The increase of inland letter postage to a minimum charge
o1 twopence, which came into effect last Tuesday, seems to carry us back to quite a remote. age. It is a hundred years since Tom Moore published a collection of satirical poems under the title of The Twopenny Post. Bag, whereby the reader of that period was made aware that the correspondence in question circulated in London and its neighbourhood. As early as 1877 it had been noted with gratification that " a letter oomprising one whole sheet of paper was conveyed eighty miles for two- pence." But, once Rowland Hill's reorganisation of the postal system on the basis of penny postage had shown. its advantages, few prophets could have been rash enough to stake their repu- tation on any future abolition of this beneficent reform. Since, however, the cost of living has been more than doubled as a result of the war, it is no doubt reasonable that letter-writing should suffer along with other luxuries. We shall be curious to see if there is any truth in the thesis enunciated by a well- known oritio, that the epistolary branch of literature had been praotioally killed by the cheapness of postage. Some of the best letters of the last few years came from our Expeditionary Forces, who paid no postage at all.
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