Estimate of the Number of Chargeable Letters delivered in the United Kingdom in each year from 1839 to 1847.[51]
| Annual Increase | |||
| Per-centage | |||
| Year. | Number of | Number of | reckoned on |
| Letters. | Letters. | the No. for | |
| 1839. | |||
| Millions. | Millions. | Per cent. | |
| 1839 | 76[52] | . . . | . . . |
| 1840 | 169 | 93 | 123 |
| 1841 | 196½ | 27½ | 36 |
| 1842 | 208½ | 12 | 16 |
| 1843 | 220½ | 12 | 16 |
| 1844 | 242 | 21½ | 28 |
| 1845 | 271 | 29½ | 39 |
| 1846 | 299½ | 28 | 37 |
| 1847 | 322 | 22½ | 30 |
“January 28th.—Received a very gratifying note from Mr. Baring in reply to the above, in which, though not quite concurring in my comparison of net revenue, he says, ‘There is still a great store of undeveloped letter-writing in the country, and I am sanguine enough to believe your estimate as to number will be wrong by being much under the mark.’ He adds, with characteristic frankness, ‘What has surprised me most is the quiet way in which the people here take to the prepayment and stamping. I was always much afraid of that part of the plan, and am glad to find myself wrong.’”
The following are further extracts from Mr. Baring’s letter:—
“As I am writing to you I cannot help mentioning what was told me at Weymouth this year, which shows how, in trifles even, your scheme has been a benefit.
“I was at Weymouth when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and busy with you about the reduction [of postage], and used, with my children, to frequent a shell-shop and gossip with the shopkeeper—a man of some intelligence in his way. I was at Weymouth again this summer, and having gone to my shell friend, after a little talk, ‘Oh, Sir!’ he said, ‘I must tell you that the penny postage that you were busy about when you were here last has been a great benefit to me in my way, which you did not, I dare say, expect, and I am sure I did not. I now send my shells all over the country.’”
The following is a curious instance of a real advantage figuring as the reverse. While the year’s improvement did not equal my expectation, a return called for by Parliament was so given as to make it appear less than it really was, the progress in gross revenue being in effect understated by about £100,000. The following is the explanation of this anomaly:—By the system of prepayment the number of rejected letters had been so diminished that the deduction made on their account from the gross postage had been reduced by that sum, a fact suppressed in the return.[53] I pointed out the error to the Accountant-General, who at once admitted it, but explained that a corrective entry which he had made in the return had been removed thence by order.
BOOK POST.
The following entries relate to the Book Post:—
“January 28th.—Went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to endeavour to remove his objections to the book post. He is afraid apparently of the railway interest, and dislikes the notion of entering into competition with carriers. I reminded him that we did not propose to avail ourselves of our monopoly [I should have said ‘to extend our monopoly to the conveyance of books’], but merely to serve the public better than it is now served; that no other system than that of the Post Office would reach the rural districts; and pointed out the moral and political importance of enlightening those districts, &c., &c. We had a stout battle, but in the end he gave up, suggesting, however, for my consideration, the expediency, in the first instance at least, of restricting each packet to a single volume.”