Part 4 (1/2)

TO THE HONOURABLE THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL [_or_, THE COMMONS, _as the case may be_] IN PARLIAMENT a.s.sEMBLED:--

The humble Pet.i.tion of the Undersigned [_to be filled up with the name of Place, Corporation, &c._]

SHEWETH,

That your Pet.i.tioners earnestly desire an Uniform Penny Post, payable in advance, as proposed by Rowland Hill, and recommended by the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons.

That your Pet.i.tioners intreat your Honourable House to give speedy effect to this Report. And your Pet.i.tioners will ever pray.

MOTHERS AND FATHERS that wish to hear from their absent children!

FRIENDS who are parted, that wish to write to each other!

EMIGRANTS that do not forget their native homes!

FARMERS that wish to know the best Markets!

MERCHANTS AND TRADESMEN that wish to receive Orders and Money quickly and cheaply!

MECHANICS AND LABOURERS that wish to learn where good work and high wages are to be had! _support_ the Report of the House of Commons with your Pet.i.tions for an UNIFORM PENNY POST. Let every City and Town and Village, every Corporation, every Religious Society and Congregation, pet.i.tion, and let every one in the kingdom sign a Pet.i.tion with his name or his mark.

THIS IS NO QUESTION OF PARTY POLITICS.

Lord Ashburton, a Conservative, and one of the richest n.o.blemen in the country, spoke these impressive words before the House of Commons Committee--”Postage is one of the worst of our Taxes; it is, in fact, taxing the conversation of people who live at a distance from each other. The communication of letters by persons living at a distance is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the same town.”

”Sixpence,” says Mr. Brewin, ”is the third of a poor man's income; if a gentleman, who had 1,000_l._ a year, or 3_l._ a day, had to pay one-third of his daily income, a sovereign, for a letter, how often would he write letters of friends.h.i.+p! Let a gentleman put that to himself, and then he will be able to see how the poor man cannot be able to pay Sixpence for his Letter.”

READER!

If you can get any Signatures to a Pet.i.tion, make two Copies of the above on two half sheets of paper; get them signed as numerously as possible; fold each up separately; put a slip of paper around, leaving the ends open; direct one to a Member of the House of Lords, the other to a Member of the House of Commons, LONDON, and put them into the Post Office.

_Reproduced from a handbill in the collection of the late Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. By permission of Lady Cole._

Should any reader desire to inform himself with some degree of fulness of the stages through which the Penny Postage agitation pa.s.sed, he cannot do better than peruse Sir Henry Cole's _Fifty Years of Public Work_.

The Postmaster-General, speaking at the Jubilee Meeting at the London Guildhall, on the 16th May last, thus contrasted the work of 1839 with that of 1889: ”Although I would not to-night weary an a.s.semblage like this with tedious and tiresome figures, it may be at least permitted to me to remind you that, whereas in the year immediately preceding the establishment of the Penny Postage the number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom amounted to[5] 76,000,000, the number of letters delivered in this country last year was nearly 1,600,000,000--twenty times the number of letters which pa.s.sed through the post fifty years ago. To these letters must be added the 652,000,000 of post-cards and other communications by the halfpenny post, and the enormous number of newspapers, which bring the total number of communications pa.s.sing through the post to considerably above two billions. I venture to say that this is the most stupendous result of any administrative change which the world has witnessed. If you estimate the effect of that upon our daily life; if you pause for a moment to consider how trade and business have been facilitated and developed; how family relations have been maintained and kept together; if you for a moment allow your mind to dwell upon the change which is implied in that great fact to which I have called attention, I think you will see that the establishment of the penny post has done more to change--and change for the better--the face of Old England than almost any other political or social project which has received the sanction of Legislature within our history.”

Among the Penny Postage literature issued in the year 1840 there are several songs. One of these was published at Leith, and is given below.

It is ent.i.tled ”Hurrah for the Postman, the great Roland Hill.” The leaflet is remarkable for this, that it is headed by a picture of postmen rus.h.i.+ng through the streets delivering letters on roller skates.

It is generally believed that roller skates are quite a modern invention, and in the absence of proof to the contrary it may be fair to a.s.sume that the author of the song antic.i.p.ated the inventor in this mode of progression. So there really seems to be nothing new under the sun!

HURRAH FOR THE POSTMAN, THE GREAT ROLAND HILL.[6]

”Come, send round the liquor, and fill to the brim A b.u.mper to Railroads, the Press, Gas, and Steam; To rags, bags, and nutgalls, ink, paper, and quill, The Post, and the Postman, the gude Roland Hill!

By steam we noo travel mair quick than the eagle, A sixty mile trip for the price o' a sang!

A prin it has pownt.i.t--th' Atlantic surmount.i.t, We'll compa.s.s the globe in a fortnight or lang.

The gas bleezes brightly, you witness it nightly, Our ancestors lived unca lang in the dark; Their wisdom was folly, their sense melancholy When compared wi' sic wonderfu' modern wark.

Neist o' rags, bags, and size then, let no one despise them, Without them whar wad a' our paper come frae?