Still delving among the Parliamentary Blue Books, he further gathered that the cost of the service rendered—that is, of the receipt, conveyance, and distribution of each ordinary missive sent from post town to post town within the United Kingdom—averaged 84/100ths of a penny only; 28/100ths going to conveyance, and 56/100ths to the receipt and delivery, collection of postage, etc. Also that the cost of conveyance for a given distance being generally in direct proportion to the weight carried, and a newspaper or franked letter weighing about as much as several ordinary letters, the average expense of conveying a letter chargeable with postage must be still lower, probably some 9/100ths of a penny: a conclusion supported by the well-known fact, already alluded to,[75] that the chargeable letters weighed, on an average, one fourth only of the entire mail. He also found that the whole cost of the mail-coach service for one journey between London and Edinburgh was only £5 a day.[76] The average load of the mail diurnally carried being some six hundred-weight, the cost of each hundred-weight was therefore 16s. 8d. Taking the average weight of a letter at a quarter of an ounce, its cost of carriage for the 400 miles was but 1/36th part of a penny—in the light of Rowland Hill's amended estimate actually less. Yet the postage exacted for even the lightest “single” letter was 1s. 3-1/2d. The ninth part of a farthing—the approximate cost of conveyance—is a sum too small to be appreciable, and impossible to collect. Therefore, “if the charge for postage be made proportionate to the whole expense incurred in the receipt, transit, and delivery of the letter, and in the collection of its postage, it must be made uniformly the same from every post town to every other post town in the United Kingdom.”[1] In other words, “As it would take a ninefold weight to make the expense of transit amount to one farthing, it follows that, taxation apart, the charge ought to be precisely the same for every packet of moderate weight, without reference to the number of its enclosures.”[77] The custom of charge by distance seemed self-condemned when a simpler mode was not only practicable but actually fairer. Now, with increase of the number of letters the cost of each was bound to diminish; and with reduction of postage, especially the great reduction which seemed easy of attainment, increase of number could not fail to follow.