To the Congress of the United States:
The undersigned citizens of the County of Orleans would hereby respectfully ask your Honorable Body to pass an act at the earliest practicable day, abolishing the entire franking privilege, and allowing the circulation by mail of all Newspapers within their respective Counties, or a distance of thirty miles, to subscribers, free of postage.
If the compensation of Members of Congress and other officers of government allowed the franking privilege is inadequate to their services without such privilege. let provision be made in some other way not liable to like abuse, and by so doing, in our opinion, the mails can be made the means of supplying every citizen with the Newspapers of his own locality free of postage, without any additional expense to that service
Our institutions are founded upon the virtue and intelligence of the people; and this consideration alone should induce their representatives to furnish every possible means for the promotion of that end; and what so well calculated therefor as the free circulation of Newspapers within the respective Counties where published—a measure alike due to the publishers and to the people—And therefore we most earnestly ask and expect that you will grant these our most reasonable requests.
Robert Clark S. L. Jeuett
Artemas Densmore James H Spicer
William Griswold William B Austin
Josephus Morgan Wm W Peet
J A Ream A. W. Leach
William L. Clark Cicero Cary
David Jones Edwin Hall [?]
Ethan Graham Saml Mead
S. V. [K?]. Requa
G Requa Oscar Sawyer
Isaac O Nulls[?] S P Weeks
Alexis Crane Horace Sawyer
E J Crane Geo S Pur[?]
Levi Cook
Ha[?]en Elmore
Robert Montoney
Wm. S. Jewett
A. DeGroff
C Charles G Root
A. M. Wood Leonard Butts
J B Roberts Edwin Bliss
M J Robler Henry Higgins
Chas [?] Brown
Oran J Smith T. Bliss
Asa Baker Coffin Avery
P. A. Bassett C. H Avery
George Spencer B Thomas
Levi Hurd Charles Cucick
W E Avery Smith Brannen
W O Will[?] Wm K. Townsend
D Demoy John Townsend
Geo Brown Wesley Clough
Osod McWilliams Charles Skutt
Charles [?]os[?]e[?] [?] Pool
William Robertson Henry Harwick
A. J. Kundall L L Forbes
Benjamin More James. C. Allis
John E Jewett Warliam Hudge
N J Asslin Peter Montony
Wm. E. Prosser Henry Thacher
C Harwick Rasmus Dahl
George Hall
Daniel C Thomas Boyd Hopkins
John Dean Platt M Redfield
Moses Collins S. A Thomas
Numon Shiver James Austin
Spencer H Spears
Noble Averill Daniel McConnele
Nathaniel Palmer N B Barker
Ruele Robler A. Whitney
John Hull J. W. Barker
Solomon Hart Moses Hart
L. Collins P Leonard Jr
Elijah Weed Alonzo Knight
A Collins N M Requa

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N J
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New York
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Petition from citizens of Kendall ^orleans county^ N. York praying to be relieved from the tax on news-papers, and for the abolition of the franking privilege &c
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January 17. 1848 Referred to the committee on the Post office & Post Roads
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Committee on Post Office & P. Roads
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Presented by Mr. Hunt
N.Y.

Partially Printed Document Signed, 2 page(s), RG 233, Entry 367: Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Thirtieth Congress, 1847-1849, Records of Legislative Proceedings, Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents Which Were Referred to Committees, 1847-1849, NAB