In short, progress was so general and so rapid that, as I was able truly to remark in my speech at Greenock already referred to, cheap postage was gradually extending throughout the civilized world.
NUMBER OF LETTERS.
In 1849 the year’s increase of letters was unusually small, though, perhaps, as great as could be expected in a time of so much political agitation and commercial depression. The increase next year (1850) was but little larger; the two years, however, making up a total of three hundred and forty-seven millions, and raising the increase under penny postage to about 4⅔-fold.
REVENUE.
The postal revenue also had, by this time, as measured by the gross amount, nearly fulfilled my original prediction, being within £82,000, or less than four per cent., of that received in 1838. That the net revenue had not kept pace with my expectations was due, not only to the various errors in management and obstacles to economy already mentioned, but also, in great degree, to the abandonment of charge for secondary distribution, and the increasing demands of the railway companies.
This subject has been more than once touched on in this narrative, but, perhaps, scarcely enough has been said to make the public fully aware how much the establishment of railways, so beneficial in regard to celerity and exactitude, has increased the expense of conveying the mails. To many the following entry will doubtless be startling, to some, perhaps, incredible:—
“March 28th, 1851.—I find on a comparison of accounts, that although the payments to railway companies for 1850 exceed £400,000, the payments for mail conveyance by ordinary roads were rather greater in 1850 than in 1838, when there was nothing paid to the railways; so that the whole expenditure in railways is an addition to the former cost of carrying the mails. This is the main cause of the net revenue falling below my estimate—indeed it accounts for nearly the whole deficiency. The explanation is not so much the increased weight and frequency of mails (for off the railway such increase is not great) as the increased celerity of all our movements, the greater expense of conveyance on the bye-roads caused by the railways having absorbed their traffic, and the greater number of branch night mails, owing to the great extension of the limits of the night-work caused by the use of railways.”
INCIDENTS.
Mail Robbery.
“January 2nd, 1849.—Last night a serious robbery, chiefly of registered letters, one of which contained, it is said, £4,000, took place between Bridgewater and Bristol, in the up mail.”