The Origin of Postage Stamps.
The origin of the postage stamp had a tinge of romance in it. It was thirty-seven years ago that Rowland Hill, while crossing a district in the north of England, arrived at the door of an inn where a postman had stopped to deliver a letter. A young girl came out to receive it; she turned it over and over in her hand and asked the price of postage. This was a large sum, and evidently the girl was poor, for the postmaster demanded a shilling. She sighed sadly and said the letter was from her brother, but that she had no money, and so she returned the letter to the postman. Touched with pity, Mr. Hill paid the postage and gave the letter to the girl, who seemed very much embarrassed. Scarcely had the postman turned his back, when the young inn-keeper’s daughter confessed that it was a trick between her and her brother. Some signs on the envelope told her all she wanted to know, but the letter contained no writing. “We are both so poor,” she added, “that we invented this mode of corresponding without paying for the letters.” The traveler, continuing his road, asked himself if a system giving rise to such frauds was not a vicious one? Before sunset Rowland had planned to organize the postal service upon a new basis—with what success is known to the world.