As the natural result the clerks of the roads found their emoluments rapidly dwindling. Heretofore they had been, virtually, the great news-agents of the kingdom. Enjoying, in common with a few clerks at Whitehall, the exclusive privilege of sending newspapers through the post free, they had been exposed to little, if any, competition; but now that in the matter of postage the terms were equal, the advantage was all on the side of the private dealer. The private dealer procured his newspapers in the open market, whereas the clerks of the roads were required to procure them from a particular officer designated by the postmasters-general; and this officer was authorised not only to charge for the newspapers he supplied 1-1/2d. a dozen more than he gave for them, but to retain as his own perquisite one out of every twenty-five copies. It may seem of little moment that, as the result of legislation, six persons more or less should find themselves in reduced circumstances. Such an event, unhappily, is not so rare as to call for special remark. But there was a good deal more than this in the present case. The profits which the clerks of the roads derived from the sale of newspapers had never been devoted to the exclusive use of the recipients. On the contrary, they were to a large extent common property. Out of these profits pensions were provided for Post Office servants who were past work; and from the same source inadequate salaries were raised to something like a decent maintenance. In additional salaries to brother officers and in pensions to officers who had retired, the clerks of the roads had in 1764 contributed as much as £6600; and even now, reduced as their profits were, they were contributing a little over £2000. They were, in effect, the mainstay of the establishment, and the falling off of their emoluments was being watched by the postmasters-general, hardly less than by those who were more immediately interested, with the gravest concern. Nor was it calculated to reconcile the Post Office servants to the deprivations which they were already beginning to suffer that the members of other public offices, who had lost from the same cause as the clerks of the roads, but to a much less extent, had received compensation in full. The clerks in the offices of the Principal Secretaries of State, like the clerks of the roads, had been privileged to frank both letters and newspapers. By the Act of 1764 the privilege had, as regards letters, been taken away in both cases; and in both cases, as regards newspapers, it remained. Yet to the clerks in the offices of the Principal Secretaries of State was secured, by special Act of Parliament, compensation to the amount of £1500 a year, while the clerks of the roads received nothing; and, as though to add to the aggravation, this sum of £1500 a year was to be paid by the Post Office.