“My dear Sir,—Many thanks for your agreeable information. Indeed I have no doubt—nor ever had—that your admirable invention (for it well deserves that name) will ere long make up the Post Office revenue to what it was. To say nothing of the enormous advantages which it brings along with it to all classes of the community!
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“It strikes me, too, that a great convenience might be added to the envelopes if there were put a small lick of the gum which is used for the stamps at the angle where the wafer or wax is put; so that an envelope might be closed without the trouble of a wafer or the double ‘toil and trouble’ of a seal—implying lucifer-matches, tapers, and wax. I can easily see how one hundred, or any number of envelopes, might have this small touch of gum applied to them at a dash of a brush. But, indeed, the manufacture of envelopes—supposing Government were to take it in hand—would be so enormous that a small profit on each would realise a great sum. Every one now uses envelopes, which save a world of time; and if you were to furnish the means of closing the letter by an adhesive corner a still further saving of time would take place.
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“I dare say you are sadly bothered with crude suggestions; but my heart is so completely in your noble scheme—the greatest of the day—that I venture to intrude occasionally.
“Ever most truly yours,
“Basil Hall.”
This is, so far as I am aware, the first mention of that now almost universal practice, which has nearly made wafers and sealing-wax things of the past.
On December 15th I first saw, in my brother Edwin’s room at Somerset House, and in its earliest form that envelope-folding machine which attracted so much attention at the first International Exhibition, and is now in constant and extensive use. In the model it already seemed to do its work very well, but the labour of some years was yet required to complete its adaptation to its purpose. In this latter part of the process my brother received important assistance from Mr. Warren De La Rue, who in the end purchased the patent.
The following passage shows that the close of the year was full of anxiety for that which was to follow:—