As to this increase, I have already shown something of its progress in Great Britain, beginning with one hundred and twenty-two per cent. the first year of penny postage.[106] Why may not the same take place with us? According to the official table now on our desks, the smaller population of the United Kingdom sends more letters than ours. It would be difficult to credit this result, if the figures did not tell the tale beyond correction. Here is the table:[107]-- +-------------------------+--------------+---------------+ | |United States,|United Kingdom,| |Proportion of Letters | year ending | year | | and Revenue to | June 30, |ending Dec. 31,| | Population. | 1868. | 1867. | +-------------------------+--------------+---------------+ |Population (estimated) | 40,092,356| 30,305,284 | |Number of letters | | | | delivered (estimated) | 488,000,000| 774,831,000 | |Number of letters to | | | | each person | 12| 26 | |Gross revenue |$16,232,148.16| $23,341,070 | |Amount of revenue to each| | | | person of aggregate | | | | population | 40 cents| 77 cents | +-------------------------+--------------+---------------+ Testimony could not be stronger. The smaller population sends a larger sum-total of letters, making of course a larger number for each person, and yielding a larger gross revenue. It is humiliating to think that the people of this Monarchy send at the rate of twenty-six letters for each person, while the citizens of our Republic send only at the rate of twelve for each person. The inverse disproportion of letters becomes the more remarkable, when it is understood that the proportion of people who can read and write is greater among us than in the United Kingdom, so that, all other things being equal, the number of letters by each person should be greater among us; but we are obliged to confront the unquestionable fact that the number is less. How is this? Why is this? I know no way of accounting for it except in the discouraging cost of correspondence. Here I find unquestionable reason to conclude that we have not a proper rate of postage. Clearly something is wanting. It is not education; for the people among us excel the British people in this respect. It is not business, or family, or friendship; for are not all these active with us? I submit that we want nothing but cheap postage, so that the people, finding their means in harmony with the rates, shall be tempted to write letters. So it was in England; and so it may be among us.