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We also, within the memory of many of us, had a franking privilege, which was peculiarly objectionable, inasmuch as it operated toward giving a free transmission of their letters by post to the rich, while no such privilege was within reach of the poor. But with us it never stretched itself to such an extent as it has now achieved in the States. The number of letters for members was limited.

It will be observed that the revenues of the Post Office Department, though they have increased, and their amount is above that of any former year, have yet fallen short of the estimates more than $100,000. This is attributed in a great degree to the increase of free letters growing out of the extension and abuse of the franking privilege.

Hitherto the American office has not taken upon itself the task of returning to their writers undelivered and undeliverable letters. This it is now going to do. It is, as I have said, shaking off from itself that terrible incubus, the franking privilege.

There is also too much reason to fear that the franking privilege has run into great abuse. The Department, nevertheless, has been conducted with the greatest vigor, and has attained at the least possible expense all the useful objects for which it was established.

When Madame de Sévigny, Cowper, Horace Walpole, Byron, Lamb, and the Carlyles wrote their immortal letters the world was a leisurely place where there was time to indulge in the luxury of writing to your friends. And the cost of franking a letter made that letter a serious affair.

And members of congress, during their term of office, and until the first of December after its expiration, may send and receive letters and packages weighing not more than two ounces, and all public documents free. A person to be entitled to send matter free, must write on the outside his name and the title of his office. This is called franking.

However, when he saw my lord's franking, he said, "Are the boroughs, then, really and truly to be contested?" "Come into the shop, Mr M'Lucre," said I sedately; "come in, and hear what I have to say." And he came in, and I shut and barred the half-door, in order that we might not be suddenly interrupted.

With the adoption of the recommendations contained therein, particularly those relating to a reform in the franking privilege and the adoption of the "correspondence cards," a self-sustaining postal system may speedily be looked for, and at no distant day a further reduction of the rate of postage be attained.

It will be observed that the revenues of the Post Office Department, though they have increased, and their amount is above that of any former year, have yet fallen short of the estimates more than $100,000. This is attributed in a great degree to the increase of free letters growing out of the extension and abuse of the franking privilege.

When franking letters he amused himself by changing the formula, "Free: B. Franklin" into "B. Free, Franklin." He was next made chairman of the provincial committee of safety, a body which began its sittings at the comfortable, old-fashioned hour of six o'clock in the morning.