Cheap Postage Part 8

Within the three miles circle there are 220 receiving houses, of which 180 are within the town portions of the district. At these offices, letters are despatched to the post-office, ten times daily, viz. at 8, 10, and 12, in the morning, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, in the afternoon. Letters are required to be left at the receiving house a quarter of an hour previous to the hour. The letters so left may be expected to be delivered within the three miles circle in about two hours from the hour at which they are sent to the post-office; that is, the 8 o'clock letters are delivered by 10, and so on.

There are now ten deliveries daily, within a circle of three miles from the post-office; five deliveries in a circle of six miles, and three deliveries to the circle of twelve miles distance. In the three miles circle, the delivery is completed in one hour and a quarter from the time the carrier leaves the office; in the six miles circle, in two hours, and in the twelve miles circle, in three hours.

In 1839, the estimated average of letters pa.s.sing through the London district post was about one million every four weeks, of which 800,000 or four-fifths were unpaid. In 1842, the average was two millions in four weeks, of which only 100,000, or one-twentieth, were unpaid-ninety-five per cent. being prepaid. In 1847, the number was nearly three millions.

These do not include the "General Post;" that is the country and foreign letters to London, but only those that originate as well as end within the twelve miles circle.

The General Post letters, however, are distributed on the same principle of free delivery, without extra charge, and the utmost diligence is used by the letter-carriers to find out the persons to whom letters are directed. I was witness to this, in the case of a gentleman from Ohio, who went to England in a merchant ship, without having taken the precaution to give his family any instructions as to the direction of letters. His voyage was somewhat long, and before he had been three days in London, the carrier brought to his lodgings a letter from his wife, which had come in the mail steamer, and the people at the post-office had sought him out, an entire stranger among two millions of people! The General Post letters pa.s.sing through the London office, were estimated in 1839 at 1,622,147, each four weeks, of which only one-sixth were prepaid. In 1847, they were 8,500,000, of which above ninety-four per cent. were prepaid. This makes the whole number of letters mailed and delivered in London, equal to above 146,000,000 a year; of which it is reasonable to calculate that about 75,000,000 are distributed by the letter-carriers by Free Delivery.

As nineteen-twentieths of the letters are prepaid, the delivery is accomplished with great despatch. The greater proportion of them, of course, go to those who are in the habit of receiving numbers of letters daily, and with whom the carriers are well acquainted. A large proportion are delivered at counting-rooms and shops, which are open. Most houses where letters are received daily, have letter-boxes by the door, fitted with an ingenious contrivance to guard against robbery, into which prepaid letters can be dropped from the street, to be taken out by a door that is locked on the inside. Thus the great bulk of the letters are delivered with little more trouble or loss of time to the carrier, than it takes to serve the daily newspaper. The cases are also much more numerous than with newspapers, where many letters are deliverable at one place, which of course lessens the amount of labor chargeable to each one.

There are ninety-five bell-men, who call at every door in their several districts once a day, and take letters to the post-office in time for the evening mails. Each one carries a locked bag, with an aperture large enough to drop in a letter, which can only be opened at the post-office.

Any person having letters to go by mail, may drop them into this bag, pay the bell-man his fee of 1_d_., and be quite sure they will be despatched the same evening.

All these carriers are required to a.s.sist, at stated times, in the sorting of letters, both for the free delivery and for the mails. They are paid by a stipulated salary, and have a permanent business, with chances for advancement in business and wages, according to length of service and merit.

A letter was addressed through the newspapers to the Postmaster-General of the United States, by Barnabas Bates, Esq., of New York, one of the most able and efficient advocates of postal reform, bearing date February 7, 1847, urging the adoption of a similar system for the city of New York, and other cities-the postage to be in all cases prepaid. The advantages to be antic.i.p.ated are thus set forth by Mr. Bates:

"The adoption of this plan will ultimately be a source of revenue to the post-office department.

"1. It will be the means of diminishing the number of dead letters and newspapers, which is increasing every day to an incredible amount. The carriers will not carry out letters or papers where there is any doubt of getting their pay, consequently the number of advertised letters is daily increasing, and as for dead newspapers, they are sold by cart loads. Half a cent is not a sufficient inducement to carry out newspapers, especially if there be any doubt of getting the postage; hence the many complaints of editors that their subscribers do not get their papers.

