Nevertheless, more than a fortnight later, I find the following entry:—

Meantime, as the red ink seemed inefficacious, black ink was tried; and, for a time, this appeared to be effectual.

Additional security was also sought in legislation; advantage being taken by Mr. Timm, the Solicitor to the Stamp Office, of a bill then preparing on postal affairs, to introduce a clause enabling the Postmaster-General to open any letter bearing a forged stamp, or a stamp used for the second time; but as the Chancellor of the Exchequer felt sure that Parliament would not grant such a power, the clause, very much to Mr. Timm’s regret and my own, was struck out. We were, therefore, thrown back upon chemical and mechanical means of defence. It soon appeared that these must be put into further requisition, Mr. Donovan, a chemist of Dublin, having succeeded in removing the effacing black mark without injuring the stamp below. The stamp, it must be remembered, had been impressed by powerful machinery, and likewise had had time to dry; while the obliteration was produced only by hand, and remained fresh. Again, therefore, I had to call in Mr. Phillips. He came accompanied by Dr. Clark, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Aberdeen, who had kindly volunteered his services, and who suggested a number of experiments, which Mr. Phillips undertook to try. On the same day, however, Mr. Phillips reported favourably of a new kind of ink devised by a Mr. Parsons, informing me, nevertheless, that it had yet to be subjected to various tests.

At this juncture came a formal report from the Post Office, stating that the red ink was found to be removable, and asking for instructions. The statement, though necessarily made as a matter of form, came to me as a mere truism; but the request for instructions was more easily made than complied with; for about the same time Mr. Parsons’ ink yielded to the skill of Messrs. Perkins and Co., contractors for the supply of adhesive stamps; who, however, reported in turn, that they had prepared two other kinds of ink, either of which they thought would answer the purpose. I lost no time in setting Mr. Phillips to work on the subject; and, in my anxiety, went so far as to trouble the greatest chemist of the age. Kindly giving me the needful attention, though in an extremely depressed state of health, the result of excessive labour—a fact, of course, unknown to me when I made my application—Mr. Faraday approved of the course which I submitted to him, viz., that an aqueous ink should be used, both for the stamps and for obliteration, so soon as the stock of stamps now on hand should be exhausted, and that, in the mean time, obliteration should be made with black printing-ink. As the stock of covers was so large that, considering its little favour with the public, it was likely to last some years; and as, in dealing with those, an oleaginous effacing ink was indispensable, while, nevertheless, it would be impracticable to have two kinds of effacing ink in use at the same time, it was important to procure a destructible oleaginous ink to be used meanwhile in printing the adhesive stamps. I accordingly requested Mr. Phillips, and also Mr. Bacon, of the firm of Perkins and Co., to undertake the task; which they did.

The new oleaginous ink, produced on the above application, seemed at first to answer well; but past failure led me to doubt present results. Meantime, endless suggestions were coming from various quarters, all requiring to be more or less considered, and many plausible enough to deserve trial, but all ending, sooner or later, in failure. The worry of this continued succession of hope and disappointment made me at last almost afraid to enter my office; where I foreknew that some untoward report must be awaiting me.

At length I drew up a Report, containing all the information then possessed, and recommending, for the present, obliteration with good black printing-ink, prepared in a peculiar manner, and the printing of the adhesive stamps in coloured inks—blue, as before, for the twopenny ones, but red for the penny ones; both colours, however, to be oleaginous, but at the same time destructible; my aim being to render the obliteration so much more tenacious than the postage stamp that any attempt at removing the former must involve the destruction of the latter.

The new labels being thus far provided for, anxiety remained as to the stock of all kinds still on hand. It was still hoped, however, that thoroughly good printer’s-ink would answer the purpose sufficiently to prevent any serious abuse; but within three weeks from the date of my Report, a chemist named Watson had succeeded completely in the removal of this obliteration also. His process, however, though very simple, inexpensive, and effectual in relation, at least, to the black stamp, proved so slow as to demand nine minutes per label in its application; so that the danger to be apprehended was not very formidable. To prevent even this, however, Mr. Watson proposed an obliterating ink which he regarded as quite irremovable. So indeed it proved; but nevertheless its use was inadmissible, because it both injured the paper and obliterated the writing in its neighbourhood.

