The postal reform is one which, save as regards its most salient features, has been established somewhat on the “gradual instalment system,” each instalment, as a rule, coming into operation after a hard struggle on the part of its promoter, and several years later than when first proposed. Prepayment of postage, for example, one of the most essential parts of my father's plan, was long allowed to remain optional, although he had “counted upon universal prepayment as an important means towards simplifying the accounts, with consequent economy of time and expense, the expedient of double postage on post-payment being regarded as a temporary mode of avoiding the difficulties naturally attending a transition state; and though hitherto deferring the measure to more pressing matters, I had always looked forward to a time suitable for taking the step necessary to the completion of my plan. The almost universal resort to prepayment had rendered accounts of postage very short and easy, but obviously universal practice alone could render them altogether unnecessary.”[217] The attempt to make prepayment compulsory was renewed in 1859, the proportion of unpaid letters having by that date become very small. But the public generally were insensible to the advantage to the service which economy of time and labour must secure, while the few active malcontents who thought themselves qualified to be a law unto themselves, if not to others, raised so much clamour that it was considered advisable to postpone issue of the edict. An error of judgment, perhaps, since the public soon becomes accustomed to any rule that is at once just and easy to follow; as indeed had already been shown by the readiness—entirely contrary to official prediction—with which prepayment had, from the first, been accepted. After all, submission to compulsory prepayment of our postage is not one whit more slavish than submission to compulsory prepayment of our railway and other vehicular fares, a gentle form of coercion to which even those of us who are the most revolutionary of mind assent with exemplary meekness. So far back as 1842[218] Rowland Hill had recommended the establishment of a parcel post, but, although renewing his efforts both in 1858 and 1863, he was forced to leave accomplishment of this boon to later reformers. In the last-named year, however, the pattern post came into operation.