STAMP DUTY
Sta,---Recently I called in at the Central Lobby of the Houses of Parliament to leave three personal letters for three different MPs, to learn that only one unstamped letter can be delivered by any one person at any one time. Apparently all the others must carry a 3d. stamp. Rather than inquire what the rule would be if I walked in and out of the lobby another couple of times, I duly, stuck on two stamps, hesitating a fraction to decide which MP most merited the unstamped envelope.
Presumably the rule is intended to stop Members being flooded by masses of circulars delivered on the cheap. Yet is there not something intensely pettifogging about a rule which prevents a private citizen from delivering to the national legislature more than one unstamped letter at a time? Does any other large organisation practise this peculiar impost on communications delivered to it?
CHRISTOPHER ROWLANO
9 Hal/gale, Blackheath Park, SE3
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