At the present day indulgence in a practice of this sort would seem contemptible, a fraud to which only the meanest of mankind would resort. But had we too lived when postage was charged on a fourth part only of the entire mail, and when the writers of the letters forming that fourth part, and we among them, were taxed to make up the loss on the franked three-quarters, perhaps even we, immaculate as we believe ourselves to be, might have been tempted to put our scruples into our pocket to keep company with our slender purse, and have taken to “ways that are dark,” though, if less astute than Mr John Smith and his London correspondent, possibly also to “tricks that are vain”—with unpleasant consequences to ourselves. There is an oft-quoted story about Coleridge, who, one day while wandering through the Lake District, saw a poor woman refuse a letter which the postman offered her. The kindly poet, in spite of the woman's evident reluctance to accept the gift, paid the money she could not raise; but when the letter was opened, it was seen to be a blank sheet of paper not intended for acceptance, but sent by her son according to preconcerted agreement as a sign that he was well.[37] This, then, is not only yet another illustration of the frauds to which the “have nots” were driven to resort, but, further, shows how profitless, even costly, was the labour imposed upon the Post Office by the system to which the authorities clung with so unaccountable an affection. For an unaccepted sheet of paper does not travel from London to the Lake District for nothing; and when we multiply one unaccepted letter by many thousands, one may form some idea of the amount of fruitless trouble as well as fruitless outlay which was incurred by the Department.