As regards the speedy recovery of the nett Revenue appearances seem to indicate that he was over-sanguine; the gross Revenue not reaching its former amount till 1851, the nett till 1862.[82] The reasons were several, but among them can hardly be counted faulty calculations on Rowland Hill's part. We shall read more about this matter in a later chapter. Meanwhile, one cause, and that a main one, shall be mentioned. As railways multiplied, and mail-coaches ceased to ply, the expenses of conveyance grew apace.[83] [Illustration: _From a Photograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co._ No. 2, BURTON CRESCENT, Where “Post Office Reform” was written. A group of people stand opposite the house.] Under the increased burden the old system, had it endured much longer, must have collapsed. The railway charges for carrying the mails, unlike the charges for carrying passengers and goods, have been higher, weight for weight, than the charges by the mail-coaches, and the tendency in later years has by no means made towards decrease. The pamphlet was entitled “Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability.”[84] Use of the words “Penny Postage” was carefully avoided, because a reformer, when seeking to convert to his own way of thinking a too-often slow-witted public, is forced to employ the wisdom of the serpent in conjunction, not only with the gentleness of the dove, but also with something of the cunning of the fox or weasel. Thus canny George Stephenson, when pleading for railways, forbore to talk of locomotives running at the tremendous rate of 12 miles an hour lest his hearers should think he was qualifying for admission to a lunatic asylum. He therefore modestly hinted at a lower speed, the quicker being supposed to be exceptional. So also Rowland Hill, by stating the arguments for his case clearly, yet cautiously, sought to lead his readers on, step by step, till the seeming midsummer madness of a uniform postal rate irrespective of distance should cease to startle, and, instead, be accepted as absolutely sane. In this way he engaged the attention, among others, of the once famous Francis Place, tailor and politician, to whom he sent a copy of “Post Office Reform.” Mr Place began its perusal with an audible running accompaniment of “Pish!” and “Pshaw!” varied by an occasional remark that the “hitch” which must inevitably destroy the case would presently appear. But as he read, the audible monosyllabic marginal notes ceased, and when he turned the last page, he exclaimed in the needlessly strong language of the day: “I'll be damned if there _is_ a hitch after all!” and forthwith became a convert. Leigh Hunt expressed his own sentiments in happier form when he declared that the pamphlet's reasoning “carries us all along with it as smoothly as wheel on railroad.”