The Petitioner in this instance desires to call the attention of Congress to certain laws made and enacted for the arrangement of the Post Office Department, and to pray an alteration.

1. The law provides that publishers of newspapers shall receive, as “exchanges” only newspapers free of postage, and thus subjects the proprietors of the daily and weekly press to a large outlay in order to secure the benefits which must accrue to their respective publications by the receipt of pamphlets, monthly magazines, & quarterly Reviews.

2. The proprietors of monthly magazines and of other periodicals which cannot be called newspapers, are allowed no “exchanges” whatever free of postage.

Your petitioner submits

1st. That this law operates unequally, and that if no other alteration be made, this at least should be, namely, that monthly & quarterly publications shall receive all periodicals not strictly newspapers free of postage. For why should daily and weekly newspapers be allowed exchanges of their own kind and this privilege be denied to monthlies?

2nd. That in many instances the law which prohibits monthlies from receiving free “exchanges” is evaded, and in this manner the Publisher of a magazine or quarterly may choose to print a small weekly newspaper of no importance, upon which he bestows no pains and but little expense, and may have all his news-

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paper “exchanges” sent to that. Those who do not choose to do this must suffer by the difference. It may not be amiss to suggest that the smallest and most poorly printed weekly can have exchanges from all parts of the union burdening the mails and giving trouble to Postmasters, to almost any extent, while a monthly periodical of important influence and extensive circulation, can have no paper without paying postage on it. Your petitioner begs to have the inequality of this law remedied. The monthly & quarterly press should have exchanges free, or this privilege should be denied to newspapers.

3rd. Your petitioner also begs Congress to consider that the interests of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly publications are closely connected. The weekly press enriches itself by its extracts from monthlies & quarterlies, and these in return find themselves debtors to their more ephemeral contemporaries. If Congress therefore, desire the elevation of the press generally, restrictions should be removed.

4th. Your petitioner does not beleive that any loss will accrue to the Post Office Department by making these modifications in the existing laws. If allowed to exchange freely, the various publications will make such arrangements as shall greatly promote their circulation, and each additional subscriber will necessarily increase the annual receipts of the P. O. Department. This income it is beleived will be equal to any additional expense which may be incurred by making the desired alterations.

For the better promotion of political intelligence, and of moral and religous instruction, as well as of sound learning and general information, your petitioner begs that

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Congress will, as early as practicable, so enact that every periodical publication in this U. States shall be allowed one copy of every other periodical in the U.S., to be received, by mail, free of postage.

And your petitioner will ever pray &c., &c

The undersigned, publishers of newspapers in the town of New Berne & state of North Carolina, most respectfully unite in the petition of the Rev. Mr. Deems, and beg that the solicited alteration may be effected as promptly as public business may allow. The inconveniences of which complaint is made, are felt by proprietors of weekly papers, to be injurious and burdensome.