“If it should really turn out that your anticipations as to maintaining the revenue are realised, your triumph will be great indeed: one half of it will be more than I expect; but on this point there must, after all, be much speculative uncertainty, and my only regret was that our finances were not in a better state to make useful experiments. I shall watch the result with great interest, and beg you will believe me, “Dear Sir, “Yours very truly, “ASHBURTON. “ROWLAND HILL, Esq. “I hope the principle of prepayment will be stoutly maintained. Any relaxation must be very temporary and with a large additional charge. Without this the scheme will not work. The plan of postage-stamps seems to my mind the best. The post-officers should sell them, and as everybody must put his letter into some office, he may there also buy his stamp.” About a fortnight later, I was summoned to take my part in a very gratifying proceeding at Wolverhampton, where a subscription had been raised to present me with a handsome silver candelabrum, which bore the following inscription:— “To ROWLAND HILL, Esq., presented by the inhabitants of Wolverhampton, in testimony of their high sense of his public services, as the Founder and able Advocate of the Plan of Universal Penny Postage, A.D. 1839.” CHAPTER V. APPOINTMENT IN TREASURY. (1839.) Before leaving town for Wolverhampton, as I was in constant hope of a communication from Government, I had given strict injunction at the South Australian Office that if any such communication arrived it should be forwarded without delay. Now it so happened that a certain gentleman, well known to us at the time in connection with Australian affairs, had bestowed on our proceedings more attention than was either profitable or convenient, and had begun to be regarded much in the light in which, doubtless, I myself was then viewed at the Post Office; in short, he had been unanimously voted an intolerable bore. When, therefore, a packet arrived at the office with what appeared to be his name written in the left-hand corner of the direction, it was naturally treated as a missive which might very conveniently await my return; and it was not until a messenger came from the Treasury to inquire why no notice had been taken of a letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the clerk on duty became aware of the mistake. Hastening to correct the blunder, well aware of the Post Office delay, and impressed with the novel speed of railway conveyance, he instantly made up the despatch in a brown paper parcel, which he sent, with all speed, to the station, but which, by the tardiness of its conveyance, practically demonstrated that even postal dilatoriness might be outdone.