costs him a day's pay to communicate with his family). A state machinery of schoolmasters on the Prussian system would cost far more than the sacrifice of revenue by the reduction of postage. This measure will be the great historical distinction of the reign of Victoria. Every mother in the kingdom who has children earning their bread at a distance lays her head on the pillow at night with a feeling of gratitude for this blessing." Almost all now living, who shared the benefits of the scheme at this early date, could probably relate some anecdote which circumstances had brought to their knowledge as to the operation of penny postage _on the poorer classes especially_. Thus, the then Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, visiting the Shetland Islands in 1842, writes:[106] "The Zetlanders are delighted with cheap postage. The postmaster told me that the increase in the number of letters is astonishing.... Another gentleman who is well acquainted with the people told me, that although the desire of parents to keep their offspring at home is unusually strong in Zetland, yet that cheap postage has had the effect of reconciling families to the temporary absence of their members, and has thus opened to the islanders the labour-market of the mainland." An American writer,[107] in an admirable pamphlet on cheap postage, says: "The people of England expend now as much money as they did under the old system; but the advantage is, they get more service for their money, and it gives a spring to business, trade, science, literature, philanthropy, social affection, and all plans of public utility." Joseph Hume, writing to Mr. Bancroft, then American minister at the court of St. James's, 1848, says: "I am not aware of any reform, amongst the many which I have promoted during the past forty years, that has had, and will have, better results towards the improvement of the country socially, morally, and politically." And Mr. Hill himself, in addressing the Statistical Society in May, 1841,[108] made a statement which was neither an idle nor a vain boast, when he assured them that "the postman has now to make long rounds through humble districts where, heretofore, his knock was rarely heard."