The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

88 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1848
appearing in the Gazette of February nth. At first any writing
whatsoever found in a posted book made it subject to letter charge,
but this absolute restriction was soon found to be inconvenient,
especially to collectors of old books. Professor De Morgan, I
remember, found it a little hard that a bar to the use of the book
post should arise from the mere fact that a useful volume contained
some such inscription as the following :
" Anne price Her Booke
god give her grace therein to Look ;
The rule was accordingly made less stringent; writing, however,
being still restricted to a single page. In the course of years it
became allowable to write anything whatever, save only a letter,
and, with the same restriction, to send any matter, even if written
throughout.
I am sorry to remark, however, that meantime advantage was
taken of the new facility for frequent attempt at evasion of postage ;
letters, small articles of dress, &c., being slipped
"
in between the
leaves of the books, and, ungallant as the statement may appear, I
am bound to mention that the chief offenders in this way were ladies.
Sometimes the means resorted to evinced no small pains and inge-
nuity, exercised for the mere purpose of saving a few pence. Thus, in
one instance which I remember, a hole had been excavated in the
thickness of an old book leaving not only the binding, but several
leaves above and below, uninjured, and in this hole was concealed a
watch. And here I may remark that, with every desire to give the
public all possible facilities, we were often deterred from so doing by
the tricks and evasions which too frequently followed any relaxation
of our rules ; evasions which, even when detected, and when clearly
opposed to the spirit and intention of the regulation, were sometimes
defended and owing to the unwillingness of Government departments
to risk defeat in a court of justice, successfully defended
on the ground that there was no infraction of the letter of the regulation.
The conscientious part of the public happily, so far as my
experience shows, the great majority is little aware how much it
suffers from unscrupulous conduct such as this.
ECONOMIC MEASURES.
While thus carrying forward extensive and important improvements
in the single department placed under my exclusive superintendence,
and while instituting the book-post system, I found myself, by want
of necessary power, debarred from those more general improvements