[781] _Ibid._, qs. 3212-13, 3924-28, 3377-81, 3879-82, 4504, 6928, 7867-82, 5613-18, 4074, 4873-90, 3520, 7327. Many factors in Ireland had circulars printed, which went free, as newspapers. Their correspondents were distinguished by numbers and opposite the numbers were printed the communications for each particular person.[782] [782] _Ibid._, rep. 1, 9, p. 427. The majority of letters which paid no postage or only partial postage were sent illegally, most of them by carriers. "A. B." said that in 1836 his mercantile house sent 2068 letters by post and 5861 by other means, principally by carriers, for one penny each.[783] "C. D." testified that carriers called once or twice a day at his house and that they received from 100 to 150 letters a week from him. Sometimes the carriers delivered the letters on foot, sometimes they went by coach.[784] "E. F.'s" letters were carried by newsmen, who distributed the local newspaper.[785] "G. H.," a carrier from Scotland, said that there were six others working with him and that they delivered about 700 letters and parcels a day, for which they received 1_d._ or 2_d._ each.[786] Letters were also illegally conveyed:-- By "free-packets," containing the patterns and correspondence of merchants, which the coachmen carried free except for the booking fee of 4_d._[787] In warehousemen's bales and parcels.[788] In weavers' bags, especially near Glasgow. These were bags containing work for the weavers, sent by and returned to the manufacturers.[789] By "family-boxes." Students at college in Glasgow and Edinburgh were accustomed to receive boxes of provisions, etc., from home. The neighbours made use of them to carry letters.[790] By coachmen, guards, travellers and private individuals.[791] By vans, railways, stage-coaches, steamboats, and every conceivable means.[792] By writing in newspapers, sometimes with invisible ink or by enclosing accounts or letters in them.[793] [783] _Ibid._, qs. 2265, 2279. [784] _Ibid._, 1837-38, xx, qs. 2697, 2699, 2703. [785] _Ibid._, qs. 4229. [786] _Ibid._, qs. 5125-26. In Walsall not 1-50 part of the letters sent to and from neighbouring places went by post (qs. 5681-5789). [787] _Rep. Com._, 1837-38, xx, qs. 4195-96, 4205. [788] _Ibid._, qs. 3550, 4065, 4194, 6947. [789] _Ibid._, qs. 5257-59. [790] _Ibid._, qs. 5265. [791] _Ibid._, qs. 6716, 10371. [792] _Ibid._, qs. 6514. [793] _Ibid._, qs. 497, 3008, 5525-26, 5329, 5186-88, 5983, 8962, 10,021; app. to part 2, p. 34. About half of the letters and parcels sent to the seaports for transmission to foreign parts by private ships did not go through the Post Office,[794] and this practice was more or less winked at by the authorities.[795] The letters from Liverpool for the United States numbered 122,000 a year, but only 69,000 of these passed through the Post Office.[796] [794] _Ibid._, pt. 1, pp. 195-99, 204-30, 346, 351, 431. [795] _Ibid._, pt. 1, pp. 195-99. [796] _Ibid._, pt. 1, p. 364.