MY DEAR FRIEND,—I write you this letter to explain to you why you have
next to nothing to pay for it. The Government has settled the business;
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has resolved to set his revenue _a
going by the Post_. We are to pay a penny for a letter, which is
expected to have upon it the stamp of the Post Office, and of public
approbation at the same time. I hardly think it will. Some of the
community are looking dull about it already. There is a _pence_-ive air
about the two—I beg pardon, the—one penny postmen, which strikes every
one. They intimate that it is gammon to load a man with an additional
hundredweight of paper, and to call _that_ a _reduction of public duty_.
It clearly affects people of that _stamp_; and the public surmise it may
even touch the Newspapers. In short, they say that the _Times_ will be
quite altered by the _Post_. Ladies generally seem to like the idea, but
there is a visible depression in the _mails_. Many a _coachman_ has been
thrown off his _guard_, and surprised into a most determined alteration
of _carriage_. The Government will be a political mid-wife, engaged in
an everlasting delivery. London is already afflicted with a metropolitan
rheumatism, produced by the introduction of fresh draughts into
passages, the carpenters having cut holes in all the street-doors.
Sanguine people, however, retain their knockers, in the hope of getting
the reward offered for the discovery of _perpetual motion_! They say
there is to be an issue of more than a million of letters a day; but men
are a little at issue about this. There must be some truth in it,
however, as two thousand counters have been engaged,—one thousand to
_count_ them, and the other to _count them upon_. Sorters of all sorts
are employed. At the Post Offices, at all hours, the _pigeon_ holes will
be surrounded by _carriers_. The poor fellows will be like muskets,
perpetually _going off_. Rowland Hill has invented this scheme; but the
postmen do not complain of him so much as of the other _hills_ they must
trudge over with their great bags of letters. The only district there is
any contention for is _Bag shot_ heath, once famous for highwaymen; they
say, however, that we are _all_ highwaymen now, and do nothing but make
them "_stand and deliver_" from morning till night. Some mercantile
quarrels have sprung out of the new regulation. For instance, there is a
good deal of _milling_ among the paper-makers. The march of paper will
be prodigious—the French say we shall have none left, that it will be
all _papier marché_! Men, women, and children are to write—right or
wrong. Enjoinments to this duty—now the other duty is off—press from all
quarters. "Be sure you send me plenty of _notes_," says the son,
departing for College. "Write to me often, _Billy, do_," asks the
affectionate mother of her school-going child. Love-letters, containing
mutual _pledges_, will be _popped_ into the post by thousands; and
hearts gone passed _redemption_ will be slipped recklessly through a
hole in the door. It is uncertain whether orators will not cease
_spouting_, and singers write the notes which they formerly would have
_uttered_. Ironmongers are looking up—and _forgery_ is going on
famously—in consequence of the great demand for steam _steal_ pens.
Manifold-writers are quite exhausted. I confess, I do not like the
system myself—as it's Hill's, it has its ills; any good in it will
appear on an examination—