by the publisher, would come
to $150,000. I do not suppose the Post-office Department realizes from all
the Boston papers one hundred thousand dollars. The cost of stamping, even
in the British mode, would be less than a quarter of a mill per sheet. And
Yankee ingenuity would soon devise some labor-saving plan, to reduce the
cost of stamping to ten cents per thousand, or one-tenth of a mill per
sheet.

This plan would secure the department against losses. It would greatly
increase the business of the post-office, and its income from newspapers.
It would lessen the number of dead newspapers with which our offices are
now lumbered. It would aid in inducing and helping the publishers of
newspapers to get into the cash system of publication; and thus assist in
training the whole community to the habit of prompt payment. All
newspapers, weekly or daily, that have or expect any thing like a wide
circulation by mail, would soon find it for their interest to fall in with
this plan. A weekly paper would pay 26 cents for each yearly subscriber.
In what way could he do so much with the same money to extend and
consolidate his subscription list? A daily paper would cost $1.55 a year
for postage. Most daily papers would find their advantage in paying this,
to have their papers go free, even though they might economize or retrench
in something else. It would greatly facilitate the circulation of
intelligence, the diffusion of knowledge, the settlement and harmonizing
of public opinion, and all in a manner to produce no burden in any quarter
which would be felt.

It is demonstrable that the post-office, under its present regulations,
receives but a small part of the papers which are printed. The
Postmaster-general, in his last report, estimates the whole number of
newspapers mailed yearly at 55,000,000, and of pamphlets 2,000,000, total
57,000,000, yielding to the department only the sum of $653,160. I have
never seen any calculation of the cost of circulating newspapers, to
determine whether the business is profitable to the department or not. If
it pays to circulate newspapers at a cent apiece, surely two cents apiece
is enough to pay on letters, which do not weigh on the average a quarter
as much as newspapers. If it does not pay the cost to carry newspapers in
the mail, then the loss on newspapers ought to be a tax upon the treasury,
and not a tax upon correspondence.

The following table of newspapers and periodicals issued ann