ORIGINS OF PRESENT PENNY POSTAGE

Many of your readers have, I doubt not, perused with interest the vivid sketch of the origin of the Penny Postage System, given by Miss Martineau in her *History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace*, vol. ii. p. 425., and have seen in the incident of the shilling letter delivered to the poor cottager, somewhere in the Lake district—refused by her from professed inability to pay the postage—paid for by Mr. Rowland Hill, who happened most opportunely to be passing that way—and, when opened, found to be blank (this plan being preconcerted between the woman and her correspondent, to know of…