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In addition they were allowed what were called "postages" the full returns from the amount of postage on the letters carried. Ocean postage at that time was enormous and burdensome, and was especially onerous upon a class of persons least able to bear it. About three-quarters of the letters transported by ships were written by emigrants.
There were 1,698 post-offices established and 256 discontinued during the year. The gross revenues of the Department for the fiscal year, including the appropriations for the franked matter of Congress, of the Departments, and officers of Government, and excluding the foreign postages collected for and payable to the British post-office, amounted to $6,727,866.78.
To get these subsidies, in conjunction with the "postages," the steamship owners by one means or another corrupted postal officials and members of Congress. "I have noticed," said Senator Toombs, in a speech in the United States Senate on June 9, 1858, that there has never been a head of a Department strong enough to resist steamship contracts.
The scale of postages suggested by the Post Master General recommends itself, not only by the reduction it proposes, but by the simplicity of its arrangement, its conformity with the Federal currency, and the improvement it will introduce into the accounts of the Department and its agents. Your particular attention is invited to the subject of mail contracts with railroad companies.
The expenditures for the same period, excluding $20,599.49, paid under an award of the Auditor, in pursuance of a resolution of the last Congress, for mail service on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in 1832 and 1833, and the amount paid to the British post-office for foreign postages collected for and payable to that office, amounted to $6,024,566.79, leaving a balance of revenue over the proper expenditures of the year of $703,299.99.
The scale of postages suggested by the Post Master General recommends itself, not only by the reduction it proposes, but by the simplicity of its arrangement, its conformity with the Federal currency, and the improvement it will introduce into the accounts of the Department and its agents. Your particular attention is invited to the subject of mail contracts with railroad companies.
In the adjustment of the tariff of postages the interests of the people demand that the lowest rates be adopted which will produce the necessary revenue to meet the expenditures of the Department.
Postmasters whose compensation amounts to $1,000 or more in a year, are appointed by the president and senate. Postmasters whose commission on postages has been less than $200 during the preceding year, may receive and send, free of postage, letters on their own private business, weighing not more than half an ounce.
At this very moment when we introduce him to our readers with all the consideration such a many-sided man merits, William W. Kolderup had 2000 branch offices scattered over the globe, 80,000 employés in America, Europe, and Australia, 300,000 correspondents, a fleet of 500 ships which continually ploughed the ocean for his profit, and he was spending not less than a million a year in bill-stamps and postages.
On the arrival of the first of the American steamers bound to Bremen at Southampton, in the month of June last, the British post-office directed the collection of discriminating postages on all letters and other mailable matter which she took out to Great Britain or which went into the British post-office on their way to France and other parts of Europe.
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