Mr. Watson’s attempts to remove the black ink from the red stamp seemed, after an interval of some weeks, to succeed. Fortunately, the success was only apparent, nor, so far as I am aware, has practical success been subsequently achieved by any one; so that the mode then adopted still remains in satisfactory use.

Still, however, temporary difficulties remained, and, yet worse, increased: the process of removing black from black, which Mr. Watson could carry on but slowly, my clerk, Mr. Ledingham, whose ingenuity had dealt effectually with many previous devices, succeeded in carrying on at the rate of one per minute; a rate quite quick enough to make knavery very profitable. After much thought I hit upon a device which is thus recorded in my Journal:—

This device succeeded, the ink so formed proving to be indestructible. Now, at length, all seemed to be right; but one more difficulty yet remained. To enable this ink to dry with sufficient rapidity, it had been necessary to introduce a small quantity of volatile oil; and the smell thus produced was declared at the Post Office to be intolerable. Happily, means were soon found for removing the offence; and so, at length, a little before the close of the year, all requirements were met.

But the most grievous trouble that arose to me in connection with these cares remains to be told. When, from the causes already shown, and others yet to be described, I was almost overborne with labour and anxiety, there came a new trouble for which I was quite unprepared; and which, like the last straw, was enough to break the camel’s back. A blow aimed at my brother was a precursor of what subsequently befell myself, though with a difference that will presently appear. Before proceeding, I am bound to mention that, at a later period, and after time had brought about some personal change at the Stamp Office, everything was done to make amends for this wrong. My brother’s services were fully, nay, handsomely recognised, his powers greatly extended, and his emoluments enlarged.

After some delay, arising from the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s close occupation, I succeeded in laying the case fully before him. He at once expressed agreement in my view of the question, and the result was that, happily alike for my brother and for the public convenience, five months later the obnoxious letter was withdrawn; and my brother, though for a time subjected to more or less of annoyance, was never afterwards disturbed in his office. On the contrary, some years later his superintendence, originally confined to the postage department, was extended to the whole stamping system.[299]

Before leaving the subject of stamps, I must say a few words about the form in which the adhesive stamps are printed, and the mode of their production. It may be necessary to inform those who buy stamps only in small quantities—probably the great mass of her Majesty’s subjects—that, as I originally proposed,[300] the whole sheet of penny stamps contains two hundred and forty, the equivalent, of course, of £1; and that as each row contains twelve stamps, the £1 is easily divisible into shillings, while the shillings, in like manner, may be promptly reduced to pieces worth respectively sixpence, fourpence, twopence, or a single penny. In the outset it was foreseen that the stamps might be used in ordinary payments.

As regards the production of stamps, it must be premised that two qualities were indispensable; first, cheapness; secondly, security against imitation. To obtain this latter quality, it was necessary to have excellence both of design and of workmanship, together with exact uniformity in the whole number issued—requirements which made extreme cheapness difficult.

The Queen’s head was first engraved by hand on a single matrix; the effigy being encompassed with lines too fine for any hand, or even any but the most delicate machinery to engrave. The matrix being subsequently hardened, was employed to produce impressions on a soft steel roller of sufficient circumference to receive twelve; and this being hardened in turn, was used, under very heavy pressure, to produce and repeat its counterpart on a steel-plate, to such extent that this, when used in printing, produced at each impression two hundred and forty stamps; all this being of course done, as machinists will at once perceive, according to the process invented by the late Mr. Perkins.

In this manner there were produced in the first fifteen years more than three thousand millions of stamps; all, as being derived from the same matrix, of course absolutely uniform. At the end of that time it was thought desirable to create a second matrix, but as this was obtained by transfer from the first—save that the lines were deepened by hand—the deviation from identity was at most very slight. With plates procured from this, the process, however, being somewhat modified, there had been printed, up to July, 1867, more than seven thousand millions of stamps; thus making up a total of considerably more than ten thousand millions, in all of which the impression is, for all practical purposes, absolutely uniform.[301]

Now it will easily be perceived that, if imitation cannot be effected without resort to the means described above, as used in the production of the stamps, forgery is in effect impracticable; since no forger can have the command of very powerful, delicate, and therefore costly machinery, requiring for its management skilful, and therefore highly-paid, workmen. If the Queen’s head alone constituted the effigy, something in imitation might be done by the aid of lithography, or some other such copying process; but this fails when applied to the extremely delicate lines already mentioned as constituting the background; which in the lithographer’s hands do but smirch the paper.