"2. It will reduce the list of advertised letters which has increased within a few years more than three hundred per cent. The Sun and Tribune of last Sat.u.r.day, advertised 1700 letters, which cost sixty-eight dollars; if this be the average weekly number, the post-office department or the people must pay for advertising, the sum of three thousand five hundred and thirty-six dollars per annum! The list of advertised letters of the Boston post-office, which is semi-monthly, averages from fourteen to sixteen columns of the Boston Times. If efficient carriers were appointed to deliver these letters to their address free of expense, this list would be reduced more than one half; thus a saving would be made in advertising, besides the collection of a large amount of postage. I would further remark, that requiring _four cents_ to be paid for advertising, in addition to the postage, frequently deters poor people from taking out their letters, and thus the cost of advertising, as well as the postage, are lost to the General Post-office. An efficient free delivery would save the department thousands of dollars every year.

"3. A free delivery of letters would increase the revenue by causing the greater portion of the drop letters to be sent through the post-office, instead of the private offices now established in different parts of the city. The only reason why the City Despatch Post failed was, that they charged more than the private penny post offices. But if these letters were delivered free, charging only two cents as drop letters, nearly all the city correspondence would be conveyed through this medium. The increased income from this source alone would in a short time be amply sufficient to pay the salaries of all the carriers.

"4. The post-office would not only command all the drop letters, but afford such easy, safe, and cheap facilities for the conveyance of letters, that it would be the means of increasing the city and country correspondence to an extent which can hardly be estimated. Thousands and tens of thousands of letters which are now sent by private hands, or through the private penny post, would then be deposited in the United States sub post-offices, both for city delivery and to be forwarded by the mails."

The extent to which such a system of Free Delivery could properly be introduced in this country, can only be determined by experiment. That is, to decide in how many and what towns there shall be a Free Delivery, and how far from the post-office the Free Delivery shall be carried, experience must be the guide. A city and its suburbs might all be included in one arrangement, as New York with Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Jersey City; Boston with Charlestown, Cambridge, Chelsea and Roxbury; and as population increases and intercourse extends, other places might be included.

Such a system would make a vast amount of business for itself, as people learned the advantages of so easy a correspondence-especially in those places which may admit of two or more deliveries a day. It would also tend to facilitate and stimulate and increase the general business of the place, and this would in turn increase the business of the post-office.

The establishment of Free Delivery in any city or large town, would tend to increase the correspondence of the country with such town. Every addition to the number of letters delivered, would lessen the average cost of delivery of each letter, and thus increase the net profits of the inst.i.tution. In these ways the department would feel its way along, in the extension of Free Delivery from one cla.s.s of towns to another, until, at no distant day, it would be found that its benefits were far more widely diffusible than the most sanguine could now antic.i.p.ate.

On the subject of the cost of delivery, the parliamentary committee obtained many valuable items of information. Mr. Reid, of London, said he got a thousand circulars delivered lately, for a foreigner. The gentleman had intended to send them through the post-office, paying the postage. Mr.

Reid told him he would get them delivered a great deal cheaper. He gave them to a very trusty person, who delivered them all in the course of a week, at the expense of 1 2_s_. 3_d_. They were certain he delivered them; for nearly every time they sent him out, they took care to misdirect two or three, taking an account of the false direction, and he invariably brought back these letters, because he could not find the persons to whom they were directed. The postage of these circulars, at 1_d_. would have been 4 3_s_. 4_d_. Here was a saving of 3 1_s_. 1_d_. in one job. The expense of delivery was 1-1/14 farthing per letter. Of course, regular carriers, in their accustomed routes, could deliver prepaid letters at a much cheaper rate than this.

During the parliamentary investigations on the subject of cheap postage, a plan was suggested, of establishing what were called secondary mails, to reach every village and hamlet in the country. These secondary mails were to run from each post-town to the surrounding places, and deliver letters for an additional charge of 1_d_. But on consideration it was found impracticable to clog the general system with this addition. Uniformity was everything, to the system. And they could not establish any uniform rate which would answer both for the post-towns and for the hamlets. The rate which would pay for the towns, would not pay for mails to the hamlets. And the rate which was necessary for the hamlets, was too high for the towns, and _the contraband conveyance would still continue_.

