The above was the rate of the postage during my youth, and until I was twenty-three years of age, when gradual reductions began to be made, the result of which has been the postal rates as they stand today. The rates above mentioned indicate the kind of currency prevailing at the time. Articles on sale were priced at so many cents, or a four-pence happenny (six and a quarter cents), nine pence (twelve and a half cents,) a shilling (sixteen and two-thirds cents) a quarter of a dollar, two and three pence (thirty-seven and a half cents) a half a dollar, three and nine pence (or sixty-two and a half cents) four and six pence (or seventy-five cents) and so on to a dollar. Finally Mexican coins were eliminated from our currency, and the genuine American decimal coinage exclusively prevailed. Until the year 1855, prepayment was optional, but with the introduction of postage stamps, prepayment was required, and when after the establishment of expresses, it was found that they engaged in the carriage of letters the practice was forbidden unless the letters were stamped. If under the old system letters were not prepaid, it was by no means unusual for persons to whom they were addressed, to refuse to receive them and pay the high postage due. It goes without saying that persons known to be going to Boston or New York were pretty well loaded, as I have often been with letters to be delivered not only to friends, but also to men in business. If cheap postage is a blessing, it may be doubted whether it is an unalloyed one. As one of its penalties, letter writing has become a lost art. A three-line note or a postal card, or what is worse, a dictation by a stenographer from which the last vestige of communion of friend with friend is completely extinguished, has taken the place of the welcome epistles which our grandmothers and aunts wrote with care, and filled full not only with gossip and family news, but also with instructive comments on events of the day. How much future readers will lose by the absence of such volumes of correspondence as have graced our literature during the last hundred years! In connection with letters it may be well enough to say for the benefit of my young readers that until 1840 envelopes were unknown, and letters were universally folded and sealed either with sealing wax or wafers. There was an expression of deliberation and composure investing such correspondence which is lost in the correspondence of today. Now and then some impecunious person found sealing wax and even wafers unnecessarily extravagant. I was told many years ago by a man who called on the late Joshua Sears who left his millions to a son, recently deceased, that he found him splitting wafers. Since the days of envelopes I have known an officer of one of our institutions to save all his letters, and turn the envelopes for future use. CHAPTER XX.