The Petition of the undersigned, Publishers of Periodicals in the City of New York, Respectfully Shows:

1. That your Petitioners, while cordially uniting with their fellow citizens in efforts to obtain a reduction of the rates of Postage on letters and newspapers, are unwilling that Periodicals should be sacrificed to accomplish such reduction by an increase of the rates now established, and the exaction of pre-payment of Postage, as recommended in the recent Report of the Post Master General.

2. That a distinction between the rates on Newspapers and Periodicals is unjust, inexpedient, and in many cases impracticable—unjust, because both are alike essential to the interests of the people at large—inexpedient, because nothing would be gained to the Revenue of the Post Office Department by any discouragement to either—and impracticable, because by a little ingenuity on the part of Publishers such distinction can be—nay, is now—easily evaded.

3. That your Petitioners believe the only just rule in fixing the rates of postage on Periodicals is to tax them according to their weight, and that half a cent an ounce for all distances will be ample to remunerate the Department for their Transmission, while such a reduction will be sure vastly to increase their circulation throughout the Country.

4. That if taxed by the sheet—even at one cent, as proposed in the petition of the “Cheap Postage Association,” the postage in most cases would amount to more than the present rates; because a single sheet of a Periodical generally weighs less than one ounce, and in many cases not more than three-quarters of an ounce, and the average weight of Periodicals is about six ounces.

5. That the proposition to require of the Publishers of Newspapers and Periodicals, the payment of postage in advance, would be ruinous in its effects upon both classes of publications, causing the discontinuance of more than one half their number, now depending chiefly on a circulation by the mails for their support, and utterly discouraging any attempts to commence new publications in their stead.

6. That if a law be enacted to go into effect sooner than twelve months after its passage, requiring such pre-payment of postage, few publications of either class could survive its effects, as it would oblige the publishers, without any recourse upon their subscribers, to pay a postage which, at the rates recommended by the Post Master General, would, in most cases, be equal to one half of the amount of subscription.

7. That the privilege now allowed to the publishers of Newspapers to send their Bills to subscribers in the numbers ought to be granted to the publishers of periodicals.

8. That a free exchange between the publishers of Periodicals, and between them and the publishers of Newspapers, should be allowed, the same as is now allowed between the publishers of Newspapers only.

Your Petitioners beg leave to offer a few arguments in support of the views which they have thus submitted for your consideration. In the first place, they would ask “what is a Newspaper but a Periodical?” Is it not published Periodically? True, most Newspapers are devoted chiefly to Politics and News. But they are not all so. Where are our numerous Religious, Literary, and Scientific Newspapers, published weekly or semi-monthly, and the Foreign publications of the same class, which are imported and sent through our mails at Newspaper postage? These do not differ in any respect, except in the mere form and size of the Journals, from the monthly Magazines or Quarterly Reviews of a similar character, now defined to be Periodicals proper. Many of the latter embrace political subjects, and thus approximate more closely to the character of the common Newspaper. Take, for instance, the Democratic Review and the Whig Magazine? Are they not regarded equally as important by the friends of each, as are any two Newspapers of opposing politics? Why, then, are they to be taxed with an increased postage, and Newspapers favored with cheaper rates? Not that your Petitioners object to the lowest possible tax on Newspapers. On the contrary, they earnestly desire to see every encouragement given to their circulation. But they claim that neither the Public taste nor the Public morals should be obliged to look for their elevation and improvement, through the press, to the contents of the Newspapers only, and therefore, that Government should not throw obstacles in the way of a more general circulation of the higher class of Journals, merely because they come under the denomination of Periodicals; but on the contrary, should encourage such publications, as far as may be consistent with its powers, and the other public interests committed to its charge.

In the second place, your petitioners assert that the distinction between Periodicals and Newspapers can be, and is, in many cases evaded. There are Periodicals now published in this country, in Pamphlet form, containing 48 pages, which, at Periodical rates, would pay 4½ cents a Number, but which pass as Newspapers through the mails, and pay but 1½ cents a number. The contents of such Periodicals are purely literary, made up, in fact, almost entirely of articles selected from Periodicals that are charged at Periodical rates. The mere fact of their being printed on two large sheets, and containing a few items of “passing events,” connected with literature, brings them within the present definition of a Newspaper, and thus subjects them to Newspaper postage only. Your Petitioners do not complain that the ingenuity of the Publishers has saved them from a burdensome tax. They do not pray that such Periodicals shall be taxed more, but that all other Periodicals shall be taxed less.

In the third place, if there is a distinction to be made in the rates on “printed matter,” your Petitioners claim that it should be in favor of Newspapers and Periodicals, as against all other printed matter. This is a distinction which may easily be observed, because all “other printed matter” will consist of separate Books, Pamphlets, &c., not published at stated times, nor having any connexion, necessarily, with previous or succeeding issues of one work. Their entire exclusion from the mails would not be of serious consequence to their publishers, as Books are not published, like Periodicals, depending for their sale on a mail circulation.

