The members of the Committee did their work, altogether, with zeal, great discrimination, and ability. The plan and the favourable witnesses stood the scrutiny with wonderful success; and Mr. Hill himself bore up, under what George Stephenson regarded as the greatest crucial test to which mortal man can be subjected, with tact and firmness, fully proving, in evidence, the soundness of the conclusions on which judgment had to be passed. We may say here, as we have not before referred to the circumstance, that it was necessary to make it clear to the Committee, the amount of increase in correspondence necessary to the success of the scheme. In opposition to the views of official men,[93] Mr. Hill held that a fivefold increase in the number of letters would suffice to preserve the existing revenue, and he hazarded a prediction that that increase would soon be reached. As regarded the means of conveyance, he showed that the stage-coaches, &c. already in existence could carry twenty-seven times the number of letters they had ever yet done; and this statement passed without dispute. The evidence was clear and convincing as to the vast amount of contraband letters daily conveyed; and no less certainly was it shown that, if Mr. Hill's schemes were carried out, the temptation to evasion of postage would be at once abolished, inasmuch as there would then be no sufficient inducement to resort to illegal mediums. A Glasgow merchant stated before the Committee, that he knew five manufacturers in that city whose correspondence was transmitted illegally in the following proportions, viz.--(1) three to one; (2) eighteen to one; (3) sixteen to one; (4) eight to one; and (5) fifteen to one. Manchester merchants--among whom was Mr. Cobden--stated that they had no doubt that four-fifths of the letters written in that town did not pass through the Post-Office. No member of the Committee had any idea of the extent to which the illicit conveyance of letters was carried. A carrier in Scotland was examined, and confessed to having carried sixty letters daily, on the average, for a number of years--knew other carriers who conveyed, on an average, five hundred daily. He assured the Committee that the smuggling was alone done to save the postage. "There might be cases when it was more convenient, or done to save time, but the great object was cheapness." The labouring classes, especially, had no other reason. "They avail themselves of every possible opportunity for getting their letters conveyed cheaply or free." In his opinion, the practice could not be put a stop to until the Post-Office authorities followed the example that was set them in putting down illicit distillation in Scotland. "I would reduce the duty, and that would put an end to it, by bringing it down to the expense of conveyance by carriers and others." Mr. John Reid--an extensive bookseller and publisher in Glasgow--sent and received, illicitly, about fifty letters or circulars daily. "I was