In 1836, Sir Francis Freeling, the Secretary of the Post-Office, died, when his place was filled by Lieutenant-Colonel Maberly. The latter gentleman, who was an entire stranger to the department, was introduced into the Post-Office by the Treasury for the purpose, as it was stated, of zealously carrying out the reforms which another commission of inquiry had just recommended.[75] On the premature fall of Sir Robert Peel's first Cabinet, early in the previous year, the Earl of Lichfield had succeeded to the office of Postmaster-General under Lord Melbourne. The two new officers set to work in earnest, and succeeded in inaugurating many important reforms. They got the Money-order Office transferred, as we have already seen, from private hands to the General Establishment; they began the system of registering valuable letters; and, taking advantage of one of Mr. Hill's suggestions, they started a number of day-mails to the provinces. Towards the close of 1836, the stamp duty on newspapers was reduced from about threepence-farthing net to one penny, a reduction which led to an enormous increase in the number of newspapers passing through the Post-Office. Though all these improvements were being carried out, and in many respects the Post-Office was showing signs of progression, the authorities still clung with a most unreasonable tenacity to the accustomed rates of postage, and of necessity to all the evils which followed in the train of an erroneous fiscal principle. Contrary to all experience in any other department, the Government obstinately refused to listen for a moment to any plan for the reduction of postage rates, or, what is still more remarkable, even to the alleviation of burdens caused directly by the official arrangements of the period. For example, Colonel Maberly had no sooner learnt the business of his office, than he saw very clearly an anomaly which pressed heavily in some cases, and was felt in all. He at once made a proposition to the Treasury that letters should be charged in all cases according to the exact distance between the places where a letter was posted and where delivered, and not according to the distance through which the Post-Office, _for purposes of its own_, might choose to send such letters. It may serve to show the extent to which this strange and anomalous practice was carried, if we state that the estimated reduction in the postal revenue, had Colonel Maberly's suggestion been acted upon, was given at no less than 80,000_l._ annually! The Lords of the Treasury promptly refused the concession.