Consequently, the post-office would have to distribute the letters to the smaller places, where the distribution is attended with the greatest cost and the smallest profits. In the end, the rule of uniformity was left unbroken, and it was left to future experience or local arrangement to meet the wants of the smaller places, not now reached by the mails. The local postmasters are to make such arrangements as they deem proper in their respective neighborhoods, as to the employment of penny-post carriers to distribute the letters at the houses of the people.

To show the working of multiplication and division in the increase of profits, and the very low rate at which a service similar to that of free delivery can be performed, let us look at the newspapers. The princ.i.p.al daily papers in Boston are served to subscribers by carriers, at the expense of the publishers. Deducting Sundays and holidays, there are 310 papers in a year. These are served at the cost of 25 to 50 cents for each subscriber. Taking the highest cost, and you pay 1.6 _mills_ for each paper delivered-less than one-sixth of a cent.

The penny papers are served to subscribers by carriers, who have regular beats or districts; and who furnish their patrons for six cents per week.

These carriers purchase the papers of the publisher, at 62 to 75 cents per 100; so that their profits on each paper are from one-quarter to three-eighths of a cent. For this they deliver the paper promptly every morning, and collect the money on Sat.u.r.day, running, of course, some risk of losses by bad debts, &c. And yet this business is found to be so profitable that some routes in New York have been sold, that is, the good will transferred, for at least $500, just for the privilege of serving that district.

The two-cent papers from New York are regularly served to customers in Boston. A person engaged in this business used to buy the New York Express, Tribune, and Herald, for 1 to 1 cents each. He paid the cost of bringing them by express from New York. To guard against failures, he divided his bundles, and had a part sent by way of Norwich, and a part by Stonington. He then served them to subscribers all over Boston for 12 cents per week, making his collections on Sat.u.r.day. This man made money, so that in a few years he sold out his route and business in the New York papers, and purchased an interest in a flourishing penny paper in Boston, of which he is now one of the publishers.

XI. _The Expense of Cheap Postage, and how it is to be paid._

It is quite important to have it understood, in all parts of the country, that the friends of postal reform have no desire to curtail the public accommodations now enjoyed, in the slightest degree-unless in cases of manifest abuse. Neither do they consider that too much money is paid by our government to furnish the people with the privileges of the mail. We desire rather to see the benefits and conveniences of the post-office greatly increased, as well as brought more within the reach of all the population. The bill for establishing cheap postage should therefore contain a distinct declaration that the mail facilities of the country shall not be curtailed, but shall be liberally extended, with the spread and increase of population, so as to give, as far as the ability of the government will admit, the best practicable accommodations to every citizen of the republic.

It ought also to be provided that the Postmaster-General shall have it in his power, according to his discretion, whenever justice may require, to continue the compensation of all postmasters equal to their present rates, in proportion to the amount of services rendered, or labor performed. It is not easy, at present, to decide how much the labor of keeping the post-office will be lessened, by the adoption of uniform rates, and prepayment. Certainly, the reduction will be very considerable. And experience will hereafter suggest a new scale of compensations adapted to the new methods of doing the business.

The falling off in the gross receipts of the British post-office, on the first adoption of the new system, was upwards of a million sterling, being nearly 43 per cent. on the whole amount. A corresponding reduction from the income of our own post-office would amount to $1,696,734. But the falling off would not be so great. The reduction of postage in that case was from 7-_d_. on an average, to 1_d_., while in ours it would barely prove an average of 6- cents to 2 cents. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect a very rapid increase of letters, because the partial reduction in 1845 has already given the people a taste of the advantages of reduced rates of postage. The whole number of letters now sent by mail is 52,000,000. The number would, without doubt, be doubled in one year, which would give a revenue of above $2,000,000; $2,080,000 from letters.

