will be gathered from the state of things existing in the first quarter
of the present century. Looking at the regulations of 1823, we find that
each Member of Parliament was permitted to receive as many as fifteen
and to send as many as ten letters in each day, such letters not
exceeding one ounce in weight. At the then rates of postage this was a
most handsome privilege. In the year 1827 the Peers enjoying this extent
of free postage numbered over four hundred, and the Commons over six
hundred and fifty. In addition to these, certain Members of the
Government and other high officials had the privilege of sending free
any number of letters without restriction as to weight. These persons
were, in 1828, nearly a hundred in number.

How the privilege was turned to commercial account is explained in
Mackenzie's, _Reminiscences of Glasgow_. Referring to the Ship Bank of
that city, which had its existence in the first quarter of our century,
and to one of the partners, Mr. John Buchanan of Ardoch, who was also
Member of Parliament for Dumbartonshire, the author makes the following
statement: "From his position as Member of Parliament, he enjoyed the
privilege of franking the letters of the bank to the extent of fourteen
per diem. This was a great boon; it saved the bank some hundreds of
pounds per annum for postages. It was, moreover, regarded as a mighty
honour."

Great abuses were perpetrated even upon the abuse itself. Franks were
given away freely to other persons for their use, they were even sold,
and, moreover, they were forged. Senex, in his notes on _Glasgow Past
and Present_, describes how this was managed in Ireland. "I remember,"
says he, "about sixty years ago, an old Irish lady told me that she
seldom paid any postage for letters, and that her correspondence never
cost her friends anything. I inquired how she managed that. 'Oh,' said
she, 'I just wrote "Free, J. Suttie," in the corner of the cover of the
letter, and then, sure, nothing more was charged for it.' I said, 'Were
you not afraid of being hanged for forgery?' 'Oh, dear me, no,' she
replied; 'nobody ever heard of a lady being hanged in Ireland, and
troth, I just did what everybody else did.'" But the spirit of inquiry
was beginning to assert itself in the first half of the century, and the
franking privilege disappeared with the dawn of cheap postage.

Public opinion had as yet no active existence throughout our
Commonwealth, nor had the light spre