1840.]

ROWLAND HILL'S REFORM.

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injuring the revenue. Nevertheless, the opposition to be encountered proved very serious and harassing. All the persons engaged in the old system were pledged to resist the new; and it appears to have been really thought that a Penny Post would entail such difficulties in its organisation as to be practically impossible. The Postmaster-General, Lord Lichfield, declared in the House of Lords that the proposed scheme was the wildest and most extravagant he had ever known. In the opinion of this official, and of several others, the necessary expenses would be absolutely overwhelming, while, owing to the immeasurable increase of correspondence, no building would be large enough to receive the clerks and the letters. This very argument, however, clearly implied that there was a public want which the existing system did not supply. On the other hand, many believed that there would be very little increase in the number of letters, and that there was, in fact, no real demand for any change whatever.

Some persons, from whom a greater liberality might have been expected, were as antagonistic to the scheme as if they had been Post Office officials. The Rev. Sydney Smith, who had been a reformer in his earlier days, but who was now getting old, spoke of the plan as "nonsensical," and as needlessly entailing a loss of a million to the revenue. Rowland Hill, however, was not a man to be deterred by any amount of difficulty. He had convinced himself, and ultimately he convinced others, that letters might be sent to any part of Great Britain and Ireland for the sum of one penny, and that yet there would be a profit of two hundred per cent. The uniformity of charge would in itself save a large amount of time and trouble; and if the postage could be paid in advance, there would be a still further gain in general convenience. The idea of a penny letter-stamp was suggested to Mr. Hill by a proposal put forth some years before by Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent author and publisher, who thought that the best way of collecting a penny postage on newspapers would be by the use of stamped covers. This plan was ultimately adopted for letters, and people at the present day, if they think at all upon the subject, are astonished how their forefathers could have gone on from year to year without a method at once so cheap, so simple, and so admirably adapted to the necessities of the case.

As Mr. Hill was not himself a member of Parliament, it was essential to his scheme that he should get a spokesman or two in that Assembly. He was well served by Mr. Warburton and Mr. Wallace, who frequently brought the subject before the attention of the House of Commons. In February, 1838, Mr. Wallace moved for a select committee to investigate and report upon the proposed scheme of postal reform; but, as the Government declared that the matter was under their consideration, the motion was not carried. Public attention, however, was by this time strongly directed towards the subject, and numerous petitions were sent up to Parliament from very influential bodies, praying that the law might be altered. The Melbourne Ministry began to see that the subject was one which must shortly be taken in hand, whether in a greater or a less degree. The natura!

inclination was, of course, to treat it in the slightest degree possible, and various minor reforms were proposed, which only showed that the official position was getting insecure, but yet that there was a strong disinclination to sanction any radical change. At length, on the 5th of July, 1839, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in bringing forward the annual Budget at an unusually late period of the session, proposed a resolution declaring it to be expedient "to reduce the postage on letters to one uniform rate of one penny, charged upon every letter of a weight to be hereafter fixed by law; Parliamentary privileges of franking being abolished, and official franking strictly regulated; this House pledging itself at the same time to make good any deficiency of revenue which may be occasioned by such an alteration in the rates of the existing duties." The evidence obtained by a committee of the House had shown the absolute need and the entire practicability of Rowland Hill's plan. The demand for the adoption of that plan was now universal, and the Government could no longer resist a change which was supported by convincing reasons. The requisite Act of Parliament was rapidly passed, and the law received the Queen's sanction before the end of August.

Nevertheless, there was to be an intermediate period, during which the charge for postage would be at the rate of fourpence for each letter, half an ounce in weight, within the entire area of the United Kingdom. This was to save the Post Office from being deluged by a flood of penny letters, for which the officials would not be all at once prepared. But on the 10th of January, 1840, the postage was fixed at the uniform rate of one penny per letter not exceeding half an ounce in weight-a limit which in 1865 was widened to one ounce. Mulready, the painter, furnished a design for an official envelope, which, however, was found to be inconvenient, and was speedily laid aside. The affixed penny stamp was introduced on the 6th of May, and the system was then fairly launched—as fairly, that is, as official jealousy would suffer it to be. Franking was abolished with the introduction of the new method; and, although the Queen was still entitled to this privilege, she immediately relinquished it, with that good feeling which has always distinguished her Majesty's relations towards her people. The aristocracy, and others who had enjoyed the invidious right, found even the penny postage a serious addition to their expenses; but the merchant, the manufacturer, the tradesman, the middle classes generally, and the poor, were suddenly invested with a benefit of which they had long been unjustly deprived, and which proved of the highest value in all the ordinary transactions of life.

Another social reform in which her Majesty and Prince Albert must have taken the deepest interest was in some degree associated with the year 1840. On the 7th of August an Act of Parliament was passed with reference to the employment of children in the sweeping of chimneys. By the terms of this Act, it was made unlawful for master-sweeps to take apprentices under sixteen years of age, and no individual under twenty-one was to ascend a chimney after

1840.J

THE BOY CHIMNEY-SWEEPS.

81

July 1st, 1842. The law was made more stringent in 1864; but in the meanwhile it had done an immense amount of good. The barbarity of the system it supplanted was great indeed. Boys of tender years, whose ordinary treatment by their employers was of the roughest kind, were compelled, often by acts of extreme violence, to ascend chimneys for the purpose of brushing down the soot. Cases were known in which these poor little creatures were lost and stifled in the dark, cavernous, and winding passages which they had to thread. At the

RECEPTION OF THE QUEEN IN HYDE PARK AFTER THE NEWS OF OXFORD'S ATTEMPT ON HER LIFE.

