[38] “Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry,” pp. 621, 622. Now, if 570 letters, payment for which had not to be waited for, could be delivered in half an hour, it follows that in the hour and half consumed in delivering those 67 other letters, three times 570, or 1710, _prepaid_ letters might have been distributed. This one small fact alone furnishes proof of the necessity for prepayment, for this test delivery was made in the heart of the city of London, where prompt delivery and common-sense postal regulations are of paramount importance to business men. [39] “Post Office Reform,” p. 29. [40] “Post Office Reform,” p. 29. [41] “The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago,” p. 12. [42] “Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage,” p. 22. [43] “The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago,” p. 14. [44] “Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage,” p. 12. [45] _Ibid._ pp. 13, 14. [46] “Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage,” pp. 13, 14. [47] “Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage,” pp. 15-30. CHAPTER II SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS In Mr Joyce's already quoted and exhaustive work upon the Post Office as it existed before 1840 an interesting account is given of the reformers who, long before Rowland Hill's time, did so much to render the service efficient, and therefore to benefit the nation. As pioneers in a good cause, they deserve mention in another volume dealing with the same public Department; and their story is perhaps the better worth repeating because it shows how curiously similar is the treatment meted out to those who are rash enough to meddle with a long-established monopoly, no matter how greatly it may stand in need of reform. In every instance the reformer struggled hard for recognition of the soundness of his views, toiled manfully when once he had acquired the position he deserved to hold, was more or less thwarted and harassed while he filled it, and, precisely as if he had been a mischievous innovator instead of a public benefactor, was eventually got rid of. As regards the Post Office, each of the best-known reformers was handicapped by the fact that, with one notable exception, he was that unwelcome thing, an outsider. Murray was an upholsterer, or, according to another account, a clerk in the Assize Office; Dockwra was a sub-searcher at the Custom House; and Palmer was the proprietor of the Bath theatre. My father, as has been shown, had been a schoolmaster, a rotatory printing press inventor, and a member of the South Australian Commission. Even when his plan was accepted by the Government, he had yet to set foot within the Post Office, though not for want of trying to enter, because while collecting material for his pamphlet in 1836 he had applied to the authorities for permission to inspect the working of the Department, only to meet with a refusal.