In Estimating The Expenditure Of The Office
The Department At Washington Debits Itself With The Sums Paid For
The Ocean Transit Of Its Mails, Amounting To Something Over One
Hundred And Fifty Thousand Pounds.
We also now do the same, with
the much greater sum paid by us for such service, which now amounts
to 949,228l., or nearly a million sterling.
Till lately this was
not paid out of the post-office moneys, and the post-office revenue
was not debited with the amount.
Our gross post-office revenue is, as I have said, 3,358,250l. As
before explained, this is exclusive of the amount earned by the
money order department, which, though managed by the authorities of
the post-office, cannot be called a part of the post-office; and
exclusive also of the official postage, which is, in fact, never
received. The expenditure of our British post-office, inclusive of
the sum paid for the ocean mail service, is 3,064,527l.; we
therefore make a net profit of 293,723l. out of the post-office, as
compared with a loss of 1,020,000l. on the part of the United
States.
But perhaps the greatest difficulty with which the American post-
office is burdened is that "free mail matter" to which I have
alluded, for carrying which the post-office claims to earn
140,000l., and for the carriage of which it might as fairly claim to
earn 1,350,000l., or half the amount of its total expenditure, for I
was informed by a gentleman whose knowledge on the subject could not
be doubted, that the free mail matter so carried equaled in bulk and
weight all that other matter which was not carried free. To such an
extent has the privilege of franking been carried in the States!
All members of both Houses frank what they please - for in effect the
privilege is stretched to that extent. All Presidents of the Union,
past and present, can frank, as also, all Vice-Presidents, past and
present; and there is a special act, enabling the widow of President
Polk to frank. Why it is that widows of other Presidents do not
agitate on the matter, I cannot understand. And all the Secretaries
of State can frank; and ever so many other public officers. There
is no limit in number to the letters so franked, and the nuisance
has extended itself to so huge a size that members of Congress, in
giving franks, cannot write the franks themselves. It is illegal
for them to depute to others the privilege of signing their names
for this purpose, but it is known at the post-office that it is
done. But even this is not the worst of it. Members of the House
of Representatives have the power of sending through the post all
those huge books which, with them as with us, grow out of
parliamentary debates and workings of committees. This, under
certain stipulations, is the case also in England; but in England,
luckily, no one values them.
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