[14] What other man ever depicted a Becky Sharpe, a Beatrix Esmond, a Mrs Bute Crawley, or a Lady Kew—to say nothing of minor characters? [15] “Thackeray's London.” By W. H. Rideing. [16] Less than half a century before the time described by Mr Wills, the mother of Sir Humphrey Davy left the fact on record that in Penzance, a town of 2,000 inhabitants, there were but one cart, one carpet, no such thing as a silver fork, no merchandise brought to the place save that carried by pack-horses, and every one who travelled went on horseback. On this state of things Palmer's mail coaches had a most rousing effect. [17] When Miss Edgeworth's father in 1804 wrote the preface to her “Popular Tales,” he quoted Burke as saying that in the United Kingdom one person in every hundred could read, and added that he hoped his daughter's works would attract the attention of a good many “thousands.” Millions of readers were probably undreamed of. The schoolmaster has made some progress since those days. CHAPTER I THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM “Postage is one of the worst of our taxes. Few taxes, if any, have so injurious a tendency as the tax upon the communication by letters. I cannot doubt that a taxation upon communication by letters must bear heavily upon commerce; it is, in fact, taxing the conversation of people who live at a distance from each other. The communication of letters by persons living at a distance is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the same town. You might as well tax words spoken upon the Royal Exchange as the communications of various persons living in Manchester, Liverpool, and London.”—Lord ASHBURTON, a conservative peer. “We build National Galleries, and furnish them with pictures; we propose to create public walks for the air and health and exercise of the community at the general cost of the country. I do not think that either of these, useful and valuable as they are to the community, and fit as they are for Government to sanction, are more conducive to the moral and social advancement of the community than the facility of intercourse by post.”—SAMUEL JONES LOYD (Lord OVERSTONE), banker and financier. “It is commercial suicide to restrict the free transmission of letters.”—(Sir) WILLIAM BROWN, a Liverpool merchant. “We are cut off from our relatives by the high rates of postage.”—G. HENSON, a working hosier of Nottingham.