Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/32

pendent states on the continent of Europe, can fail to appreciate the benefits of a power, which pervades the Union. The national government is that alone, which can safely or effectually execute it, with equal promptitude and cheapness, certainty and uniformity. Already the post-office establishment realizes a revenue exceeding two millions of dollars, from which it defrays all its own expenses, and transmits mails in various directions over more than one hundred and twenty thousand miles. It transmits intelligence in one day to distant places, which, when the constitution was first put into operation, was scarcely transmitted through the same distance in the course of a week.^[1] The rapidity of its movements has been in a general view doubled within the last twenty years. There are now more than eight thousand five hundred post-offices in the United States; and at every session of the legislature new routes are constantly provided for, and new post-offices established. It may, therefore, well be deemed a most benefi-

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1. In the American Almanac and Repository published at Boston, in 1830, (a very valuable publication,) there is, at page 217, a tabular view of the number of post-offices, and amounts of postage, and net revenue and extent of roads in miles travelled by the mail for a large number of years between 1790 and 1828. In 1790 there were seventy-five post-offices, and the amount of postage was $37,935, and the number of miles travelled was 1875. In 1828 there were 7530 post-offices, and the amount of postage was $1,659,915, and the number of miles travelled was 115,176. See also American Almanac for 1832, p. 134. And from Dr. Lieber's Encyclopædia Americana, (article Posts,) it appears, that in 1831, the amount of postage was $1,997,811, and the number of miles traveled 15,468,692. The first post-office, ever established in America, seems to have been under an act of parliament, in 1710. Dr. Lieber's Encyc. Amer. article Posts.
   In Mr. Professor Malkin's introductory Lecture on History, before the London University, in March, 1830, he states, (p. 14,) "It is understood, that in England the first mode adopted for a proper and regular conveyance of letters was in 1642, weekly, and on horseback to every part of the kingdom. The present improved system by mail-coaches was not introduced until 1782."