Having delivered himself to this effect, greatly to the moral benefit of the boy, who mechanically replies at the conclusion of it, "Yes, sir," with a dignified step he leads the way to the door, merely condescending, as he places his foot upon the sill, to inform the proprietor, that "he's blow'd if there's a worser prog-shop in the whole blessed vurld!"
Alpha.
A FEW NOTES ON UNPAID LETTERS.
The penny-postage has already wrought an extraordinary change in the public ideas of the value of money. Formerly, according to the old maxim, ninepence was but ninepence; but even twopence has now become a sum sterling, to demand which is to stir men's blood as violently as if the said coins were flung in their faces. To put a letter into the post, and an intimate friend to the expense of twopence, was, only the other day, perfectly natural; under the present system, it is fiendish.
A letter sent free costs the sender a penny; to receive a letter not pre-paid, is to expend double the amount. In the degree of attention shown to this little fact, it is not impossible to find a test of the principles of mankind—of the whole corresponding portion of creation at least.
The last post-office returns show, that there are upon an average 7654 persons—monsters in the human form, we should rather say—in this metropolis alone, who walk about day by day dropping stampless epistles into ravenous letter-boxes, from sheer misanthropy—hatred of their fellow-creatures; which feeling they are pleased to call forgetfulness, stamplessness, or copperlessness, as convenience may dictate.
Never become enraged when you receive a missive from one of them—never storm when you pay double—lest you should chance to justify where you mean to condemn.
At unpaid letters look not blue,