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The Post Office

The Post Office image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
December
Year
1843
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The Emancipator has an article on Ihis subject, in which the English system of penny postage is highly reconimended. Mr. Leavilt soya: "Observation in thal country authorizes the assertion that tlic English Office syslem is the most perfect and beneficient piece of governmenlal machinery on earlh. It comes lo the neighborhood of every man's door, and proffers him the privilege ofconferring with his friends in the most distant part of the kingdom, or in another streel of the same town, Jor a penny. That is the system to be adopted here. Some of the Whig papers are lauding Mr. Briggs for bis efforts lo reduce postnge to five cents for fifty miles, and ten cents for greater distances. But to soy noth ing cf the fiict that the bill was reported too late to be. voled on, it was utlerly defectiva and unstatesniHiilike. It was merely a reform of the old system. We enn have as cheap pcstiige as they liave in England. - Why, then, should we seek to repair the old tottering edifice of the old system, when we have before us a perfect model, nlready amply tested by Experience. The Btilish Post Offlee systc m will for ever prevent all bloody revolutions, while it adds immeasurably to the moral power in favor of nll popular reforms. A similar system in the United States would forever prevent a dissolution of the Union, wliile it would greatly accelerate the peaceful abolition of slaverv, qnd ppread over every section of the country every social improvement that rnny arise in any part. Lel us then arouse the nation with the cry - ïor the l1beuty l'artt and two cents postagk!" On the other hand, the Philanthropist has an article on the same subject in opposition to the penny f-yatem. It contends ihat the Post Office Department in this country and in England are diñerently circumstanced in severa! malerial points. The cost of mail transportation is greater with us, ns nur mails supply a surface of 1,100,000 square miles, while that of Britain extends to only 116,700 square miles - a space of nbout oñe tenth as large. - The population of England is nbout 27 millions: while that of the United States is on ly Eeventeen . Deduct from these nearty three millions for the slaves and free colored people of the South, and we have but 14,000,000 left a population about half as great, extended ove a surface ten times as large. If the Free States hal a Post Office establishment ollieir own, a rediiction of postago to Tery low raree wou!d be judicioue; bnt ir we must contribute an nnnual bonus towarda carryin th mails of'íhe Slaveholders, our rales Of posta a must be high enoiigh to ratse a sufficient mtn for that purpose, over and above the expenwi of our own mails.

Article

Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News