Rowland Hill and the Penny Postage.
The following is the commencement of a leading article on the Penny Postage, contained in the "Times," of Saturday, 9th August, 1851:—
"A traveller sauntering through the Lake districts of England some years ago, arrived at a small public-house just as the postman stopped to deliver a letter. A young girl came out to receive it. She took it in her hand, turned it over and over, and asked the charge. It was a large sum—no less than a shilling. Sighing heavily, she observed that it came from her brother, but that she was too poor to take it in, and she returned it to the postman accordingly. The traveller was a man of kindness as well as of observation; he offered to pay the postage himself, and in spite of more reluctance on the girl's part than he could well understand, he did pay it, and gave her the letter. No sooner, however, was the postman's back turned, than she confessed that the proceeding had been concerted between her brother and herself, that the letter was empty, that certain signs on the direction conveyed all she wanted to know, and that as they could neither of them afford to pay postage, they had devised this method of franking the intelligence desired. The traveller pursued his journey, and as he plodded over the Cumberland fells, he mused upon the badness of a system which drove people to such straits for means of correspondence, and defeated its own object all the time. With most men such musings would have ended before the close of the hour, but this man's name was Rowland Hill, and it was from this incident and these reflections that the whole scheme of Penny Postage was derived."
I should be glad to know if there is any doubt as to the truth of this statement, as I fancied it had been contradicted. Could any of your Correspondents oblige me by giving me information on the subject, I should feel obliged.
I. E.