are unwilling. Besides, there are myriads of letters now sent by private conveyance, which, if the postage was reduced, would be sent by mail. Not a steam-boat leaves the wharf, nor a mail-stage the tavern, but takes with them hundreds of letters, in order to save the expense of postage. But if the postage was reduced, there is hardly an individual, certainly not a man in business, but would prefer sending his letters by mail, rather than give his friend or acquaintance the trouble of carrying them. Hence, this unequal and burdensome tax excludes daily from the post-office thousands and tens of thousands of letters, which, under a cheaper and more equal system, would be sent by the mails, and thus contribute to swell the revenue of the department. We might enlarge upon this subject, but these suggestions are deemed sufficient to show the practicability of reducing the rates of postage to a much lower rate than they now are.

We have said that it was our object also to show the necessity of a total reform in the post-office department. This we shall endeavor to do in as few words as possible.

1. The present rates of postage should be changed because of their inequality. Let us take the following for an example:-The postage on a single letter to Philadelphia is twelve and a half cents, and eighteen and three quarters cents to Baltimore, Providence, and Boston. This is a heavy tax upon the citizens and merchants of those cities, between whom there is an uninterrupted daily correspondence. There is no fairness in making our citizens pay twelve and a half cents for 80 miles, and only twenty-five cents for 2,000 miles! The conveyance of a letter 80 miles cannot cost half as much as to carry it 2,000 miles, and, consequently, there can be no justice in requiring us to pay that sum. Why should those who send letters only a short distance, be obliged to pay for those who send their letters to a greater distance? This inequality in the postage of letters should be corrected, even if the rates are not reduced.

There is likewise an inequality in the rates of newspaper and pamphlet postage, which should be corrected. A newspaper, no matter how large the sheet, pays only one and a half cents to any portion of the Union, and the same is charged for the smallest. The mammoth sheet of the papers called the "New World," and " Brother Jonathan," pay no more than the daily " Sun," or "Whig," which are not one fourth of their size. Again, should either of those sheets be printed in pamphlet form, and stitched, it would be charged two and a half cents as a magazine, and if the same sheet should be issued as an occasional pamphlet it would be charged six cents! Is not this an unequal tax upon knowledge, which should be immediately corrected? What good reason can be urged, that a small sheet should pay as much postage as one that is four times heavier and larger; or that because a sheet is folded and stitched, it should therefore pay double and quadruple another that is not? Equity demands a reform in the rates of postage, and he who takes the lead in this salutary measure will deserve well of his country. 2. The monopoly character of our post-office system renders it peculiarly obnoxious to animadversion, being wholly at war with the spirit of our free institutions. The post-office department has the sole and exclusive control of transporting letters and papers, and no individual or company is permitted to come into competition with its operations,

without incurring heavy penalties. Were it not for this prohibition, letters might be sent to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston, and other cities of the Atlantic coast, for one fourth of what it now costs, and with equal if not greater expedition and security. If this business was left free to individuals or companies, instead of the government, they could be made responsible for the safe transportation and delivery of letters containing money. The post-office department charges an additional sum for letters containing enclosures, but gives no additional security for their safe delivery; whereas, if the business was thrown open, and others might engage in this business, ample and satisfactory security could be obtained for a safe and expeditious delivery of letters with their contents.

We might here ask, why should the government assume the exclusive right of transporting our letters and papers any more than our persons and articles of trade? With equal propriety might they claim the right of transporting all goods, wares, and merchandise, from city to city, to the exclusion of every other person from engaging in the business, and then charge such rates as they might think proper. There is no one but would instantly exclaim against the injustice and oppression of such an odious monopoly, and yet this monopoly, in relation to the transmission of letters and papers, is submitted to without a murmur, merely because we have been so long accustomed to it.

