seldom indeed paid for the conveyance of the letters in question. The
system of "franking"--by which the privileged classes got not only their
letters carried, but a great deal too often their dressing-cases and
bandboxes as well--grew into a most serious grievance; so serious indeed
that the opposition for a long period carried on against cheap postage
arose solely from over nice regard to the vested interests of those who
could command a little favour from a Peer, a Member of Parliament, or an
official of high rank, not to speak of those patriotic worthies
themselves.

The fact may thus be made to cut two ways.

From our point of view, it may be cited in direct denial of the
conclusion that people wrote well in past days simply because the
conveyance of their letters was costly. We believe that the mass wrote
just as badly and loosely then as the mass do now, in fact that they
were rather loose on rules of spelling; and that the specimens preserved
and presented to us in type are exceptional, and escaped destruction
with the mass precisely because they were exceptional.

Other circumstances may be taken to account for the loose epistolary
style or rather no-style now so common; and this refers us to the
general question of education--more especially the education of women.
In those days the few were educated; and to be educated was regarded as
the distinctive mark of a leisured and cultivated class: now, education
is general, but, like many other things, it has suffered in the process
of diffusion, whether or not it may in the long run suffer by the
diffusion itself.

The truth is, time alone can tell whether among the select nowadays the