Another difficulty is thrown in the way of the forger by the letters placed at the four corners of each stamp; which will be found to vary in every one of the two hundred and forty impressions comprised in a sheet; the necessary modification being made in each steel-plate by means of a hand punch. By this arrangement the forger is compelled either to resort to the like complexity, or to issue his counterfeits in single stamps, all identical in their lettering; a proceeding which, if carried to any remunerative extent, would inevitably lead to detection. Of the additional security derived from the use of a portrait in the stamp, an advantage long ago recognised in coinage, it will suffice to remark that of all depictions a portrait is perhaps the one in which change, however slight, is most easily discovered, especially by those who have it continually before their eye. We all know that no strange face could have more than a moment’s chance of passing for that of a familiar friend.

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CHAPTER VIII.
SUBSIDIARY PROCEEDINGS.

Concurrently with all these transactions, many and various matters, some of them of great importance, demanded attention.[302] As letters multiplied, so also, to my surprise and concern, did complaints relative to theft; and that in a much greater ratio. This, as I afterwards learnt, was consequent upon a change at the Post Office, made, unluckily, without notification to the Treasury. A wholesome practice had previously existed of registering every letter supposed to contain articles of value; but, under the pressure caused by the increase of letters, this precaution had been abandoned. Of course, the remedy was to revive it; but here difficulties arose. No fee had previously been charged; and now that it was rightly thought necessary that the trouble of registration should be paid for, a question arose as to what the charge should be; the rates proposed by the Post Office, viz., one shilling for general post letters, and twopence for district post letters, seemed to me doubly objectionable; first, as to excess in the former of the two charges, and secondly, as to variety without sufficient reason; my wish being for a uniform rate, and that on no account higher than sixpence. This difference of opinion, combined with extreme difficulty of access to the ever-occupied Chancellor of the Exchequer, delayed the measure; but at length, thinking it better to obtain what I could, in the hope of subsequent improvement, I gave way so far as to agree to a uniform rate of one shilling; and procured for that measure the approbation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

As another means of diminishing theft, I proposed a reduction of the fee for money orders; and this also was carried into effect; the rates being reduced from 6d. to 3d. for any sum not exceeding £2; and from 1s. 6d. to 6d. for any higher sum up to £5. This reduction, combined with the low postage charged on transmission, had the effect of increasing the number of money-orders in ten years by more than twenty-fold.[303]

The most troublesome and unsatisfactory duty now devolving upon me was resistance to needless increase of expense. I found, with great concern, that augmentation was proceeding rapidly; and, indeed, the addition during the first year of penny postage amounted to something more than £100,000;[304] that, too, following an increase of £70,000 in the previous year; an amount sufficient to produce a very serious injury to fiscal results, the whole of which I well knew would be by many attributed to my reform.

The increase was partly due to what was, in one point of view, an untoward coincidence, viz., the concurrent extension of the railway system. For though this tended greatly to the convenience of correspondents, and therefore to increase in the amount of correspondence, yet its effect in augmenting postal expenditure was quite startling. That an improvement which has so prodigiously cheapened the conveyance of passengers and goods should have greatly raised the cost of conveying the mails, however paradoxical, is demonstrably true, as indeed appears by the following simple statement.

The total charge for carrying the inland mails in the year 1835 (that before the writing of my pamphlet) was £225,920;[305] and it will be remembered that the mail-coaches were then so lightly loaded as to admit of a manifold increase in burden without much addition to their number. By the end of 1840, when the number of chargeable letters had little more than doubled, while that of free missives must have greatly decreased, this charge had risen to £333,418,[306] and at the present time (1868) it appears to be as high as £718,480.[307]

Of course, great benefit to the Post Office is derived from the vast increase in speed, and greater allowance of space; but while in all these the public has its full share, it enjoys at the same time that great reduction in expense, which contrasts so remarkably with the increased charge to the Post Office. To a limited extent, explanation is to be found in the loss of that immunity from tolls which in England all mail-coaches enjoyed on the old roads; but the main augmentation is attributable to circumstances which could not be considered without a too-long digression. The increase was and is unquestionable; and the coincidence, as already implied, was misleading, giving an excellent handle to the enemies of the reform, and demanding of its friends a longer explanation than the public had time or inclination to follow.

