The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1850] TOTAL ABOLITION OF SUNDAY DUTY. 145
work of all kinds. * The Postmaster-General having
called upon the Secretaries to report on this demand,
I presented my report on the 5th of January, and it was
printed, with other documents, by order of the House
of Commons.t The is following a summary of its
contents :
I first recognise the great relief that would be given
to the department by such total suspension, and then
proceed to show I why had not ventured to recommend
it. I drew a distinction between collection and
delivery on the one hand, and conveyance on the
other, pointing out that the former could be suspended
in any particular place without materially affecting the
convenience of any other place, while the latter could
not be so suspended even on a portion of a single line
of mail without affecting the convenience of every
place which that line served, whether directly or in-
directly ; so that while the former suspension might
be adopted in detail, according to the wish of each
particular place, supposing this to be really ascer-
tained, the latter would require a much more general
concurrence. I advised that wherever Sunday de-
livery by letter-carriers was abolished, the abolition
should extend also to delivery at the window, and
I suggested that, where delivery was retained, indi-
viduals might be allowed to protect themselves against
it by giving in a written notice to that effect at the
post office.
In respect of conveyance, I thought it possible that
if the demand became sufficiently general, it might in
* Feb. 2ist, 1850. "Professor Henslow has sent me an amusing reply to a
letter from the Lord's Day Society, requesting him to procure from his parish
a '
petition in favour of total abolition. Mr. Henslow tells them, Under the
old dispensation I would willingly have joined you in
a Christian,
such a petition, but as
I feel I ought not." Sir R. Hill's Journal.
t Par. Pro. 1850, No. 185, p. 46.
ED.
VOL. II. L