There would also be a very considerable increase of income from papers and pamphlets, and a great saving in the article of dead letters and newspapers. It is safe to estimate the revenue of the post-office, under the new system, at $3,000,000 for the first year, $3,500,000 for the second, $4,000,000 for the third, and $4,500,000 for the fourth, which will bring it up to what will then be the wants of the service, making the most liberal allowance for improved facilities.

As an ill.u.s.tration of the capability of retrenchment in expense, let it be remembered that the present Postmaster-General has effected a reduction of nearly _a million dollars per annum in the cost of transportation alone_.

He says in his Report:

"The direction to the Postmaster-General to contract with the lowest bidder, without the allowance of any advantage to the former contractor, as had been the case before its pa.s.sage, had the effect of enlarging the field of compet.i.tion, and reducing the price of transportation, except on railroads and in steamboats, to the lowest amount for which the service can be performed; and will reduce the cost of transportation, when the other section is let to contract under it, but little less than a million of dollars per annum from the former prices."

In other words, our letter postage is no longer taxed as it used to be, to give the people of other sections of the country, stage coaches which they do not support, as well as mails which they do not pay for. There will doubtless be still further reductions in this branch, in proportion as the knowledge becomes diffused among the people, of the profits of this business and the freeness of the compet.i.tion for it. As Mr. Dana suggested in his valuable Report in 1844:

"The difference must arise from want of compet.i.tion, and a reluctance to engage in the business of transporting the mail.

When the attention of the North shall be called to the subject, and the difference in price pointed out, we cannot doubt that contracts will be made nearly as cheap for transportation at the South as at the North. If southern men will not engage in the business, let it be generally known that such increased pay can be had, and an abundance of yankee enterprise will be ready to engage in the business."

RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION. One of the most difficult points in the administration of the post-office, has been the dealing with railroad corporations. As these are bodies without souls, they can only be dealt with on the footing of pecuniary interest. And as they are state inst.i.tutions, and local favorites, public opinion has been generally predisposed to take sides with the railroad, and against the department.

And thus the railroads have been able to exact exorbitant allowances for services which cost them next to nothing. Were the whole mails of the country to be sent at once by a single railroad, what would be the amount?

The average number of letters mailed in a day is 142,857; which, at the average weight of ? ounce, would weigh 2976 pounds. The average number of newspapers in a day is 150,685, which, at the average weight of 2 ounces, would give 18,834 pounds. The whole together make 21,815 pounds, equal to 109 pa.s.sengers, averaging, with their baggage, 200 pounds each. These pa.s.sengers would be carried by railroad 200 miles, from Boston to Albany for $545. The daily cost of railroad service is $1637, which shows that it is distance, not weight, that is chiefly regarded. Or, in other words, that the weight of the mails is of very little account to railroads. It is well known that the corporations regard the carriage of the mail as almost clear profit. The whole daily mails of the United States could be carried by the inland route from Boston to New Orleans, by the established expresses, at their regular rates on parcels, for a little over $3000; while the whole daily expense of mail transportation is $6,594. The expresses will carry from Boston to New York, for $1.50, an amount of parcels, which the post-office would charge $150 for carrying as letters, or $18.40 as newspapers-and all go by the same train, of course involving equal cost of transportation to the company. The inference is unavoidable, that the government is charged exorbitantly by these companies, from the entire absence of compet.i.tion on almost every railroad route. While human nature remains the same, it is to be expected that corporations will take this advantage unless some counteracting interest can be brought to bear upon them as a restraint against extortion.

Now, let the post-office present itself to the people as a system of pure and unmingled beneficence, studying not how it can get a little more money for a little less service, but how it can render the greatest amount of accommodation with the least expense to the public treasury, and it will at once become the object of the public grat.i.tude and warm affection; men will study how to facilitate all its transactions, will be conscientiously careful not to impose any needless trouble upon its servants, and will generally watch for its interests as their own. Such is the benign effect upon all the considerate portions of society in England. Then the government will be fully sustained in insisting that all railroads shall carry the mail for a compensation which will be just a fair equivalent for the service performed, in reasonable proportion to other services. And if the corporations are perverse in throwing obstacles in the way, the people will expect that such coercive measures should be employed, as wisdom may prescribe, to make these creatures of their power subservient to the public good, and not to mere private aggrandis.e.m.e.nt.