A far less serious but more harassing increase of expense arose out of demands for augmented salaries, allowances, &c., which now poured in from all sides; and which came to the Treasury, backed by recommendation from the Post Office authorities; the Chief Office seeming never to question the judgment of the local surveyors, save when there appeared plausible ground for advising yet further augmentation. The reasons advanced were sometimes so insufficient that it was impossible for me, knowing the bitter hostility still entertained towards Penny Postage and its author, to avoid the suspicion that the care incumbent on such occasions was willingly set aside; that increased expenditure was almost welcomed as a means of fulfilling adverse prediction.

Not the least remarkable were two cases afterwards stated in my evidence before a Parliamentary Committee. Additional allowances to two postmasters (at Swinford and Ballaghaderin in Ireland) were proposed, on the ground that the money-order business had become so heavy that each postmaster was obliged to engage a clerk to attend to that duty alone. The accounts in the Post Office would of course have supplied a check to this statement; but it came to the Treasury vouched, first, by the surveyor of the district; second, by the Dublin office; and third, by the London office. The Treasury, at my suggestion, however, called for information as to the actual number of money-orders paid and issued by each office in a given time; and after the lapse of a year the information was supplied, when it appeared that the actual number of money-orders paid and issued, when taken together, was in one office only three per day, and in the other only two. I advised the rejection of the proposed allowances; but this question, with many others of a similar character, remained undecided when my duties were interrupted.[308]

I thus found myself engaged in a constant succession of petty contests, often unavailing, and always invidious; since, while ever called on to resist the demands of the undeserving, I was debarred, by my position, from originating any recommendation in favour of the deserving; a disadvantage under which I laboured for many years, and which seriously clogged my efforts for subsequent improvement.

The information, too, for rightly weighing these various claims, though very accessible to the Post Office, was to me difficult and uncertain of attainment; since, in the investigation, I had of necessity to act through those to whom I stood opposed, and who were naturally unwilling to be found in the wrong. The plan which after some experience I adopted was as follows. I induced the Treasury to issue an instruction to the Postmaster-General that every application for increased force or salary at a provincial office should be accompanied with a detailed statement (in accordance with a printed form prepared by myself) of the work and expenditure of such office. By making good use of these, I gradually arrived at averages which I used as guides in subsequent cases, and thus became enabled to exercise a salutary control. Doubtless many applications were altogether prevented by the conviction that the statement would not justify the demand: in some instances such statement was withheld on the plea of urgency; a move which was met by a temporary grant of force, to be made permanent if shown to be needful. Other modes were tried, but in the end lack of success effectually checked unwarranted attempts. I may add that the plan is still in use, is found to save much perplexity at the Post Office, and has operated beneficially in at once preventing needless expenditure and in enabling the Office to do prompt justice to well-founded claims.

I have already implied that movements were impeded, and labour increased, by difficulty of access to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but it should be added that this went so far, especially during the parliamentary session, that pressing affairs were sometimes kept for weeks, and even months, awaiting his decision. When, at length, the end of the session came, the exhausted minister felt the imperative demand for rest; and resolved to take six weeks’ holiday. The reader who has accompanied me through the last three years will not wonder to find that I had a like requirement: I, therefore, requested and obtained leave of absence for the same period. What proportion of this furlough was available for its purpose to the Chancellor, I, of course, cannot exactly say; it is sufficient for me to speak for myself. As the difficulties relative to obliteration were still upon me, I should not have left town but from absolute necessity; and even in going I was obliged to make such arrangements as could scarcely fail of producing recall; knowing, too, all the time, that even while I was away, many papers would of necessity be referred to me; so that, at best, my days of vacation would be but half-holidays.

Leaving home on August 14th, I got on pretty well for five days; when, amongst various papers, came the Postmaster-General’s formal announcements relative to the failure of obliteration, with a request from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I would report upon it. While I was dealing with this, I received, on the 21st, the notice that Mr. Parsons’ obliterating ink had proved ineffectual; and my anxiety was so great, that though but a week of my holiday was gone, I determined on an almost immediate return to town.

