inland letters" (3,019). He also said that the public would object to pay _in advance_ whatever the rate (10,932-3). The Committee next had their attention called to still more important facts, viz. that the number of letters conveyed illegally bore no proportion to the number which were not written at all on account of the high rates of postage. On the poor the Post-Office charges pressed grievously, and there seemed no other course open to them than that, if their letters could not be received without the payment of exorbitant rates, they must lie in the hands of the authorities. It is only necessary to compare the income of a labouring man with his pressing wants to see that it was idle to suppose that he would apply his little surplus to the enjoyment of post-letters other than in cases of life and death. The Committee were absolutely flooded with instances in which the Post-Office charges seriously interfered with the wants and reasonable enjoyments of the poor. On the general question involved, nearly all the witnesses, of whatever rank or grade, evidenced that the public, to an enormous extent, were deterred from writing letters and sending communications, which otherwise, under a cheaper tariff, they would write and send. That this part of the case was proved may be concluded from the language of the Committee themselves:--"The multitude of transactions which, owing to the high rates of postage, are prevented from being done, or which, if done, are not announced, is quite astonishing. Bills for moderate amounts are not drawn; small orders for goods are not given or received; remittances of money are not acknowledged; the expediting of goods by sea and land, and the sailing or arrival of ships not advised; printers do not send their proofs; the country attorney delays writing to his London agent, the commercial traveller to his principal, the town-banker to his agent in the country. In all these, and many other cases, regularity and punctuality is neglected in attempts to save the expenses of exorbitant rates of postage." On all the other parts of the scheme, and on the scheme itself as a whole, the Committee spoke no less decisively. Generally and briefly, they considered that Mr. Hill's strange and startling facts had been brought out in evidence. They gave their opinion that the rates of postage were so high as materially to interfere with and prejudice trade and commerce; that the trading and commercial classes had sought, and successfully, illicit means of evading the payment of these heavy charges, and that all classes, for the self-same reason, corresponded free of postage when possible; that the _rate_ of postage exceeded the _cost_ of the business in a manifold proportion; and that, altogether, the existing state of things acted most prejudicially to commerce and to the social habits and moral condition of the people. They conclude, therefore,--