The undersigned, your Petitioners, citizens of the County of Madison and State of New York, deeply sensible of the injurious effects of the late Post Office Law, passed at the last session of Congress, imposing upon transient newspapers prepayment of three cents postage, allowing to Members of Congress the Fran[k]ing privilege, and taking from newspapers issuing from the office of publication the right of transmission in the maiis free of postage for the distance of 30 miles; and believing that the law as it now is, operates almost as a total prohibition upon the circulation of transient newspapers, at the same time resulting in an actual and serious loss to the department, and that it inflicts upon the Country Press, a most unjust and ruinous competition with the Mammoth City Papers; would most respectfully and earnestly ask of your honorable bodies for a restoration of the law as it existed previous to the passage of the act complained of, or for some relief from a law oppressive and unequal in its operations, the enactment of which was most unexpected to your Petitioners, and in their belief wholly uncalled for by the People at large. And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.