Starting from his well-ascertained datum, that thirty-six letters could be carried from London to Edinburgh at a cost of a penny, Mr. Hill strongly urged the desirability of adopting a uniform rate of postage within the limits of the United Kingdom. That this rate should not be more than a penny, followed naturally from the proved facts of the case, and from the obvious justice of giving the public the advantage of a cheapness which would actually benefit instead of injuring the revenue. Nevertheless, the opposition to be encountered proved very serious and harassing. All the persons engaged in the old system were pledged to resist the new; and it appears to have been really thought that a Penny Post would entail such difficulties in its organisation as to be practically impossible. The Postmaster-General, Lord Lichfield, declared in the House of Lords that the proposed scheme was the wildest and most extravagant he had ever known. In the opinion of this official, and of several others, the necessary expenses would be absolutely overwhelming, while, owing to the immeasurable increase of correspondence, no building would be large enough to receive the clerks and the letters. This very argument, however, clearly implied that there was a public want which the existing system did not supply. On the other hand, many believed that there would be very little increase in the number of letters, and that there was, in fact, no real demand for any change whatever. Some persons, from whom a greater liberality might have been expected, were as antagonistic to the scheme as if they had been Post Office officials. The Rev. Sydney Smith, who had been a reformer in his earlier days, but who was now getting old, spoke of the plan as “nonsensical,” and as needlessly entailing a loss of a million to the revenue. Rowland Hill, however, was not a man to be deterred by any amount of difficulty. He had convinced himself, and ultimately he convinced others, that letters might be sent to any part of Great Britain and Ireland for the sum of one penny, and that yet there would be a profit of two hundred per cent. The uniformity of charge would in itself save a large amount of time and trouble; and if the postage could be paid in advance, there would be a still further gain in general convenience. The idea of a penny letter-stamp was suggested to Mr. Hill by a proposal put forth some years before by Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent author and publisher, who thought that the best way of collecting a penny postage on newspapers would be by the use of stamped covers. This plan was ultimately adopted for letters, and people at the present day, if they think at all upon the subject, are astonished how their forefathers could have gone on from year to year without a method at once so cheap, so simple, and so admirably adapted to the necessities of the case.