The magazine of American history with notes and queries . not overloaded with sealing-wax. Be-sides this, the riders were often untrustworthy,postmasters no better; and the service did notpay even their salaries, till, in 1753, BenjaminFranklin came into office as deputy Postmaster-General for the colonies. Then began system. He established the penny-post; made newspapers pay, which hitherto had been perquisites of thepostmasters and riders; advertised letters, reduced rates; and quickenedup riders and everything else. It was on one of his annual horsebackjourneys fom Philadelphia to Boston, f
The magazine of American history with notes and queries . not overloaded with sealing-wax. Be-sides this, the riders were often untrustworthy,postmasters no better; and the service did notpay even their salaries, till, in 1753, BenjaminFranklin came into office as deputy Postmaster-General for the colonies. Then began system. He established the penny-post; made newspapers pay, which hitherto had been perquisites of thepostmasters and riders; advertised letters, reduced rates; and quickenedup riders and everything else. It was on one of his annual horsebackjourneys fom Philadelphia to Boston, for this purpose, that he stoppedone cold evening at a tavern near New London.* The place around thefire was closely occupied, and no one stirred. Give my horse a peck ofraw oysters, said Franklin to the landlord. As the curious crowd fol-lowed the landlord out, he took the warmest corner ; and since the horse, foolish beast, refused the oysters, he had them set before himself. Theresult of Franklins energy, as Postmaster-General, was, that in 1774, in-. THE OLD MAIL BAG. Related in Recollections of Olden Times, by Thos. Hazard of Rhode Island. THE EARLY NEW YORK POST-OFEICE stead of deficiency, there was a clear annual revenue to Great Britain of^3,000. In that year, for political reasons, he was dismissed, and thewhole service practically collapsed ; only again to reach like success underour two Postmasters and Postmaster-Generals Ebenezer Hazard andThomas L: James. Early in 1775, my grandfather, Ebenezer Hazard, bookseller in NewYork, suggested to the patriot Committee of Safety, or rather of Obser-vation, as it was called,the great importance of |reconstructing the Post-office ; and, under theirsanction, he undertookthe work. A few daysafter—viz., May 8, 1775—they wrote to the Hartfordcommittee that a Con-stitutional Post-office isnow rising on the ruins ofthe Parliamentary one,which is just expiring inconvulsions! Delight-fully mixed metaphor—ruins, expiring in con-vu
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