Supposing prepayment to be resolved on, the question remained as to the mode in which such payment could be most conveniently and safely made; and this inquiry of course brought the use of stamps into full discussion. It must be remembered that in proposing by this plan to supersede the multitudinous accounts then kept in the department, my object had been not merely to save expense, but to prevent loss through negligence or by fraud. In relation to this, the committee found important evidence in the Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Enquiry, as appears by the following extracts given in the report of the committee:— “Upon the taxation of letters in the evening there is no check. “The species of control which is exercised over the deputy postmasters is little more than nominal.” Upon this unsatisfactory state of things it appeared by the evidence of the Accountant-General of the Post Office that very little improvement had been made since the issue of the Commissioners’ Report. Another matter of anxiety relative to the use of stamps was the risk of their forgery; and on this point Mr. John Wood, the Chairman of the Board of Stamps and Taxes, together with other officers of the department, was examined at considerable length. Mr. Wood wished to superadd to the use of stamps that of some paper of peculiar manufacture, forgery being more difficult when it requires the combined talents of the engraver, the printer, and the paper-maker. Specimens of such a paper had been laid before the committee by Mr. Dickinson, and such a paper, with lines of thread or silk stretched through it, Mr. Wood regarded as the best preventive of forgery he had ever seen. I scarcely need say that this is the paper which was subsequently used in the stamped envelope, though its use was afterwards abandoned as unnecessary. The Post Office opinions as to the use of stamps for the purpose of prepayment were, on the whole, favourable; though the Secretary was of opinion that, as regards time, labour, and expenditure at the General Post Office, the saving would not be so great as “Mr. Hill in his pamphlet seemed to think it would.”[213] He enumerated nine classes of letters to which he thought stamps would be inapplicable. The task of replying to these objections was easy, on some points ludicrously so; thus solemn reference was made to the class of letters which, not having found the party addressed, had been returned through the Dead Letter Office to the sender. The additional postage so caused could not be prepaid in stamps. Of course not, but luckily no such postage had ever been charged.[214] Another class of letters presenting a difficulty (here I am careful to quote the exact words) “would be half-ounce letters weighing an ounce or above.” I could not but admit that letters exhibiting so remarkable a peculiarity might present difficulties with which I was not prepared to deal.[215]