In 1839 there was one departure a month of the East India mail _viâ_ Marseilles and one _viâ_ Southampton, yet the weight of the mails by the two routes was under five tons, in bulk about twelve tons. In 1855, with two departures a month _viâ_ Marseilles, and two _viâ_ Southampton, the Eastern mails were about twenty tons weight. In 1839 the West India and Brazilian mails were despatched once a month, in the notorious ten-gun “coffins”; yet although the letters were then always sent in triplicate, because the certainty then was that one in three would be lost, and the chances were it might be one in two, nevertheless the letters were only about 200,000 a year; in 1855 they had risen to 700,000. In 1839 letters between Great Britain, the United States, and Canada were conveyed by the American “Liners,” they were under a million per annum; in 1855 they had risen to about 2,500,000, besides letters “in transit” between the United States, Europe, India, China, and Australia.
In 1839 the community had not the benefit of a “British Postal Guide,[34] containing the Chief Public Regulations of the Post Office, with other information, published Quarterly by command of the Postmaster-General.” The first number was issued on the 1st of July, 1855, seven months before Mr. Page wrote his Report. The cost of each number for two or three years was Sixpence. As we learn by the cover that they are “Printed, Published, and Sold by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty,” and that they are “to be had also of all Booksellers and the Principal Postmasters in the United Kingdom.” It therefore follows that these Postal Guides were, from the date of their first appearance, transmitted by the Railways in the Post Office bags all over the Kingdom. We have seen them, from the earliest period of their publication, exhibited and advertised at the post offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Cork, and other places, and almost every postmaster receives one or more copies for the use of his office. Each number contains 234 pages at present, besides the pages devoted to advertisements, and they cost 2d. each for transmission if sent by book post. In 1858, the price per copy was raised to 1s.; but in 1864 it was reduced to 6d., and the sale has become very great.