In January, 1845, a doc.u.ment was communicated to congress by the Postmaster-General, containing replies by the British post-office to certain queries which he had proposed to them. This doc.u.ment gives the distance travelled daily by mail trains on railways at 1601 miles, at a cost per mile of 1_s_. 1-18/32_d_. per mile. But this "distance" is the number of miles between place and place. The total number of miles that the mail travels by railroad daily is 5808, which would make the real cost per mile of travel about 5-_d_. The number of miles travelled by railroad in this country is 4,170,403, at the cost of $597,475, which is about 12 cents per mile. But the English trains are driven at much greater speed than ours, the expense of running is much greater in all respects, the cost of the roads is vastly higher, the weight of mails is much greater, and therefore the price of transportation might be higher than with us.

But it is lower. The average weight of mails sent daily from London alone is 27,384 pounds, which is 5569 pounds more than the whole daily mails of the United States. By act of parliament, the Postmaster-General is authorized and empowered "to require of every railway company that they shall convey the mail at such times as he may deem proper; and the amount paid for such services is settled by a subsequent arbitration." Railroad service is performed in New Hampshire for a fraction over 4 cents per mile. The average in New England is 10- cents per mile. The average price of pa.s.senger fares, for short distances or long, is but 3 cents per mile.

There can be no doubt that it is within the const.i.tutional and proper prerogative of congress to take the use of a railroad for the public service, leaving the just compensation to be awarded by arbitration.

Neither can it be doubted that enlightened arbitration would greatly reduce the price from what is now paid.

COMPARATIVE COST OF OTHER TRANSPORTATION WITH LETTER POSTAGE. The following table shows the cost of pa.s.sage from Boston to the places named, and the cost of transportation of parcels of usual weight by Express, with the price per half ounce at the same rates.

The average weight of pa.s.sengers with their baggage is set at 230 pounds.

This would be equal to the weight of 7360 letters, at half an ounce each, the postage on which, at two cents, would be $147.20, irrespective of distance.

From Boston Pa.s.senger Per half oz. Express Per half oz.

Fare. Mills. Freight. Mills.

230 pounds.

To New York, $4.00 5-10ths $1.50 2-10ths To Philadelphia, 7.00 9-10ths 3.50 5-10ths To Baltimore, 10.00 1 3-10ths 5.50 7-10ths To Cincinnati, 25.00 3 2-10ths 10.50 1 4-10ths To St. Louis, 35.00 4 7-10ths 12.00 1 6-10ths To New Orleans, 45.00 6 1-10th 14.00 1 9-10ths To Liverpool, 120.00 16 3-10ths 7.20 9-10ths per Cunard Steamers

Rowland Hill discovered that the cost of transporting a letter from London to Edinburgh was 1-36th of a penny; and the Parliamentary Committee ascertained by a different calculation, that this was the average cost per letter of all the mails in England.

PENNY PAPERS. The establishment of penny papers in this country is a very striking ill.u.s.tration of the principles here involved. It is now just fifteen years since the New York Sun was commenced by a couple of journeymen printers, one of whom had just been in my employ. They were intelligent and enterprising, and began by writing their editorials and police reports, which they then set up in type, and worked from an old Ramage press, with their own hands. They printed seven hundred papers, of a very small size, which they sold to boys at 62- cents per hundred, and the boys sold them in the streets at one cent each. Soon their editions increased, and they enlarged their sheet, and hired it printed on a Napier press which I owned. Again their business increased, so much that it became necessary for them to have a press of their own, driven by steam power. One of the partners then sold out his interest for $10,000, went to the West, studied law, and has been twice a candidate for Congress, with strong prospects of success. The concern has since pa.s.sed into other hands, and has continued to prosper. For many years it has been printed on a sheet larger than could be bought for a cent, making a constant loss on the paper alone; besides which, it has cost $25 a week to the editor for the leading articles alone; and I know not how much for other editorial labor, market and commercial reports, ship news, foreign news, lightning expresses, correspondence, &c. And yet the amount received for advertising has covered all these expenditures, and enabled the present proprietor to realize, as is supposed, a splendid fortune.