“He also states that the amount demanded by railroad companies for transportation of the mails is more than two hundred per cent. higher than is paid for coach service upon the roads connecting links between different railroad companies upon the same main route, and that, too, where the night-service upon the railroads is less than that performed in coaches.” He illustrates this by the following:—“Boston is one of the most important points of railroad concentration in the Union. Its business prosperity is proverbial; and yet in that city the quarter ending the 31st of March shows, as compared with the corresponding quarter of the year before, a decrease in postage receipts of _three thousand one hundred and ninety-five dollars_, being double the amount of diminution to be found within the same time in any other post-office in the nation, with the single exception of Philadelphia, which is another great _terminus_ of railroad communication.”
CHARLES A. WICKLIFFE.—Born at Bardstown, Kentucky, June 8, 1788, and was admitted to the bar at an early age. He was twice elected to the State legislature during the war of 1812; he twice volunteered in the Northwestern army, and was present at the battle of the Thames; in 1820 he was again elected to the legislature; in 1822 he was elected to Congress, and was four times re-elected. During his service in that body he was appointed by the House as one of the managers in the impeachment of Judge Peck. Upon leaving Congress in 1833, he was again elected to the legislature, and upon its assembling was chosen Speaker. In 1834 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State; and in 1839, by the death of Governor Clark, he became acting Governor. He was appointed postmaster-general September 13, 1841. In 1849 he was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of Kentucky; and under the new Constitution he was appointed as one of the revisers of the statute laws of the State.
This gentleman’s views of the postal department were more practical and business-like than those of his predecessor. He says in his report, dated December 2, 1841, “As has already been remarked, the original design in the establishment of the post-office department was that its income should be made to sustain its operations. That principle ought never to be abandoned. Whilst the department should not be regarded as a source of revenue to the nation, it never should become an annual charge to the treasury. Upon assuming the discharge of the duties pertaining to the office of postmaster-general, my first object was to investigate its financial condition; and it becomes my duty to inform you that I did not find it in that prosperous state which the demands upon it require.