The reasons for the four months' long delay in the issue of the stamps were twofold. They were, first, the more or less open hostility of the Post officials to both reform and reformer, which, as has been stated, caused all sorts of hindrances to be strewn in the path of progress; and, secondly, the apprehension still felt by the Government that the public would not take kindly to prepayment. The stamps ought, of course, to have been issued in time to be used by the 10th January 1840, when the new system came into force. When they were at last forthcoming, none were forwarded to the receiving offices till complaint was made. The fault was then found to lie with the wording of the Treasury letter giving the requisite directions. Later, another difficulty arose. The Stamp Office persisted in issuing the stamped covers in entire sheets as they were printed, and the Post Office refused to supply them uncut to the receivers. Three days alone were wasted over this wrangle. A week later the Post Office, which had formally undertaken the distribution of the covers, discovered that such work was beyond its powers. For a month after the first issue of the stamps the receiving offices remained unsupplied.
While the Government and others still cherished the delusion that the recipient of a letter would feel insulted if denied the time-honoured privilege of paying for it, the delayed publication of the stamps was less to be regretted since it enabled the experiment to be first tried with money only.
The official forecast was at fault. From the very start, and with the best will in the world, the public, when posting letters, put down pennies and missives together, and when the stamps—called by would-be wits the “Government sticking-plasters”—at last appeared, the difficulty was not to persuade people to make use of them, but to get them supplied fast enough to meet the popular demand.
While the stamps were still new that large section of mankind which never reads public instructions was occasionally at a loss where to affix the adhesive. Any corner of the envelope but the right one would be chosen, or, not infrequently, the place at the back partly occupied by the old-fashioned seal or wafer. Even the most painstaking of people were sometimes puzzled, and a certain artist, accustomed, like all his brethren of the brush, to consider that portion of his canvas the right hand which faced his left, was so perplexed that he carried to the nearest post office his letter and stamp, knocked up the clerk, and when the latter's face appeared at the little unglazed window of the ugly wooden screen which is now superseded everywhere, perhaps save at railway booking offices, by the more civilised open network, asked politely, “Which do you call the right hand of a letter?” “ We've no time here for stupid jokes,” was the surly answer, and the window shut again directly.