, as if resolved to be heard and to make an impression. Petitions may well go to Congress from every college, academy, and school, every literary institution, every professional seminary, every learned society, every library and lyceum, every association of men for any purpose of mutual benefit or public improvement, with the simple request that we may have letter postage at two cents for half an ounce. Individual citizens, in every path of life, can help, by addressing letters to their representatives. There is not half pains enough taken in this way to keep members of Congress acquainted with the minds of their constituents. It is for this very purpose that they have the franking privilege, and now is a favorable opportunity for the people to use it for so great an object. Let Congress give us cheap postage for the people, and the continuance or repeal of the franking privilege becomes of small account. A union of effort and influence, to do one thing at a time, cannot fail to succeed. And a new era to our free republic and happy Union, will commence the day that we begin to enjoy

THE MORAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF CHEAP POSTAGE