(See p. 82.)

best, the suffering was great, and entailed diseases of the joints, of the eyes, and of the respiratory organs. The system was wholly inexcusable, for the ramoneur, or jointed brush, now in general use, had been known for several years. It required an Act of Parliament, however, to enforce the introduction of this machine, and to protect the unfortunate children; though, in a very few years after the alteration, respectable householders wondered how they could have tolerated the abominable cruelty to which the climbing-boys were subjected.

Between the introduction of the new Postal system and the passing of the Bill for the protection of youthful sweeps, her Majesty had been exposed to a danger and an affront which she had probably never anticipated, though it has been

repeated several times since. On the 10th of June, 1840, the Queen was driving up Constitution Hill, in company with Prince Albert, when she was twice fired at by a pot-boy, seventeen years of age, named Edward Oxford. Her Majesty turned very pale, and, between the firing of the first and second shots, rose up in the carriage; but Prince Albert immediately pulled her down by his side. A pleasing impression was produced at the time by the thoughtfulness of the Queen in ordering the carriage to be at once driven to the residence of the Duchess of Kent, that her mother, who might have heard some rumour of the occurrence, should see that she was safe. On afterwards driving through Hyde Park, her Majesty had a most enthusiastic reception from the fashionable company in the Row. She was ultimately escorted home by a crowd consisting of all classes, and repeated shouts revealed the cordiality of the public feeling. On the offender being examined next day before the Privy Council, he said that, although there were many witnesses. against him, they contradicted each other in several important particulars. It appeared that he belonged to a secret society called "Young England," the rules of which prescribed that every member should, when ordered to attend a meeting, be armed with a brace of loaded pistols and a sword, and should also be provided with a black crape cap, to cover the face. This society, however, does not seem to have had any wide ramifications, and was probably nothing more than an association of foolish young people, actuated as much by vanity as by malice. On the 10th of July, Oxford was tried for high treason in its most aggravated form, including an attempt on the very life of her Majesty. The defence was based on an allegation of insanity, though there can be little doubt that Oxford was not insane in any true sense of the word. He was ordered to be kept in a lunatic asylum during her Majesty's pleasure; but in 1868 he was set at liberty, on condition of going abroad. It is a discreditable fact that even members of Parliament applied for locks of his hair when it was cut off previous to his confinement. Many persons considered that he ought to have been hanged, and, when similar attempts were made some two years later, Oxford himself expressed an opinion that, had he been executed, there would have been no more shooting at the Queen. In this opinion he was probably right; but the extreme tenderness of the modern conscience forbade the execution of one whose criminal folly had, after all, effected no real mischief. After a while, Oxford seems to have recognised the wickedness of his act, which he attributed to inordinate vanity; and during his long confinement he learned the art of graining, and even taught himself some modern languages. His attempt, however, was a very grave evil, and, even supposing there had been no bullets in the pistols (as Oxford, perhaps truthfully, alleged), might have produced serious consequences. "My chief anxiety," wrote Prince Albert shortly afterwards, was lest the fright should have been injurious to the Queen in her present state." One good effect was the increased popularity both of the Queen and of her husband, who were received with genuine enthusiasm whenever they appeared in public.

1840.]

BIRTH OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

83

The condition of her Majesty in the summer of 1840 rendered it advisable that a Regency should be appointed, in case of her approaching confinement terminating in a manner which all would have deplored. The Queen's own wish was that Prince Albert should be named as Regent; but of course it was necessary to carry a Bill to this effect through Parliament, and it was feared that, as in the case of the Naturalisation Bill and the measure for granting an annuity, there might be some difficulties of a vexatious nature, unless an understanding could be previously arrived at with the leaders of the Opposition. The Duke of Sussex was known to dislike conferring this position on Prince Albert, and to favour the idea of creating a Council of Regency, in which he himself would be a prominent member. Baron Stockmar, therefore, opened communications with Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, and the matter was speedily arranged. A Bill appointing Prince Albert to the office of Regent in the case supposed was introduced into the Upper House on the 13th of July, and passed with no other dissentient voice than that of the Duke of Sussex. The measure was equally successful in the House of Commons, and it was generally agreed that the father, as the natural guardian of any offspring, was the fittest person to exercise supreme power in the name of the Royal infant, until he or she had attained the legal majority. On the other hand, there was the objection that the actual ruler of the country during many years would be a born foreigner; but, as this had happened several times before in the history of England, it was held to be no serious obstacle to an arrangement otherwise satisfactory.

On the 11th of September Prince Albert was made a member of the Privy Council, and, having been recently appointed to the Colonelcy of the 11th Hussars, he went out from time to time with a squadron of the 1st Life Guards in Windsor Park, in order to make himself acquainted with the forms of English drill, and the words of command. During the same autumn months he was much occupied with a series of readings on the laws and Constitution of England, under the care of Mr. Selwyn, a distinguished writer on jurisprudence. He and the Queen were then residing at Windsor, the green and woody surroundings of which were an endless source of delight to the Prince. But an event was now approaching which rendered a return to Buckingham Palace advisable. The London residence of her Majesty was re-entered on the 13th of November, and, during the same month, Baron Stockmar, who had left England for his home in Coburg at the beginning of August, returned to London at the urgent solicitation of the Prince, who desired to have that admirable friend and counsellor at hand during a period of natural anxiety. On the 21st of November, 1840, the Princess Royal was born, and, although the Prince was a little disappointed at the infant not being a son, the feeling was but momentary. His devotion to the Queen during her confinement was constant, and beyond all praise. He generally dined with the Duchess of Kent, refused to go out in the evening, and was always at hand if anything were required. "No one but himself," says a memorandum by her Majesty in an official work on the Prince's early life, "ever lifted her from