The committee received much evidence, both as to the extent to which the law was evaded by the irregular conveyance of letters, and as to the evils produced by suppression of correspondence where circumstances rendered such evasion difficult or impracticable. Thus Mr. Parker and other publishers reported that it was a common practice, in their trade, to write a number of letters for different individuals in the same district, all on one sheet; and that this, on first coming to hand, was cut up into its several parts, each being delivered either by hand or through the local posts.[168] Mr. Dillon, of the firm of Morrison, Dillon, and Co., reported a similar practice, in respect of money payments.[169] By other witnesses it was established that illicit correspondence was “carried on throughout the country, in systematic evasion of the law, if not in open violation of it, to an extent that could hardly have been imagined, and which it would be difficult to calculate;” this occurring “principally in the neighbourhood of large towns, and in populous manufacturing districts;” some carriers making it “their sole business to collect and distribute letters,” which they did “openly, without fear of the consequences; women and children” being “employed to collect the letters.”[170] Throughout one district the practice was “said to be universal, and was known to have been established there for nearly fifty years.”[171] “The average number of letters thus sent daily throughout the year by a house in the neighbourhood of Walsall exceeded fifty, and by that house more than a hundred and twenty had been sent in one day. Not one-fiftieth part of the letters from Walsall to the neighbouring towns was sent by post.”[172] Mr. Cobden, as yet new to fame, but who had been deputed by the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester to give in evidence the results of its inquiries, reported thus— “The extent to which evasion is there practised is incredible; five-sixths of the letters from Manchester to London do not pass through the Post Office.”[173] Similar evidence was received from Glasgow.[174] Mr. Brewin, of Cirencester, reported that— “The people in that town did not think of using the post for the conveyance of letters; he knew two carriers who carried four times as many letters as the mail did.”[175]