Who Does Not Receive These Circulars
In Our Country By The Dozen, Consigning Them Generally To The Waste-
Paper Basket, After A Most Cursory Inspection?
As regards the
sender, the transaction seems to us often to be very vain; but the
post-office gets its penny.
So also would the American post-office
get its three cents.
But the main objection in my eyes to the American post-office system
is this, that it is not brought nearer to the poorer classes.
Everybody writes or can write in America, and therefore the
correspondence of their millions should be, million for million, at
any rate equal to ours. But it is not so; and this I think comes
from the fact that communication by post-office is not made easy to
the people generally. Such communication is not found to be easy by
a man who has to attend at a post-office window on the chance of
receiving a letter. When no arrangement more comfortable than that
is provided, the post-office will be used for the necessities of
letter writing, but will not be esteemed as a luxury. And thus not
only do the people lose a comfort which they might enjoy, but the
post-office also loses that revenue which it might make.
I have said that the correspondence circulating in the United States
is less than that of the United Kingdom. In making any comparison
between them, I am obliged to arrive at facts, or rather at the
probabilities of facts, in a somewhat circuitous mode, as the
Americans have kept no account of the number of letters which pass
through their post-offices in a year; we can, however, make an
estimate, which, if incorrect, shall not at any rate be incorrect
against them.
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