Reference has been made to the fact that a century ago the little packets, to which the mails and passengers were consigned, were built for fighting purposes. It was no uncommon thing for them to fall into the hands of an enemy; but they did not always succumb without doing battle, and sometimes they had the honours of the day. In 1793 the _Antelope_ packet fought a privateer off the coast of Cuba and captured it, after 49 of the 65 men the privateer carried had been killed or disabled. The _Antelope_ had only two killed and three wounded--one mortally. In 1803 the _Lady Hobart_, a vessel of 200 tons, sailing from Nova Scotia for England, fell in with and captured a French schooner; but the _Lady Hobart_ a few days later ran into an iceberg, receiving such damage that she shortly thereafter foundered. The mails were loaded with iron and thrown overboard, and the crew and passengers, taking to the boats, made for Newfoundland, which they reached after enduring great hardships. The introduction of the uniform Penny Postage, under the scheme with which Sir Rowland Hill's name is so intimately associated, and the Jubilee of which occurs in the present year, marks an important epoch in the review which is now under consideration. To enter into a history of the Penny Postage agitation would be beyond the scope of these pages. Like all great schemes, the idea propounded was fought against inch by inch, and the battle, so far as the objectors are concerned, remains a memorial of the incapacity of a great portion of mankind to think out any scheme on its merits. Whatever is new is sure to be opposed, apparently on no other ground than that of novelty, and in this bearing men are often not unlike some of the lower creatures in the scale of animated nature, that start and fly from things which they have not seen before, though they may have no more substance than that of a shadow. However this may be, the Penny Postage measure has produced stupendous results. In 1839, the year before the reduction of postage, the letters passing through the post in the United Kingdom were 82,500,000. In 1840, under the Penny Postage Scheme, the number immediately rose to nearly 169,000,000. That is to say, the letters were doubled in number. Ten years later the number rose to 347,000,000, and in last year (1889) the total number of letters passing through the Post Office in this country was 1,558,000,000. In addition to the letters, however, the following articles passed through the post last year--Book Packets and Circulars, 412,000,000; Newspapers 152,000,000; Post Cards 201,000,000. * * * * * _Form of Petition used in agitation for the Uniform Penny Postage._ UNIFORM PENNY POSTAGE. (FORM OF A PETITION.) TO THE HONOURABLE THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL [_or_, THE COMMONS, _as the case may be_] IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED:-- The humble Petition of the Undersigned [_to be filled up with the name of Place, Corporation, &c._] SHEWETH,