To many of our readers it may appear strange and heretical doctrine to suggest the idea that we could do as well or better without what is called "the post-office department." Let us suppose, for example, that the clause, giving congress the power "to establish post-offices and postroads," was struck from the constitution; is any one weak enough to believe that the activity of commerce would not soon supply another system equally as efficient and useful? In the language of an eloquent and powerful writer, who has the honor of first starting the idea of a free trade post-office, " modes of conveyance would be instituted at once; they would speedily be improved by rival efforts of competition, and would keep pace step by step with the public demand. It may be said that the places far inland and thinly inhabited would suffer by the arrangement. The solitary squatter in the wilderness might not, it is true, hear the forest echoes daily awakened by the postman's horn, and his annual letter might reach him charged with a greater expense than he is now required to pay. But there is no place on the map which would not be supplied with mail facilities by paying a just equivalent; and if they are now supplied for less, it is because the burden of post-office taxation is imposed with disproportional weight on the populous sections of the land. But there is no reason why the east should pay the expense of threading with the mail the thick wildernesses of the west, or of wading with it through the swamps and morasses of the south. This is a violation of the plainest principles of equal rights."

3. The present organization of the post-office department is liable to great abuses, inasmuch as it places in the hands of one individual an immense and dangerous patronage, which may be wielded against the true interests of the people. Under the present system, there are upwards of thirteen thousand post-masters, holding their appointments directly from one man, and removable at his pleasure. Nearly two thousand mail contractors are brought into immediate contact with the head of the de

partment, and by whose decisions alone contracts are made and fines levied for delinquencies. This numerous army of postmasters and contractors have a multitude of subordinates under their control, and if we include the clerks, carriers, and various other persons more or less dependent for support on this enormous system, it will probably yield an aggregate of not much less than half a million of persons under the immediate direction, to some extent, of a single individual. Will it not be perceived at a single glance that this monstrous power is at all times susceptible of being exerted with the most dangerous effect for the advancement of objects hostile to the true interests of the people?

To use the language of the powerful writer above mentioned, "it is not only the vast means of undue influence which the present system gives to a single federal officer, in enabling him, to some extent, directly to control the suffrages of a numerous body of organized dependents, but the facilities it furnishes for a rapid and simultaneous diffusion of political intelligence which it may be desired to circulate, for the obstruction of that of a contrary tenor, and for the exercise of all the arts of political espionage, also render the post-office, as a branch of government, a dangerous institution. If this is a danger not necessary to be incurred, if the duties which it performs are a matter of trade which might safely be left to the laws of trade, and if the transmission of our letters and newspapers, from place to place, might be submitted with salutary results to the operations of the same principles which now secure the carrying of our merchandise and our persons, there are many who will readily admit that the free trade system, as tending to simplify the offices of government and restraining its powers, would be better than one of political regulation. We are ourselves strongly inclined to the belief, that if the clause in the federal charter which gives to congress the control of the post-office had never been inserted, a better system would have grown up under the mere laws of trade. The present system, let it be conducted as it may, can never, in the nature of things, be wholly free from political abuses, and is always in danger of being converted into a mere political machine. The abuses which are its inevitable attendants will necessarily increase from year to year, as the population swells in numbers and spreads over a wider surface. It must always be managed by political intermediaries and rapacious subordinates, be attended with a vast amount of unnecessary expense, and this expense must be drawn from the people by a method of taxation in utter violation of their equal rights. It is a government machine, cumbrous, expensive, and unwieldy, and liable to be perverted to the worst uses.'

B. B.

PUNCTUALITY.-Sell to a man who is punctual in his payments at a less profit than to him who is not. One dollar sure is better than two doubtful, and it will avail you more in an emergency. The way to get credit is to be punctual; the way to preserve it is not to use it too much. Settle often-have short accounts. Trust no strangers; -your goods are better than doubtful charges.- Foster.

• The late William Leggett.

ART. VIII.-MERCANTILE LAW REPORTS.

FORFEITURE OF GOODS.—BRUSSELS AND WILTON RUGS.-SILK TWIST

SEWING SILK.-WORSTED CRAVATS.

IMPORT DUTIES.-Many important cases have been decided during the past year, which have a bearing upon the existing tariff. The cases which follow were reported for the Merchant's Magazine, and may be implicitly relied upon for their correctness and fidelity.

FORFEITURE OF GOODS.

1. In the United States District Court, before Judge Betts, February 12, 1840. The United States v. Ten Cases of Merchandise. Hadden & Co., claimants.

