The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1 82 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1849-51
Further Economy in Conveyance.
The surveyor for the South of Ireland had recommended that the
night mails to Waterford should be conveyed by
a new line ot
railway between Carlow and that city. The entry on the subject in
my Journal (i3th of January, 1851) thus concludes :
" On the Postmaster-General calling for my opinion, I was able to
show that the adoption of such recommendation would cost about
;
1 0,000 a- year, that it would afford scarcely any convenience,
but that a day-mail . . . might
be established at a
comparatively small cost, and would be of great service to Waterford.
The Postmaster-General has adopted my view.
"
May 22nd, 1851. A short time since certain towns in the West
Riding memorialized the Postmaster-General to despatch a mail by
an existing express train direct to Boston. The Company (the Great
Northern) refused to undertake the service for less than a first-class
fare each trip, or ,^540 a-year. The Postmaster-General called for
my opinion. I offered the Company ^"200 a-year; they refused,
and the memorialists were informed that, owing to the excessive
demands of the Company, the mail [a very small one] must be
withheld. This brought public opinion to act on the Company, and,
as I expected, they became suitors to us, first offering to reduce the
charge to about ^340 a-year, and ultimately consenting to charge
the bags as parcels. On these terms we shall give a mail in both
directions for about ^200 a-year, or for little more than the third
part of what was originally demanded for a mail in one direction."
RURAL DISTRIBUTION.
On July 1 5th, 1850, I learned that the Postmaster-General had
sanctioned what I regarded as a very important measure :
"Hitherto no posts have been given except daily posts; henceforth,
when the correspondence will not justify a daily post, one
is to be given thrice, or twice, or once a week, according to a fixed
scale, under which the amount of correspondence is compared with
the cost of the post. Thus, at a comparatively small cost, the postal
system will, I hope, be extended to nearly every house in the
kingdom."
This measure, however, though sanctioned by the Treasury, and
ordered to be carried into immediate effect, remains even to this
day, notwithstanding constant progress, still incomplete, mainly, I
believe, through objections on the part of the surveyors to the