Many of your readers have, I doubt not, perused with interest the vivid
sketch of the origin of the Penny Postage System, given by Miss Martineau
in her _History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace_, vol. ii. p.
425., and have seen in the incident of the shilling letter delivered to the
poor cottager, somewhere in the Lake district--refused by her from
professed inability to pay the postage--paid for by Mr. Rowland Hill, who
happened most opportunely to be passing that way--and, when opened, found
to be blank (this plan being preconcerted between the woman and her
correspondent, to know of each other's welfare without the expense of
postage). A remarkable instance of "how great events from little causes
spring," and have bestowed much admiration on the penetration of Mr. Hill's
mind, which "wakened up at once to a significance of the fact," nor ever
rested till he had devised and effected his scheme of Post-office Reform;
though all the while an uncomfortable feeling might be lurking behind as to
the perfect credibility of so interesting a mode of accounting for the
initiation of this great social benefit.
I confess to having had some suspicions myself as to the trustworthiness of
this story; and a few days since my suspicions were fully confirmed by
discovering that the real hero of the tale was not the Post-office
Reformer, but the poet Coleridge; unless, indeed, which is surely out of
the range of ordinary probabilities, the same event, _corresponding exactly
as to place and amount of postage_, happened to two persons at separate
times.
Coleridge relates the story himself, in one of his "conversations," of
which memoranda are preserved in the interesting volumes published by Moxon
in 1836 (ii. 114.). "One day,"
"when I had not a shilling to spare, I was passing by a cottage at
_Keswick_ where a carter was demanding _a shilling_ for a letter, which
the woman of the house appeared unwilling to give, and at last declined
to take. I paid the postage, and when the man was out of sight, she
told me that the letter was from her son, who took that means of
letting her know that he was well. The letter was not to be paid for.
It was then opened and _found to be blank_."
Now, while so many copies of "NOTES AND QUERIES" pass through the
Post-office, it is to be hoped one at least may remain there, and be the
means of inducing Mr. Hill to inform us whether Miss Martineau had any
authority for fathering this story upon him; and whether the Post-office
Reform is really indebted to any such trivial incident for its original
idea.