Whilst, as I have said, angry voices arose at the limited extent of the first reduction, there were at least some persons who, being out of the reach of general information, received the change much as I had once hoped the whole public would do, viz., as a great and unexpected boon. A poor Irishman, for instance, who brought a letter to the Chief Office, with one shilling and fourpence for the postage, upon having the shilling returned to him, with the information that the fourpence was all that was required, broke out in acknowledgment to the window-clerk with a “God bless your honour, and thank you.” About a week after the change, I had the satisfaction of hearing from Messrs. Bokenham and Smith, the two heads of the Circulation Department, as follows:— “_Journal, December 13th._—Bokenham says they do not put more than one letter in twenty into the scale, and that a greater saving than he expected results from uniformity of rate; that the increased number of letters has required no increase of strength. Smith gives a similar account (he has two additional men). Both laugh at the notion of the insecurity in the delivery as resulting from prepayment.” Three days later I proposed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the penny rate should come into operation in three weeks from that day; the prepayment to be made in money until the stamps, now in preparation, could be issued; and the abolition of franking to take place as soon as prepayment should be made compulsory. Mr. Baring approved generally of the plan, but preferred to extend the time to a month, and to abolish franking at once; the former modification being of little moment, the latter, as may be inferred from the event, a very judicious change. Two days afterwards—that we might complete the necessary arrangements without loss of time—the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on leaving Downing Street, took me with him to his house at Lee, where, after dining, we set to work, and, continuing without interruption, finished our task about one in the morning. When I rose to retire, somewhat fatigued with my long day’s work, I observed, to my surprise, that my host, opening his Treasury box, began to take out papers as if for immediate examination. Upon my expressing surprise, and a hope that he was not going to work more that night, he told me that he should not sleep till all were dealt with. If I had ever supposed that Chancellors of the Exchequer led an easy life, I had abundant opportunity, now and afterwards, for disabuse. The 10th January,[288] 1840, was determined upon as the day when penny postage should be established throughout the whole kingdom.