young man, he was waiting in a village post office, and there his notice was attracted by an old woman in deep distress. She had just learnt that the postage to Australia was sixpence, and was therefore unable to post the letter she had written to her son. H. H. paid the money for her, and many months later he heard that the son had sent £5 to his mother, and had begun to write home regularly.
Later on, when H. H. was living in the wilds of the Australian Bush, he was able to appreciate the advent of the English mail. He knew as other exiles know the bitter disappointment of riding into the township, perhaps thirty or forty miles distant, only to find there was no letter from home. In those days the heavy postage was a consideration for those in England, and a consideration that frequently deprived the emigrant of a letter. H. H. was fond of quoting A. B. Patterson's verse descriptive of a Way-Back postal service:
"Your letters and exchanges
Come by chance across the ranges,
Where a wiry young Australian
Leads a pack horse once a week.
And the good news grows by keeping,
And you're spared the pain of weeping
Over bad news when the Mail-man
Drops the letter in the creek,"
It was in 1886, soon after he entered Parliament, that H. H. moved a resolution in the House of Commons inviting the Government to enter into negotiations with other Governments with a view to the establishment of a Universal System of Penny Postage. The motion was opposed by the Government, on financial grounds, and was defeated. The whole idea was