After nine days spent on the matter which had recalled me, and other business at my office, thinking matters now in tolerable train, I again left town; going, however, only to Ramsgate, that I might keep within call, and arranging to receive a daily report of progress. Altogether, I had this time an interval of twelve days, interrupted only by the daily receipt of papers which I could deal with where I was; but on September 13th I was again recalled:—

Four days were now occupied mainly in procuring the information thus called for, and in drawing up my Report on the subject; in which the increase in charges for conveyance had to take a conspicuous part; but on the 18th I again returned to Ramsgate, where fortunately I was able to remain until the 30th, my term of holiday having been considerately extended by a week, on account of interruptions. I have already shown that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was working as hard as myself; abundant evidence of this might be produced from my Journal, but I will give only one more extract:—

I have now little left to complete the history of this year. Among other expedients I had recommended the introduction of pillar letter-boxes as they are now usually called; a plan which in its essential part I had seen in use in France some years before:—

Mr. Baring’s consent was, I believe, acted upon; but I had accomplished little more in this direction when the interruption occurred to which I have already adverted.

However, as the year of which I am now speaking (1840) advanced, increase in the number of letters began to show that steady progress which has never since been interrupted. Before the end of June this was pretty manifest, and by the middle of November progress was not only steady but rapid.

I insert here the following extracts from a letter received somewhat later from Captain Basil Hall:—

This is, so far as I am aware, the first mention of that now almost universal practice, which has nearly made wafers and sealing-wax things of the past.

On December 15th I first saw, in my brother Edwin’s room at Somerset House, and in its earliest form that envelope-folding machine which attracted so much attention at the first International Exhibition, and is now in constant and extensive use. In the model it already seemed to do its work very well, but the labour of some years was yet required to complete its adaptation to its purpose. In this latter part of the process my brother received important assistance from Mr. Warren De La Rue, who in the end purchased the patent.

The following passage shows that the close of the year was full of anxiety for that which was to follow:—

Before closing the narrative of this year, I may mention one or two incidents of an amusing character.

Soon after the issue of the adhesive stamp, a distinguished connoisseur, reading the direction to affix the stamp “on the right-hand side of the letter,” felt a doubt as to what this might really mean. Being in the artistic habit of reversing sides in speaking of pictures, and probably having done so in the case of Mulready’s beautiful though unacceptable design, he wished to know whether the term “right” were to be received in the artistic or the common sense. Accordingly, knocking at the office window, he modestly requested to be informed which was the right-hand side of the letter, when he was repulsed with the counter-demand, “Do you think we have nothing to do but to answer idle questions?” the window at the same time closing with a bang.

In the same year there was, as may be still remembered, much public excitement in expectation of Her Majesty’s first accouchement; lively interest turning upon the question whether the nation would be blessed with a prince or princess. Amongst other speculation on the subject, doubtless a good deal went on in the room where the three messengers passed most of their time, with little else to do than to discuss the topics of the day, of which they probably supposed every one’s head to be as full as their own. For myself, as I was during the whole period engaged in the earnest effort to give my plan that full development which was essential to its success, I fear I did not give to the great question all the attention which its importance demanded; and even when the grand announcement was matter of hourly expectation, I was completely absorbed in the device of means for overcoming one or other of the numberless difficulties with which I had to contend. In the midst of this research the door was suddenly thrown open by my messenger, with a loud exclamation, “A Princess Royal, Sir!” As the sounds which reached my ear did not inform my understanding, I merely looked up from my paper with the inquiry, “Who?” and the announcement, though repeated, still conveying but half-meaning, the only result was that I started up from my chair, in surprise and perplexity, with a direction to my messenger that he should “show the lady upstairs.”

I close the year’s history in a manner very pleasing to myself by transcribing the following extract from a letter received in the course of it from one to whose works I felt, in common with many of my contemporaries, deeply indebted; and whose name I can never mention but with gratitude and respect:—

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CHAPTER IX.
PROGRESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

