In former debates of the Senate, an incident was mentioned by Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky,[98] which illustrates the character of these unproductive lines. During a journey in Tennessee in the summer of 1844, the Senator had occasion to go to an outlying post-office in the interior of the State, on reaching which, late at night, he found the postmaster had gone to bed, leaving the mail-bags in the wagons. To his inquiries concerning this singular circumstance, “Why, Sir,” responded the official, “we don’t take the bags out at all; we don’t even look into them; it is so seldom we receive anything, we don’t think it worth while.” And upon investigation it in fact appeared that there was not a letter in any one of these bags, and had not been for a month. But this costly mail-service was at the expense of the correspondence elsewhere. The letter of the distant seaboard was a contributor. DISTANCE ALONE DOES NOT CAUSE EXPENSE. Sometimes it is supposed that the great distances of our country cause the large expense; but this is a mistake, founded on superficial observation. The large expense proceeds from something besides distance. Here I quote the words of Rowland Hill:-- “It is not matter of inference, but a matter of fact, that the expense to the Post-Office is practically the same, whether a letter is going from London to Barnet [eleven miles] or whether it is going from London to Edinburgh [four hundred miles]; the difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have.”[99] I have already mentioned that the actual cost of transportation from London to Edinburgh was only one thirty-sixth of a penny, and this was the average for all letters throughout the United Kingdom. With so small a fraction of a penny representing the cost of the longest line, it was apparent that the element of distance must be eliminated from the question. A recent writer thus strongly testifies to this rule:-- “If Mr. Hill demonstrated one thing more plainly than another, it was that the absolute cost of the transmission of each letter was so infinitesimally small, that, if charged according to that cost, the postage could not be collected. Besides, it is not certain that the one letter would cost the Post-Office more than the other.”[100] But this rule is as applicable in our country as in the United Kingdom, always provided the lines are productive. This rule, first enunciated by Rowland Hill, was substantially adopted by the Parliamentary Committee, when they say,--