Meantime, although my plan was for a time set aside, the various efforts made in relation to the general subject were not altogether without effect; for, in the course of this year, day mails were established on one or two of the principal roads, though with some troublesome restrictions; amongst them, one which now seems incredible, viz., against their use for the despatch of the morning newspapers. Some further reductions were made in foreign postage, though certainly with due caution, as will now be readily acknowledged by any one who learns that by an announcement gravely made, the public were informed that henceforth postage on letters to the Mediterranean would be at the rate of “only ten _shillings_ per ounce.”[139] The legislative change already referred to as introduced by Lord Lichfield was an important improvement, bringing all the Acts (one hundred and forty-one in number) relative to the Post Office into a single law, possessing the triple advantage of compactness, brevity, and perfect intelligibility.[140] Another Act authorised the Postmaster-General, with the consent of the Lords of the Treasury, to make reductions in postage, both partially and generally; a trust which afterwards proved of no small convenience. Lastly, Government had announced as probable that the postage between towns not more than seven miles apart would be reduced from fourpence to twopence; a change soon afterwards effected. All these improvements, while more or less beneficial in themselves, had the collateral advantage of paving the way for future changes; and certainly enough remained to be done, as would appear in the most striking manner, were the old state of things to be restored but for a single day, and the public compelled but for once to endure practices which were then regarded as things of course. Many of these have been already adverted to; perhaps one or two more may with propriety be mentioned here. As the day mails were so few, most of the letters arriving in London by the morning mails on their way to other towns had to lie all day at the General Post Office; so that places corresponding through London, even if very near to one another, were, in postal distance, kept as far asunder as London and Durham; and when a blank post-day intervened, the delay was even more remarkable. Thus, a letter written at Uxbridge after the close of the Post Office on Friday night was not delivered at Gravesend, a distance of less than forty miles, until Tuesday morning. If two letters were put in the proper district receiving-houses in London between five and six o’clock in the evening, one addressed to Highgate, the other to Wolverhampton (which lies one hundred and twenty miles further on the same road), the Highgate letter was delivered last.