At the opening of 1841 I had been a year and a quarter in office; and, as has been seen, had been enabled, by dint of great efforts, backed by the increasing confidence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to bring into operation the most striking parts of my plan; those, indeed, which many, probably most, people at the time regarded as the whole plan; though the reader must be aware that very much was still lacking to its completion, to say nothing of those further improvements of which I was necessarily getting sight as I advanced in my work. If it had ever been supposed by Government that the whole plan could be established within the two years for which alone I had been engaged, either unfounded expectations must have been held as to Post Office co-operation, or I must have been accredited with such energy—moral and physical—such powers of convincing, persuading, or over-riding, as have been vouchsafed to few indeed. I had worked, and was still working, to the utmost extent of my power; but not only was every onward step retarded by the adverse feeling and cumbrous routine already referred to, but, as has been seen, the very maintenance of Stamp Office and Post Office action in such efficiency as to prevent clog or disaster, had demanded of me almost incessant watchfulness and exertion. In short, it might by this time have been perceived that to give full effect even to my published plan would require at least several years of unremitting labour; while the field of postal improvement, taken as a whole, was (as, indeed, it still is) absolutely boundless. However, I felt at this time no further anxiety about the durability of my engagement than such as related to the stability of the existing administration. Not only had Mr. Baring expressed in words his increasing confidence, but yet greater assurance came to me from his increasing readiness to adopt my suggestions (whenever I could get opportunity to explain them), and from his leaving the routine work, so great in amount, more and more to my decision. Nay, should there arrive the calamitous event just alluded to, the exchange of the Liberal for a Tory Administration, I could not avoid indulging in the hope that even the latter, accepting the new order of things as they had done on a far greater question[311] six years before, might, if only in a spirit of emulation, carry on the good work; retaining my services as a necessary means to the end. Should the reader be inclined to think that I was dwelling too much on my own interests, let him review all the main circumstances, and I think he will judge me more charitably. Let him remember how important complete efficiency in the plan was, alike to public convenience and fiscal ends; let him remember that in the Post Office itself the plan was already declared a failure; that its very permanence was yet problematical: let him consider all the reasons there were to believe that the great ends in question could be attained only by the constant efforts of one who combined, with the knowledge drawn from long and laborious investigation, a personal interest so deep that failure in this would seem to be failure in all, and he will not find it very hard to understand how, apart from private considerations (to which, nevertheless, I could not be insensible), I looked upon the retention of my post as a point of almost vital importance.

However, though these thoughts could not but pass through my mind, their only immediate effect was to confirm my previous determination (if that could be strengthened) to make myself so useful that my services should be regarded as indispensable. I had yet to learn that men in power do not always prefer public good to party advantage. Meantime, was it possible that I misapprehended the state of feeling at the Post Office in respect of my plan and myself? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, friendly as he had shown himself to both, held a more favourable opinion, and might he not be in the right? Events were in progress towards the complete resolution of this question; but, meantime, the difference of opinion between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and me was necessarily an obstacle to progress, since it led me to urge what he was often at first, and sometimes at last, inclined to resist.

I must admit, however, that the first passage in my Journal for the year 1841 which bears at all on the question of Post Office management is far from being of an adverse character; it is as follows:—

It may be not unprofitable to mention an arrangement at the Post Office, explaining, in a measure, its habitual promptitude in reply. The papers constantly accumulating in the Secretary’s office, I should think, at the rate of a small cart-load per week, are in the keeping, not of clerks, but of a corps of messengers, chosen from the general body for their superior intelligence. These, under one of their own number, manage the whole business of tying up, docketing, indexing, and arranging; and are always ready on occasion for the duty of research. The whole is admirably managed; and, contrary to what any one would have expected, is believed to be better done than it would be by men of higher station. Many years after the events now in narration, it was hastily thought, in a general revision of duties, that the head officer of the corps should be taken from a higher grade; but the change was found far from beneficial, and was soon reversed. The explanation seems to be that the higher officer, thinking himself rather lowered by his new employment, the more so as handling dusty papers must, in some degree, have marred the results of his toilet, discharged the duty in but a perfunctory manner; while those of the lower grade, justly regarding themselves as raised in trust and position, executed it as men perform a task in which they take pride.

It has been seen how much care was taken to prevent unlawful practices relative to the stamp; and the experience of many years attests the efficacy of the means adopted. Of course, too, when discovery, or seeming discovery, was made of a flaw in our security, the fact was carefully withheld from the public during the period of experiment and rectification. What, then, was my surprise and vexation at an occurrence thus recorded in my Journal?—

On Mr. Cole’s applying at the Polytechnic Institution, the authorities there produced an official letter from Colonel Maberly, authorising the experiments in question, and stating that he would bear them harmless. It must be added that the experiments thus injuriously made were but a repetition of processes performed some months before, under proper authority, by Mr. Palmer, of Newgate Street; and, further, that as the stamp had now been officially registered, no attempt at imitation could be lawfully made save by authority of the Commissioners of Stamps; who, again, would have to give power by a formal warrant.

The Post Office condemnation of my plan, founded on the slow progress in the number of letters, still continuing, it was a little remarkable that there came from the same quarter written warnings to the Treasury of an expected “break-down” from excessive increase:—