stamped covers for letters, and this arrangement he brought forward and fully explained before the Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry, referring to it as 'Mr Knight's excellent suggestion.' Charles Knight had suggested the idea of stamps for prepayment in 1833-34. The following extract from the Commissioners' Report, which gives a brief description of the proposed arrangement, may perhaps be read with interest at the present time: 'That stamped covers, or sheets of paper, or small vignette stamps--the latter, if used, to be gummed on the face of the letter--be supplied to the public from the Stamp-office, and sold at such a price as to include the postage. Letters so stamped to be treated in all respects as franks. That each should have the weight it is entitled to carry legibly printed upon the stamp. That the stamp of the receiving-house should be struck upon the superscription or duty stamp, to prevent the latter being used a second time. The vignette stamps being portable, persons could carry them in their pocket-books.' The proposed arrangement met with approval from the Commissioners, and also from the Committee on Postage in 1837 and 1838; and, in consequence, the Penny Postage Act of 1840 contained a clause providing for the use of such stamps and stamped covers. Such were the main points of Rowland Hill's plan, which was so logical and reasonable in all its features, and so intelligible to the popular mind, that it can be readily understood how heartily it was embraced by the general public. But popular as his scheme was with the mass of the people, it encountered the bitterest opposition from many quarters; and in successfully carrying it through, Rowland Hill had, like most other great reformers, to overcome huge difficulties and obstacles. It is very amusing at this distance of time, when we have become so accustomed to the immense advantages of Penny Postage as to view them almost as part of the ordinary conditions of life, to recall some of the arguments used fifty years ago against the measure. Lord Lichfield, as Postmaster-general, in adverting to the scheme in the House of Lords, described it thus: 'Of all the wild visionary schemes which I have ever heard of, it is the most extravagant;' and endorsed this statement six months later when he had given more attention to the subject, being 'even still more firmly of the same opinion.' On a subsequent occasion he contended that the mails would have to carry twelve times as much in weight as before, and therefore the charge would be twelve times the amount then paid. 'The walls of the Post-office,' he exclaimed, 'would burst; the whole area in which the building stands would not be large enough to receive the clerks and letters.' Outside the Post-office, too, as well as by both the government and opposition, much animosity was exhibited against the proposal.