We, the undersigned, citizens of Northumberland county, and State of Pennsylvania, deeming the legitimate object of the Post Office Department to be in the dissemination of knowledge among the people, and feeling a deep interest in the defusion of its benefits, respectfully pray your honorable bodies, that the existing laws of Congress, regulating the rates of postage, &c., be so altered and amended as to allow newspapers to be transmitted through the mail free of postage in the counties in which they are printed, and any distance within 30 miles from the office of publication; also, that the provision of the act of Congress, passed March 3d, 1847, authorizing a charge of three cents postage on all papers not sent by the publisher, be repealed, as imposing a tax which your petitioners deem at variance with the principles of justice and the requirements of the Post Office Department. We also pray your honorable bodies so to change the Post Office laws as to allow the free transmission of all periodicals and magazines, sent to editors in “exchange,” upon which postage is now charged. For these, and such other alterations in the several acts of Congress, as your wisdom may suggest, which may tend to increase the usefulness of the Post Office Department, we will, as in duty bound, ever pray, &c.