On the other point, however, of meeting the wants of the people, so as to bring all the correspondence of the country into the mails, its success is very far from being equally satisfactory. The five and ten cents' postage does not have the effect of suppressing the private mails and illicit transportation of letters.
The report of the House Committee in 1844, showed beforehand that such a reduction could not have the effect here, just as the parliamentary report had shown in 1838, that nothing but an absolute reduction to 1d. could suppress the private mails in England. “Individuals can prosecute on all the large railroad and steamboat routes between the great towns, as now, a profitable business in conveying letters at three and five cents, where the government would ask the five and ten cents postages.” Hill's New Hampshire Patriot said, shortly after the act went into operation:
“Private expresses have not been discontinued in this quarter. Far from it. They are now doing as large a business as ever, carrying letters at half the government rates. And, strange as it may appear, they appear to be sustained by public opinion. The new postage act did not abate what is called ‘private enterprise,’ and the act itself, it is thought, will soon be found to be insufficient.”
The report of the Postmaster-General in 1845, speaks of a practice of enveloping many letters, written on very thin paper, in one enclosure, paying postage by the half-ounce, and thus reducing the postage on each to a trifle.
“An incident recently occurred which will forcibly illustrate the injurious effects of such a practice upon the revenues of the department. A large bundle of letters was enveloped and sealed, marked ‘postage paid, $1.60.’ By some accident in the transportation, the envelope was so much injured as to enable the postmaster to see [pg 019] that it contained one hundred letters to different individuals, evidently designed for distribution by the person to whom directed, and should have been charged ten dollars. The continuance of this practice would, in a short time, deprive the department of a large proportion of its legitimate income. The department has no power to suppress it, further than to direct the postages to be properly charged, whenever such practices are detected. This has also introduced a species of thin, light paper, by which five or six letters may be placed under one cover, and still be under the half-ounce.”
He adds:
“The practice of sending packages of letters through the mails to agents, for distribution, has not entirely superseded the transmission of letters, over post roads, out of the mails, by the expresses. The character of this offence is such as to render detection very uncertain, full proof almost impossible, conviction rare. The penalties are seldom recovered after conviction, and the department rarely secures enough to meet the expenses of prosecution. If the officers of the department were authorized in proper cases to have the persons engaged in these violations of the law arrested, their packages, trunks, or boxes, seized and examined before a proper judicial officer, and, when detected in violating the law, retained for the examination of the court and jury, it is believed that the practice could be at once suppressed.”
In his last report, December, 1847, he also says that, “Private expresses still continue to be run between the principal cities, and seriously affect the revenues of the department, from the want of adequate powers for their suppression.” The complaint is continually, of a want of adequate powers to suppress the practice. The law of 1845 has gone as far as could be desired in the severity of penalties and the extent of their application, involving in heavy fines every person who shall send or receive letters; and every stage-coach, railroad car, steamboat, or other vehicle or vessel—its owners, conductors and agents, which may knowingly be employed in the conveyance of letters, or in the conveyance of any person employed in such conveyance, under penalty of $50 for each letter transported. What the post-office department would deem “adequate powers” for the suppression of illicit letter-carrying, may be seen in the following extract of a bill, which was actually reported by the post-office committee of the House of Representatives, and “printed by order of the House:”
“And it shall be lawful for the agents of the post-office, or other officers of the United States government, upon reasonable cause shown, to arrest such person or persons, and seize his or their boxes, bags, or trunks, supposed to contain such mailable matter, and cause the same to be opened and examined before any officer of the United States; and if found to contain such mailable matter, transported in violation of the laws of the United States, shall be held to bail in the sum of five thousand dollars, to appear and answer said charge before the next United States Court to be held in said State, or district of said State; and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined as aforesaid, one hundred dollars for each letter, newspaper, or printed sheet so transported as aforesaid, and shall be held in the custody of the marshal until the fine and costs are paid, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law.”
The report of 1845 thinks there is “no just reason why individuals engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the same extent, as persons guilty of smuggling goods; nor why the same means of detection should not be given to the Post-office Department which are now given to the Treasury.” That is, the power of detention and search in all cases of suspicion by the agent, that a person is carrying letters. What would be the effect of carrying out this system, [pg 020] in breaking up the practice complained of, or what would be the amount of inconvenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough determination in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of it, all can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have seen, dared not entertain such a proposition. I have no hesitation in saying, that such a system of coercion can never be successfully executed here. It is better to meet the difficulty, as the British government did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular vehicle of transmission, and the greatest blessing which the government can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said, years ago: