Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science

Only, it must be owned, Mr. Borlase had said that many times before, and put on the terrible judicial look too, and yet "that boy Davy" was at his tricks again as much as ever.

"I'll bring as much as I can find of him, sir," said Betty, gathering up her apron, as if she fully expected to discover the object of her search in a fragmentary condition.

Presently there was heard a shuffling in the passage, and a somewhat ungainly youth, about sixteen years of age, was thrust into the room, with the due complement of legs, arms, and other members, and only somewhat the grimier about the face for the explosion. His fingers were all yellow with acids, and his clothes plentifully variegated with stains from the same compounds. At first sight he looked rather a dull, loutish boy, but his sharp, clear eyes somewhat redeemed his expression on a second glance.

"Here he is, sir," cried Betty triumphantly, as though she really had found him in pieces, and took credit for having put him cleverly together again.

"Well, Humphrey," said Mr. Borlase, "what have you been up to now? You'll never rest, I'm afraid, till you have the house on fire."

"Oh! if you please, sir, I was only experimenting in the garret, and there's no harm done."

"No harm done!" echoed Betty; "and if there isn't it's no fault of yours, you nasty monkey. I declare that blow up gave me such a turn you could ha' knocked me down with a feather, and there's a smell all over the house enough to pison any one."

"That'll do, Betty," said her master, finding the grim judicial countenance rather difficult to keep up, and anxious to pronounce sentence before it quite wore off. "I'll tell you what it is, young Davy, this sort of thing won't do at all. I must speak to Mr. Tonkine about you; and if I catch you at it again, you'll have to take yourself and your experiments somewhere else. So I warn you. You had much better attend to your work. It was only the other day you gave old Goody Jones a paperful of cayenne instead of cinnamon; and there's Joe Grimsly, the beadle, been here half a dozen times this day for those pills I told you to make up, and they're not ready yet. So just you take yourself off, mind your business, and don't let me have any more nonsense, or it'll be the worse for you."

And so the culprit gladly backed out of the room, not a whit abashed by the reprimand, for it was no novelty, to begin his experiments again and again, and one day, by way of compensation for keeping his master's household in constant terror of being blown up, to make his name familiar as a household word, by the invention of a little instrument that would save thousands and thousands from the fearful consequences of coal-pit explosions.

The Mr. Tonkine that his master referred to was the self-constituted protector of the Davy family. Old Davy had been a carver in the town, and dying, left his widow in very distressed circumstances, when this generous friend came forward and took upon himself the charge of the widow and her children. Young Humphrey, on leaving school, had been placed with Mr. Borlase to be brought up as an apothecary; but he was much fonder of rambling about the country, or experimenting in the garret which he had constituted his laboratory, than compounding drugs behind his master's counter. As a boy he was not particularly smart, although he was distinguished for the facility with which he gleaned the substance of any book that happened to take his fancy, and for an early predilection for poetry. As he grew up, the ardent, inquisitive turn of his mind displayed itself more strongly. He was very fond of spending what leisure time he had in strolling along the rocky coast searching for sea-drift and minerals, or reading some favourite book.

"There along the beach he wandered, nourishing a youth sublime,
With the fairy-tales of science, and the long result of time."

In after life he used often to tell how when tired he would sit down on the crags and exercise his fancy in anticipations of future renown, for already the ambition of distinguishing himself in his favourite science had seized him. "I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth," he wrote in his memorandum-book, "to recommend me; yet if I live, I trust I shall not be of less service to mankind and my friends than if I had been born with all these advantages." He read a great deal, and though without much method, managed, in a wonderfully short time, to master the rudiments of natural philosophy and chemistry, to say nothing of considerable acquaintance with botany, anatomy, and geometry; so that though the pestle and mortar might have a quieter time of it than suited his master's notions, Humphrey was busy enough in other ways.

In his walk along the beach, the nature of the air contained in the bladders of sea-weed was a constant subject of speculation with him; and he used to sigh over the limited laboratory at his command, which prevented him from thoroughly investigating the matter. But one day, as good luck would have it, the waves threw up a case of surgical instruments from some wrecked vessel, somewhat rusty and sand clogged, but in Davy's ingenious hands capable of being turned to good account. Out of an old syringe, which was contained in the case, he managed to construct a very tolerable air pump; and with an old shade lamp, and a couple of small metal tubes, he set himself to work to discover the causes of the diffusion of heat. At first sight the want of proper instruments for carrying on his researches might appear rather a hindrance to his progress in the paths of scientific discovery; but, in truth, his subsequent success as an experimentalist has been very properly attributed, in no small degree, to that necessity which is the parent of invention, and which forced him to exercise his skill and ingenuity in making the most of the scanty materials at his command. "Had he," says one of his biographers, "in the commencement of his career been furnished with all those appliances which he enjoyed at a later period, it is more than probable that he might never have acquired that wonderful tact of manipulation, that ability of suggesting expedients, and of contriving apparatus, so as to meet and surmount the difficulties which must constantly arise during the progress of the philosopher through the unbeaten track and unexplored regions of science!"

While Davy was thus busily engaged qualifying himself for the distinguished career that awaited him, Gregory Watt, the son of the celebrated James Watt, being in delicate health, came to Penzance for change of air, and lodged with Mrs. Davy. At first he and Humphrey did not get on very well together, for the latter had just been reading some metaphysical works, and was very fond of indulging in crude and flippant speculations on such subjects, which rather displeased the shy invalid. But one day some chance remark of Davy's gave token of his extensive knowledge of natural history and chemistry, and thenceforth a close intimacy sprang up between them, greatly to the lad's advantage, for Watt's scientific knowledge set him in a more systematic groove of study, and encouraged him to concentrate his energies on his favourite pursuit.

Another useful friend Davy also found in Mr. Gilbert, afterwards President of the Royal Society. Passing along one day, Mr. Gilbert observed a youth making strange contortions of face as he hung over the hutch gate of Borlase's house; and being told by a companion that he was "the son of Davy the carver," and very fond of making chemical experiments, he had a talk with the lad, and discovering his talents, was ever afterwards his staunch friend and patron.

Through his two friends, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Watt, Davy formed the acquaintance of Dr. Beddoes, who was just setting up at Bristol, under the title of Pneumatic Institution, an establishment for investigating the medical properties of different gases; and who, appreciating his abilities, gave him the superintendence of the new institution.

Although only twenty years of age at this time, Davy was well abreast of the science of the day, and soon applied his vigorous and searching intellect to several successful investigations. His first scientific discovery was the detection of siliceous earth in the outer coating of reeds and grasses. A child was rubbing two pieces of bonnet cane together, and he noticed that a faint light was emitted; and on striking them sharply together, vivid sparks were produced just as if they had been flint and steel. The fact that when the outer skin was peeled off this property was destroyed, showed that it was confined to the skin, and on subjecting it to analysis silex was obtained, and still more in reeds and grasses.

As superintendent of Dr. Beddoe's institution, his attention was, of course, chiefly directed to the subject of gases, and with the enthusiasm of youth, he applied himself ardently to the investigation of their elements and effects, attempting several very dangerous experiments in breathing gases, and more than once nearly sacrificing his life. In the course of these experiments he found out the peculiar properties of nitrous oxide, or, as it has since been popularly called, "laughing gas," which impels any one who inhales it to go through some characteristic action, – a droll fellow to laugh, a dismal one to weep and sigh, a pugnacious man to fight and wrestle, or a musical one to sing.

At twenty-two years of age, such was the reputation he had acquired, that he got the appointment of lecturer at the Royal Institution, which was just then established, and found himself in a little while not only a man of mark in the scientific, but a "lion" in the fashionable world. Natural philosophy and chemistry had begun to attract a good deal of attention at that time; and Davy's enthusiasm, his clear and vivid explanations of the mysteries of science, and the poetry and imagination with which he invested the dry bones of scientific facts, caught the popular taste exactly. His lecture-room became a fashionable lounge, and was crowded with all sorts of distinguished people. The young lecturer became quite the rage, and was petted and feted as the lion of the day. It was only six years back that he was the druggist's boy in a little country town, alarming and annoying the household with his indefatigable experiments. He could hardly have imagined, as one of his day-dreams at the sea-side, that his fame would be acquired so quickly.

In spite of all the flatteries and attentions which were showered upon him, Davy stuck manfully to his profession; and if his reputation was somewhat artificial and exaggerated at the commencement, he amply earned and consolidated it by his valuable contributions to science during the rest of his career.

The name of Humphrey Davy will always be best known from its association with the ingenious safety lamp which he invented, and which well entitles him to rank as one of the benefactors of mankind. It was in the year 1815 that Davy first turned his attention to this subject. Of frequent occurrence from the very first commencement of coal-mining, the number of accidents from fire-damp had been sadly multiplied by the increase of mining operations consequent on the introduction of the steam engine. The dreadful character of some of the explosions which occurred about this time, the appalling number of lives lost, and the wide-spread desolation in some of the colliery districts which they had occasioned, weighed heavily on the minds of all connected with such matters. Not merely were the feelings of humanity wounded by the terrible and constant danger to which the intrepid miners were exposed, but it began to be gravely questioned whether the high rate of wage which the collier required to pay him not only for his labour, but for the risk he ran, would admit of the mines being profitably worked. It was felt that some strenuous effort must be made to preserve the miners from their awful foe. Davy was then in the plenitude of his reputation, and a committee of coal-owners besought him to investigate the subject, and if possible provide some preventative against explosions. Davy at once went to the north of England, visited a number of the principal pits, obtained specimens of fire-damp, analyzed them carefully, and having discovered the peculiarities of this element of destruction, after numerous experiments devised the safety-lamp as its antagonist.

The principles upon which this contrivance rests, are the modification of the explosive tendencies of fire-damp (the inflammable gas in mines) when mixed with carbonic acid and nitrogen; and the obstacle presented to the passage of an explosion, if it should occur, through a hole less than the seventh of an inch in diameter; and accordingly, while the small oil lamp in burning itself mixes the surrounding gas with carbonic acid and nitrogen, the cylinder of wire-gauze which surrounds it prevents the escape of any explosion. It is curious that George Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, about the same time, hit on much the same expedient.

To control a "power that in its tremendous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the earthquake," and to enclose it in a net of the most slender texture, was indeed a grand achievement; and when we consider the many thousand lives which it has been the means of saving from a sudden and cruel death, it must be acknowledged to be one of the noblest triumphs, not only of science, but of humanity, which the world has ever seen. Honours were showered upon Davy, from the miners and coal-owners, from scientific associations, from crowned heads; but all must agree with Playfair in thinking that "it is little that the highest praise, and that even the voice of national gratitude when most strongly expressed, can add to the happiness of one who is conscious of having done such a service to his fellow-men." Davy himself said he "valued it more than anything he ever did." When urged by his friends to take out a patent for the invention, he replied, – "No, I never thought of such a thing. My sole object was to serve the cause of humanity, and if I have succeeded, I am amply rewarded by the gratifying reflection of having done so."

The honours of knighthood and baronetage were successively conferred on Davy as a reward for his scientific labours; and the esteem of his professional brethren was shown in his election to the President-ship of the Royal Institution, in which, oddly enough, he was succeeded by his old friend Mr. Gilbert, who had first taken him by the hand, and whom he had got ahead of in the race of life.

Davy died at Geneva before he had completed his fifty-first year, no doubt from over-exertion and the unhealthy character of the researches he prosecuted so recklessly. Assiduous as he was in his devotion to his favourite science, he found time also to master several continental languages; to keep himself well acquainted with, and also to contribute to the literature of the day; and to indulge his passion for fly-fishing, at which he was a keen and practised adept.

Eminent as were the talents of Sir Humphrey Davy, and valuable as his discovery of the safety-lamp has proved, it is but fair to own that his credit to the latter has been very openly denied. Two persons of scientific celebrity have been put forward as the real inventors of the safety-lamp – namely, Dr. Reid Clanny of Newcastle, and the great railway-engineer, George Stephenson. Of Clanny's safety-lamp a description appeared in the Philosophical Transactions in 1813 – that is, ten years before Sir Humphrey made his communication to the Royal Society. However, it was a complicated affair, which required the whole attention of a boy to work it, and was based on the principle of forcing in air through water by the agency of bellows.

Stephenson's was a very different apparatus. In its general principle it resembled Davy's, the chief difference being, that he inserted a glass cylinder inside the wire-gauze cylinder, and inside the top of the glass cylinder a perforated metallic chimney – the supply of air being kept up through a triple circle of small holes in the bottom.

Stephenson's claim has, of course, been disputed by the friends and admirers of Sir Humphrey Davy; but Mr. Smile has conclusively proved that his lamp, the "Geordy," was in use at the Killingworth collieries at the very time that Davy was conducting the experiments which led to his invention. It is not to be inferred, however, that Davy knew aught of what Stephenson had accomplished. It seems to be one of those rare cases in which two minds, working independently, and unknown each to the other, have both arrived simultaneously at the same result.

Penny Postage

"He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
News from all nations lumb'ring at his back, —
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks;
Births, deaths, and marriages; epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods of his fluent quill;
Or charged with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive."Cowper.

The growth of the postal system is a sure measure of the progress of industry, commerce, education, and all that goes to make up the sum of civilization; and there is no more striking illustration to be found of the strides which our country has made in that direction since the century began than the introduction of a cheap and rapid delivery of letters, and the craving which it has at once satisfied and augmented. Nothing gives us so forcible an idea of the difference between the Britain of the present day and the Britain of the Stuart or even of the Georgian period, than the contrast between the postal communication of these times and of our own. The itch of writing is now so strong in us, we are so constantly writing or receiving letters, our appetite for them is so ravenous, that we wonder how people got on in the days when the postman was the exclusive messenger of the king, and when even majesty was so badly served that, as one old postmaster[4 - Brian Tuke, master of the post to King Henry VIII.] wrote in self-exculpation of some delay, "when placards are sent (to order the immediate forwarding of some state despatches) the constables many times be fayne to take the horses oute of plowes and cartes, wherein," he gravely adds, "can be no extreme diligence." It was a sure sign that the country was going ahead when Cromwell (1656) found it worth while to establish posts for the people at large, and was able to farm out the post office for £10,000 a year. The profits of that establishment were doubled by the time the Stuarts returned to the throne, and more than doubled again before the close of the seventeenth century. The country has kept on growing out of system after system, like a lad out of his clothes, and at different times has had new ones made to its measure. Brian Tuke's easy plan of borrowing farmers' horses on which to mount his emissaries, gave place to regular relays of post-boys and post-horses; and, in course of time, when the robbery of the mails by sturdy highwaymen had become almost the rule, and their safe conveyance the exception, post-boys were in turn supplanted by a system of stage-coaches, convoyed by an armed guard. This was thought a great advance; and so it was. A pushing, zealous man named Palmer originated the scheme. Amidst many other avocations, he found time to travel on the outside of stage-coaches, for the sake of talking with the coachmen and observing the routes, here, there, and everywhere all over England, and thus matured all the details of his plan from personal experience. "None but an enthusiast," said Sheridan in a rapture of admiration in the House of Commons, "could have conceived, none but an enthusiast could have practically entertained, none but an enthusiast could have carried out such a system."

Still, in spite of the exactitude with which Palmer's scheme was declared to fit the wants of the country, it soon began to be grown out of like the rest. It became too short, too tight, too straitened every way, and impeded the circulation of correspondence, – no unimportant artery of our national system. The cost of postage was too high, the mode of delivery too slow, and the consequence was, that people either repressed their desire to write letters, or sent them through some cheaper and illegitimate channel. Sir Walter Scott knew a man who recollected the mail from London reaching Edinburgh with only a single letter. Of all the tens of thousands of the modern Babylon, only one solitary individual had got anything to say to anybody in the metropolis of the sister kingdom worth paying postage for. "We look back now," writes Miss Martineau, "with a sort of amazed compassion to the old crusading times, when warrior-husbands and their wives, grey-headed parents and their brave sons, parted with the knowledge that it must be months or years before they could hear of one another's existence. We wonder how they bore the depth of silence! And we feel the same now about the families of Polar voyagers. But, till a dozen years ago, it did not occur to many of us how like this was the fate of the largest class in our own country. The fact is, there was no full and free epistolary intercourse in the country, except between those who had the command of franks. There were few families in the wide middle class who did not feel the cost of postage a heavy item in their expenditure; and if the young people sent letters home only once a fortnight, the amount at the year's end was a rather serious matter. But it was the vast multitudes of the lower orders who suffered like the crusading families of old, and the geographical discoverers of all times. When once their families parted off from home it was a separation almost like that of death. The hundreds of thousands of apprentices, of shopmen, of governesses, of domestic servants, were cut off from family relations as if seas or deserts lay between them and home. If the shilling for each letter could be saved by the economy of weeks or months at first, the rarity of correspondence went on to increase the rarity; new interests hastened the dying out of old ones; and the ancient domestic affections were but too apt to wither away, till the wish for intercourse was gone. The young girl could not ease her heart by pouring out her cares and difficulties to her mother before she slept, as she can now, when the penny and the sheet of paper are the only condition of the correspondence. The young lad felt that a letter home was a serious and formal matter, when it must cost his parents more than any indulgence they ever thought of for themselves; and the old fun and light-heartedness were dropped off from such domestic intercourse as there was. The effect upon the morals of this kind of restraint is proved beyond a doubt by the evidence afforded in the army. It was a well-known fact, that in regiments where the commanding officer was kind and courteous about franking letters for the privates, and encouraged them to write as often as they pleased, the soldiers were more sober and manly, more virtuous and domestic in their affections, than where difficulty was made by the indolence or stiffness of the franking officer."

Under the costly postal system, the revenue of the post office did not, as it had hitherto done, and should have continued to do, keep pace with the progress of the country. The appetite for communication between distant friends or men of business was evidently either decaying, or finding vent in an unlawful way. The latter was chiefly the case. There were vast numbers of people separated from each other by long weary miles, too many to permit of visits, who could not resist writing to each other, – the doating parent to the child, the lover to his mistress, the merchant to his agents, the lawyer to his clients. Those who could not afford postage, were the very class who could not get franks; for the principle was, that those who could best afford postage money should have plenty of franks, which were, of course, quite out of the way of poor, humble folks, – the fat sow had his ear well greased, the lean, starving one had to consume his own fat, like the bear, or go without. The consequence was, that those who were eager to write and could not get letters through the post, found other means of forwarding them to the evasion of the law. There was no limit to the exercise of ingenuity in this direction. Three or four letters were written on one piece of paper, to be cut up and distributed separately by one of the recipients; newspapers were turned into letters by underscoring or pricking with a pin the letters required to form the various words of the communication; some peculiarity in the style of address on the outside was arranged between correspondents, the sight of which was enough to indicate a message, and the letter was then rejected, having served its purpose; and so on, in a hundred other ways, fraudulent means were found of evading the law. Some carriers had a large and profitable business in smuggling letters. In many populous districts the number of letters conveyed by carriers at a penny each in an illegal way far exceeded those sent through the post. In Manchester, for every letter that went by the postman, six went by the carrier; and in Glasgow the proportion was as one to ten. All this was notorious. The most honourable people saw no great harm in cheating the post to send a word of comfort or encouragement to an absent friend, – it was a vice that leaned to virtue's side. But it was a bad thing for the country that people should be driven to such devices, in obeying a natural and proper impulse. The man who began by smuggling letters, might end by smuggling tobacco or brandy; and the system was morally pernicious. All felt the evil, but remedy seemed impossible. As the urgency for a change grew to a head, the man came to effect it, – a man "of open heart, who could enter into family impulses; a man of philosophical ingenuity, who could devise a remedial scheme; a man of business, who could fortify such a scheme with impregnable accuracy" – that man was Rowland Hill.

When quite a young man, on a pedestrian excursion through the lake district, Rowland Hill, passing a cottage door, observed the postman deliver a letter to a woman, and overheard her, after looking anxiously at the envelope, and then returning it, say she had no money to pay the postage. The man was about to put it back in his wallet and pass on, for it was an every-day thing for him to receive such a reply from the poor countryfolk, when Mr. Hill in his goodness of heart, out of compassion for the woman, stepped forward and paid the shilling, regardless of many shakes of the head, and hints of remonstrance from her, which he interpreted as merely unwillingness to trespass on a stranger's bounty. As soon as the postman was out of sight she broke the seal, and showed him why she did not want him to pay for the letter. The sheet was a blank, and the envelope had served as a means of communication between her and her correspondent. It appeared that she had arranged with her brother, that as long as all went well with him he should send a blank sheet in that way once a quarter, and thus she had tidings of him without paying the postage.

As he pursued his walk, Mr. Hill could not help meditating on the incident, which had made a deep impression on his mind. He could not blame the poor woman and her brother for the trick they had played upon the post office in order to correspond with each other; and yet he felt there must be something wrong in a system which put it out of their reach, and of others similarly circumstanced, to do so in a lawful manner. Every country post-master had a budget of touching stories of poor folk who were tantalized with the sight of a letter from some dear one, full, perhaps, of kind words and cheering news, or asking sympathy and condolence in misfortune, or transmitting money to help them in their straits; as well as of countless little frauds of the sort described, which they could not always harden themselves to circumvent and punish, so piteously eager did the poor souls appear to be to get word of their friends. And yet, in spite of all sorts of frauds, to people in humble life letters came like "angels' visits, few and far between."

Mr. Hill asked himself whether there was no means of lessening the cost of postage, whether the government could not afford to charge a lower rate, or manage to get the work done more cheaply? Keeping his ears and eyes open, always on the alert to pick up a fact as regarded the present, or a hint for the future, examining the mode of carriage and delivery, the routes chosen, and the time occupied, Mr. Hill, after a while, arrived at the conviction, that the postage rates might not only be reduced, but that the transmission of letters might be more quickly performed by a remodelling of the system. He ascertained that the cost of mere transit incurred upon a letter sent from London to Edinburgh, a distance of 400 miles, was not more than a thirty-sixth part of a penny, and that, therefore, there was a margin, under the existing charge, of 11-35/36d. for extra expenses and profit. He observed that the twopenny posts of London and other large towns were found to answer very well, although people, being within easy distances of each other, did not need so much as in the country to correspond in writing, and that the carriers, in spite of the illegality of the traffic, had loads of letters to deliver at a penny each, and that penny paid them for their trouble, as well as their risk of detection. He therefore came to the conclusion, that what was wanted, and what it was quite possible to establish, was a uniform penny postage rate over the whole of the United Kingdom. He calculated that if that were adopted, the number of people then in the habit of writing letters would write a great many more than ever; that others, who had been precluded by the expense from corresponding, would come into the field; and that hundreds of letters forwarded illegally would now pass through the post, so that the number of letters sent by post would be increased fourfold, and the revenue, at first, perhaps a trifle curtailed, would soon mount up again.

The post-office authorities were greatly shocked and disgusted at so audacious and utopian a proposal. But the public were greatly delighted with it, only doubting whether it was not too good news to be true. First by means of an anonymous pamphlet, then by direct and personal application to the government, Mr. Hill endeavoured to get his plans taken into consideration – no easy matter, for circumlocution officials had passed from contemptuous indifference to active hostility, as they gradually discovered how formidable an antagonist in the truth and accuracy of his calculations, the sincerity and earnestness of his purpose, they had to deal with. It was a great national cause Mr. Hill was fighting, and he was not to be put down. The people took his side, Parliament granted an inquiry, and the result was a report in favour of his scheme. On the 17th of August 1839 – why is not the anniversary kept with rejoicings? – penny postage became the law of the land.

During the last weeks of the year a uniform fourpenny rate was charged by way of accustoming people to the cheap system, and saving official feelings from the rude shock of a sudden descent from the respectable rate of a shilling, to the vulgar one of a penny. On the 10th January 1840 the penny system came into force. At first Mr. Hill availed himself of a suggestion thrown out some years before by Mr. Charles Knight, that the best way of collecting the penny postage on newspapers would be to have stamped covers; but subsequently stamped envelopes were done away with, and queen's heads introduced. The franking privilege, of course, died with the dear postage.

Upon the adoption of the scheme, Mr. Hill received an appointment in the post office in order to superintend its working; but he had an uneasy berth of it. His plan was adopted only in part, – the postage rate was lowered, while the other compensating and essential features were thrown aside; official jealousy of reform showed itself in various attempts to thwart his efforts, and to fulfil its prediction of failure to the scheme. The consequence was, that the immediate results were not so satisfactory as could have been wished. The increase in the number of letters was certainly very great. During the last month of the old system the total number of letters passing through the post office was little more than two millions and a half, of which only a fifth were paid letters; while a twelvemonth after the introduction of the new system the total number of letters had risen to nearly six millions per month, of which the unpaid letters formed less than a twelfth part. Very heavy expenses, however, not connected with the new plan, had been incurred; and the consequence was, that the profits of the post office were only a fourth of what they had been. Advantage was taken of this to get Mr. Hill ousted from his post; but, after he had transferred his services for some years to the management of the London and Brighton Railway, the authorities were glad to receive him back again, to place the remodelling of the system in his hands, and to allow him to introduce the other parts of his scheme which had before been neglected. In this work Mr. Hill was busily engaged for a number of years, and most of his plans were gradually carried out with great advantage to the public. In 1846 a public testimonial of £13,360 was presented to Mr. Hill in acknowledgment of his distinguished services to the country; and at a later date he was made a Knight of the Bath.

Cheap postage has now been fairly tried, and must be pronounced a grand success. It has become part and parcel of our national life, and has been found precious as the gift of a new faculty. We should miss the loss of cheap and rapid correspondence with our friends and acquaintances almost as much as the loss of speech or the loss of sight. The postman has now to find his way to the humblest, poorest districts, where twenty years back his knock was never heard; and what was once a rare luxury, has now come to be considered a common necessary of life. Instead of only seventy-six millions of letters passing through the post in a year, as in 1838, the number has risen to between seven and eight hundred millions. On the average every individual in England receives twenty-eight letters a-year (in London the individual average is forty-six), in Scotland eighteen, and in Ireland nine.

The gross revenue derived from these sources is over four millions; and some of the railway companies each make more money out of the conveyance of the mails in a year, than the annual revenue of the whole kingdom in the days of William and Mary.

The moral and social effects of the cheap postage are incalculable. It has tended to strengthen and perpetuate domestic ties, to bring the most scattered and distant members of a family under the benign influences of home, and to foster feelings of friendship and sympathy between man and man. Upon the education and intelligence of the people, too, it has had, concurrently with other causes, a marked effect. Many who looked upon the art of writing as only a temptation to forgery, were induced to take pen in hand and master the science of pot-hooks and hangers, for the sake of corresponding with their friends, and of being able to read the letters they received. In 1839 a third of the men and half of the women who were married, according to the registrar's returns, could not sign their own names; in 1857 that was the case with only a seventh of the men, and a fifth of the women; and not a little of this advanced education may be attributed to the impulse given by the introduction of cheap postage.

Nor have the advantages derived from the post office by the great body of the public ended here. It has shown itself the most progressive department of the government, and has undertaken many benevolent branches of work which were never contemplated by Sir Rowland Hill. Thus it carries on an extensive savings-bank system, worked out by Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, adopted by Mr. Gladstone when Chancellor of the Exchequer, and established by Act of Parliament in 1861. This valuable department, whose operations are now of a very extensive character, keeps a separate account for every depositor, acknowledges the receipt, and, on the requisite notice being furnished, sends out warrants authorizing post-masters to pay such sums as depositors may wish to withdraw. The deposits are handed over to the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt, and repaid to the depositors through the post office. The rate of interest payable to depositors is two and a half per cent. Each depositor has his savings-bank book, which is sent to him yearly for examination, and the increasing interest calculated and allowed.

The post office now acts, too, as a life-insurance society, offering advantages to the operative which no other society can offer, and which the public are beginning to appreciate.

In 1869 the entire telegraphic system of the United Kingdom passed into the hands of the post office, whose administrators have shown themselves anxious to offer increased facilities to the public for the transaction of business. The number of telegraphic stations has been greatly increased, and the rate reduced at which messages are flashed from one part of the island to the other.

Finally, a recent innovation, made entirely in the interest of the public weal, is the introduction of Halfpenny Post Cards. On one side of these missives the sender writes the name and address of his correspondent; on the other, the communication intended for him. The card already bears a halfpenny stamp impressed, and nothing more remains to be done but to deposit it in the nearest office or pillar-post. We think, then, it may fairly be said that the post office has shown itself anxious to "keep abreast" with the ever-increasing wants of the commercial classes of Great Britain.