In 1836, resuming his labours in Parliament, while urging various other measures, he repeated his recommendation of a reduction in the rates of postage, naming eightpence or ninepence as a maximum (a limitation which, whatever may be thought of it now, would then have been regarded as a great improvement); he advised, secondly, the registration of letters (afterwards carried into effect with advantage both to the public and the revenue); and lastly, the abandonment of a rule, so monstrous that its maintenance seems now hardly credible, by which the rate of charge, instead of being regulated by the actual distance between place and place (supposing distance to be the true criterion), was varied according to the length of the course, often very circuitous, which the letter was made to take for the convenience of the Post Office. It was in this year (1836) that my acquaintance with Mr. Wallace began; but I must now return for a time to my own proceedings, merely observing here, though I shall have occasion to recur to the subject, that any one wishing for a concise, but I believe tolerably complete, statement of Mr. Wallace’s services, may refer to the report of a speech, given in the Appendix (F), which I made at Greenock in the year 1850, at a meeting convened for the purpose of originating a national testimonial to Mr. Wallace, for his services in relation to postal reform. Being now prepared with my main facts and conclusions, I had to consider how best to give them effect. The time seemed propitious, the Liberals being in power, the almost superstitious respect for the Post Office being, not indeed shattered, but certainly shaken, and a large surplus being ready to make good the immediate loss likely to follow reduction, as well as to provide for the moderate permanent loss on which I had reckoned, as a proper sacrifice to the public good, in view of the great advantages to be thereby secured. By this time, moreover, I had many friends in Parliament, and even some acquaintance with one or two members of the Government; which encouraged me to hope that my plan would, at least, receive attention; and attention, I was sanguine enough to think, must soon induce adoption. I set to work, therefore, to give my matter such shape as seemed best fitted to illustrate my facts and give force to my arguments. In urging the various benefits to be anticipated from cheap and easy postal conveyance, I did not fail to dwell on its aid to education, which was then at length beginning to be regarded as a matter of national interest and national duty, though the movement in its favour was still grievously clogged by sectarian prejudice and political animosities. The following passage will show that I gave it the chief place in my summary:—[123]