This was an information for the forfeiture of the goods under the three clauses of the penal part of the 14th section of the act of July, 1832. It contained three counts: 1. That the goods on inspection did not correspond with the entry. 2. That the package contained articles not mentioned in the entry, inasmuch as none of the goods in the package were specified in the entry. 3. That the package and invoice were made up with intent to evade or defraud the revenue.

The entry and invoice produced upon the entry were read, in which the goods were described as worsted shawls; also the letter of the shippers to the claimants was produced by them and read on the part of the United States, stating, that in great confidence of the integrity and high standing of the claimants, the shippers had opened a business with them, by the consignment of ten cases worsted shawls, and a case of printed cotton handkerchiefs.

The evidence for the prosecution farther showed, that upon inspection the goods were shawls composed of cotton and worsted; all the goods were of the same kind; and the materials were palpably to be discovered, and nothing in the way of concealment appeared.

The Court then suggested, that as it had been decided by the Circuit Court that the act of congress did not contain words imposing any forfeiture for the goods not corresponding with the entry, (owing apparently to the accidental omission of words of forfeiting in the law,) there need be no discussion as to the first count, seeking the forfeiture on that ground. The claimants' council offered to waive any objection on this ground, and asking to have that question tried, as they were prepared to show that the goods were invoiced and entered under their usual and appropriate name in trade. They were therefore desirous in the present suit to have the law pronounced, that in case of the non-correspondence alleged, the goods were forfeited; but the Court said, that it was not at liberty to lay down law by consent contrary to the decision by which the Court was bound.

The claimants' counsel then contended, that under the second count, charging that the package contained articles not in the entry, reference was had not to a misdescription of the whole contents of the package, but to an omission of some part of the contents in the entry; that a

misdescription of the whole was the case intended in the first clause of the statute, and therefore was not included in the second. The district attorney insisted, that the misdescription of one article in a case was within the act, and much more a misdescription of every article.

The Court ruled, that the act of 1832, in question, is to be construed in connexion with the act of 1830, of which it is emendatory. By the act of 1830 the omission of an article in the package from the entry, subjected the whole package to forfeiture; by the act of 1832 this was repealed, and the omission of an article only subjected that article to forfeiture; clearly showing that a forfeiture of the whole package was not intended by this clause of the act, but to have been contemplated in the first clause; and as the proposition in the present case was to forfeit every article, in other words, the whole package, not for any omission of a part, but a misdescription of the whole, the forfeiture could not be claimed under the second clause of the statute; and, therefore, that the second count of the information might be laid out of view.

The district attorney then claimed that the evidence was sufficient, unless contradicted, to claim a forfeiture under the third count, charging the invoice to be made up with intent to evade or defraud the revenue; since by the description in the invoice the goods would have passed free, while in fact they were liable to a duty of 25 per cent. The claimants' counsel insisted, that under this third clause of the statute, the information was too vague and uncertain to allow of a forfeiture, since it did not show in what the intent to evade or defraud existed, nor by what means it was attempted. They also contended, that under the third clause of the act, the United States could not claim a forfeiture for the same faults as were embraced under the first or second clauses, by merely showing the intent in addition; since the two first clauses embraced the cases whether the intent were fraudulent or not.

The Court. This third count alleges the offence in the words of the law, and that, in form, is sufficient.

It is not clear, nor is the Court of opinion, that if the case fall within the second clause, and an article in a package had been omitted from the entry, appearing to have been thus omitted through a fraudulent intent, it would not create a forfeiture under this third clause of the act and this count of the information grounded on it. The Court considers, that if such omission were accompanied with circumstances of concealment, or other matters, showing the package or invoice made up fraudulently, it would under this third clause forfeit the whole package.

But here it is not the case of any omission; it is a description of the whole package; all the goods are entered, but, as is alleged, under a wrong description. This is not the offence contemplated in the second clause, nor is it punished with forfeiture in the first; and this misdescription, therefore, is not of itself competent evidence, without other proof of circumstances of concealment or art to disguise, from which the jury can legally infer fraud.

The Court, therefore, directed the jury that the evidence was not competent to warrant a conviction under the count charging fraudulent intent, and the jury acquitted the goods.

The district attorney made a bill of exceptions to the several decisions. B. F. Butler, district attorney. D. Lord, jr., W. Q. Morton, and A. Hamilton, for claimants.