Your Petitioners confidently believe that much would be gained to the Post Office Department, by a reduction on Periodicals to half a cent an ounce for all distances. A vast increase in their circulation would take place, not only by the increase of new subscribers, but by diverting to the mails a very large number now sent by private conveyance. Besides this, little or nothing would be lost by the numbers being refused at the Post Offices to which they may be sent, because they would, generally, sell for an amount sufficient to pay the postage. Who would not give three cents for a copy of “Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine,” or eight cents for a copy of the “Southern Quarterly Review,” or six cents for a copy of “Silliman’s Journal?” Half a cent an ounce is equal to about one hundred and eighty dollars a Ton, and certainly this ought to be sufficient to carry, on routes already established, Periodicals as freight, from one extreme of the Union to the other, and also pay all charges and commissions to the Postmasters and others, through whose hands they may pass.

But your Petitioners regard the pre-payment of postage by the publishers thereof on Newspapers and Periodicals as of infinitely more importance than the rates, whatever they may be. Almost every Periodical depends largely on its mail circulation. Cut that off, or essentially diminish it, and you effect its ruin at once. That circulation is kept up by allowing the subscriptions to run on from one year to another on a credit. It may be urged that the credit system should be abandoned. Experience, however, has proved that it cannot be, except when publications are sustained principally by advertising or by a circulation chiefly out of the mails. Attempts have often been made to stop the subscriptions at the end of the year, till the cash was received for a new year, and in almost every instance it has failed, and the credit system again been resorted to. The risk of sending the numbers on credit, to a reasonable extent, can be borne by the publishers, because the cost of the numbers he so furnishes, consists only, or mainly, in the cost of presswork and paper, and the chances, therefore, are that he will gain much more in profits on the credit sales of such surplus numbers, than he will lose by bad debts. This is the way in which mail subscribers are retained. But if the cash for postage is to be included in the risk now incurred for the subscription, and a commission of twenty per cent., as now, paid to a collector for obtaining the money, then, most unquestionably, no credit will be given. For, as already stated, the postage, at the rates recommended by the Postmaster General, amounts to about one half the price of subscription. Take a Publication at $5 a year and add $2,50 for postage, and require subscribers to pay $7,50 at the commencement of each successive year, in advance; and more than one half of the subscribers would be lost, and the publication be discontinued, as a necessary consequence. The inconvenience of adding an uneven sum—the fractional part of a dollar—which the postage would, in most cases, involve, and requiring its remittance in advance, is also a serious objection. Moreover it would be impossible to fix upon the correct amount to be remitted, because the numbers of a periodical vary in weight and in the number of sheets which they contain. How much better, then, would it be to collect the postage from the subscriber, whose business it is to pay it, at the time of its delivery, and thus avoid all the inconvenience, injustice, and other evil consequences, certain to follow from requiring the pre-payment of postage by the publisher.

Your Petitioners further urge, that bad as may be the consequences of this new feature in the postage laws, the evils will be rendered tenfold greater by allowing it to go into effect sooner than one year after its adoption. To illustrate this, it is only necessary to suppose that the circulation by mail of a five dollar Periodical is 2000 copies; the yearly postage on that number would amount to $5000. Now, the subscribers, at the time of the passage of such law, if passed at the present Session of Congress, will have paid or contracted to pay, each their $5 for a year’s subscription, under the promise of the publisher, made before such law shall be enacted, to send the numbers to their address by mail. Such promise must be kept, and no available recourse can be had on the subscriber for anything beyond the amount of subscription originally agreed upon. A large share, therefore, of this $5000 would be taken from the pockets of the publisher and his publication inevitably destroyed. Would this be acing in good faith by the Government, upon the inviolability of whose laws the publisher had announced his terms and entered upon his contracts with subscribers? Certainly not. Your Petitioners, therefore, pray that whatever Congress may, in its wisdom, adopt in regard to this matter, they will not suffer it to take effect until existing contracts can be fulfilled.

Your Petitioners having been more than once made to suffer for the unconscious infringement of an act prohibiting the publishers of periodicals from sending their bills to subscribers inclosed in their numbers passed March 3d, 1825, but which it was not, until the last few years, deemed proper to enforce, pray that such prohibition may be removed. Publishers of Newspapers are, by a proviso in the 13th section of the said act, granted the privilege of sending Bills in a similar manner to their subscribers, and it is highly important that the same privilege should be granted to the publishers of Periodicals.

The right to a free exchange of Periodicals between the publishers thereof, which your petitioners have been informed is contained in the Bill recently reported in the House of Representatives, is a right of little or no value to the parties for whose benefit it was evidently intended. Periodicals are generally published in the larger Cities and Towns, between which there is constant communication by private conveyance, and exchanges, therefore, can be easily made without recourse to the mails. The exchange desired, is between the Publishers of Periodicals and the Publishers of Newspapers. Large numbers of the latter are published in the interior, and must be

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sent by mail, and the Periodicals received in exchange must also be sent by mail. These exchanges sometimes amount to several hundred different publications coming to one publisher, and the postage is always a heavy tax on the parties exchanging: Hence the desire to have both classes of publications placed on the same footing, viz. a free exchange between the publishers of Periodicals, and also between them and the publishers of Newspapers.

YOUR PETITIONERS PRAY for a favorable consideration of the arguments and suggestions herein set forth—and for the adoption of measures tending to the widest diffusion of intelligence among the people, and the encouragement of those interests engaged in its production. It is by no means on account of those interests alone that your Petitioners have approached you on this subject. The whole reading community, and especially those in moderate circumstances, will be seriously affected by the additional burdens to be thrown upon the publications they have been accustomed to receive, and of which, in many cases, they will be entirely deprived, in consequence of their being no longer published.

(Signed)