derful increase of letters in England, will
awaken new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify
themselves irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is seasonably applied.
In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there are
many lines of business of which the whole profits are made up of extremely
minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material; and such
concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when they can get them
taken, carried and delivered for two cents. The causes which created
illicit penny posts in England are largely at work here, with the growth
and systematization of manufactures and trade; and they are producing, and
will produce the same results, until, on the best routes, not one-sixth of
the letters will be carried in the mail, unless the true system shall be
seasonably established. The evils of such a state of things need not be
here set forth. One of the greatest, which would not strike every mind, is
the demoralization of the public mind, in abating the reverence for law,
and the sense of gratitude and honor to the government.

In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in
furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspondence which
the duty of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful
conveyances, and in winning the patriotic regards of the people to the
post-office, as to every man's friend, the act of 1845 has entirely
failed. It has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard to
its productiveness, on the one hand, but it has even convinced the highest
official authority that it has failed to prove itself to be _the_ CHEAP
POSTAGE, which the country needs and will support. In his last annual
report, the Postmaster-General says:

"The favorable operation of the act of 1845, upon the finances of
this department, leads to the conclusion that, by the adoption of
such modifications as have been suggested by this department for
the improvement of its revenues, and the suppression of abuses
practised under it, the present low rates of postage will not only
produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a
considerable surplus annually to be applied to the extension of
the mail service to the new and rapidly increasing sections of our
country, or would justify a still further reduction of the rates
of postage. In the opin