monopoly post-office and the _franking_ privilege! Poor patient
people!

"Such taxes, to be defrayed by high postage on letters and
newspapers, grow out of this _franking_ privilege; and the power
which congress reserve to themselves, of distributing free, as
many documents as they choose to print at the public expense!
These documents, it seems, are the grand means resorted to by many
members, of '_currying favor_' with the influential, and thus
'_getting votes next time!_' "

A late number of the Boston Courier contains the following humorous but
not untruthful description of this franking business, written by a
correspondent at Washington:

"The object of assembling the representatives of the people is
_discussion_, not business; or at least, no other business to
speak of. And this is labor enough for any man. Why, one gentleman
of the house informed me that he had 2700 names on his list of
persons to whom he must send documents, and he is _not_ a
candidate for re-election.

"Now, let us suppose that the average number of each member's
_document_ constituency is but 2500, and that each gets _four_
favors only from his servant in congress. This would throw upon
the shoulders of each member the labor of procuring, and franking,
and directing _ten thousand_ speeches in the course of a session.
What more business than this should be expected of a man?
especially, when we consider that the representative must receive
and answer, at length, all sorts of letters, from all sorts of
people, upon all sorts of topics, from Aunt Peg's pension to Amy
Dardin's horse. If each member requires 10,000 speeches to his
constituents, somebody has got to make them. And as there are
something over 280 members of both branches there must be a supply
of about _three millions_ of this kind of 'fodder.' How can it be
otherwise than that the congressional talking-mill must be kept
constantly going? And what a famine would there be should it stop
grinding? Going into a Western member's room the other day, and
seeing him with his coat off in the middle of the apartment, up to
his middle in documents, and speeches, and letters, laboring
lustily with his pen, I alluded to his press of private business.

" 'Stranger,' said he, 'I never came to congress before, and I
never want to come again. I te