ABUSE OF THE FRANKING PRIVILEGE, AND OTHER PETTY FRAUDS.
Abuse of the Franking Privilege.
Wherever the use of anything of value is given without the check of a money or other equivalent, the use is sure to degenerate into abuse; and in the experience of the Post-office this has been proved to be the case, both as regards letters and telegrams. In regard to the first, the franking privilege was long found to be a canker eating into the vitals of the Revenue; and its abolition on the introduction of the penny postage in 1840 came none too soon. Had the privilege been longer continued, it is impossible to conceive to what extent the abuse of it might have grown; but what might have occurred here has, in some measure, taken place in the United States, as is shown by the following statement made by the Postmaster-General of that country, about twenty years after the abolition of the privilege in this:—
"Another potent reason for the abolition of the franking privilege, as now exercised, is found in the abuses which seem to be inseparable from its existence. These abuses, though constantly exposed and animadverted upon for a series of years, have as constantly increased. It has been often stated by my predecessors, and is a matter of public notoriety, that immense masses of packages are transported under the Government frank which neither the letter nor the spirit of the statute creating the franking privilege would justify; and a large number of letters, documents, and packages are thus conveyed, covered by the frank of officials, written in violation of law, not by themselves, but by some real or pretended agent; while whole sacks of similar matter, which have never been handled nor even seen by Government functionaries, are transported under franks which have been forged. The extreme difficulty of detecting such forgeries has greatly multiplied this class of offences; whilst their prevalence has so deadened the public sentiment in reference to them, that a conviction, however ample the proof, is scarcely possible to be obtained. The statute of 1825, denouncing the counterfeiting of an official frank under a heavy penalty, is practically inoperative. I refer you to the case reported at length by the United States attorney for the district, as strikingly illustrating this vitiated public opinion, reflected from the jury-box. The proof was complete, and the case unredeemed by a single palliation; and yet the offender was discharged, unrebuked, to resume, if it should please him, his guilty task. This verdict of acquittal is understood to have been rendered on two grounds—first, that the accused said he did not commit the offence to avoid the payment of the postages; and second, that the offence has become so prevalent that it is no longer proper to punish it. These are startling propositions, whether regarded in their legal, moral, or logical aspects."
The unblushing way in which the British Post-office in its earlier days was called upon to convey not only franked letters, but, under franks, articles of a totally different class, will be perceived from the following cases. It is not to be understood, however, that the things consigned actually passed through the Post-office, but rather that they were admitted for transport on board the special packet-ships of Government, sailing for the purposes of the Post-office. The cases are taken from the first annual report of the Postmaster-General:—
"Fifteen couples of hounds going to the King of the Romans with a free pass."
"Some parcels of cloth for the clothing colonels in my Lord North's and my Lord Grey's regiments."
"Two servant-maids going as laundresses to my Lord Ambassador Methuen."
"Doctor Crichton, carrying with him a cow and divers other necessaries."
"Three suits of cloaths for some nobleman's lady at the Court of Portugal."