shall require those who receive newspapers by post,Regulations concerning newspapers, &c. to pay always the amount of one quarter’s postage in advance. If any person employed in any department of the post-office shall improperly detain, delay, embezzle or destroy any newspaper, or shall permit any other person to do the like, or shall open, or permit any other to open any mail or packet of newspapers not directed to the office where he is employed, he shall, on conviction thereof, forfeit a sum not exceeding fifty dollars for every such offence. And if any other person shall open any mail or packet of newspapers, or shall embezzle or destroy the same, not being directed to himself, or not being authorized to receive and open the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, pay a sum not exceeding twenty dollars for every such offence. And if any person shall take or steal any packet, bag or mail of newspapers from or out of any post-office, or from any person having custody thereof, such person shall, on conviction, be imprisoned, not exceeding three months for every such offence, to be kept at hard labour during the period of such imprisonment. If any person shall enclose or conceal a letter or other thing, or any memorandum in writing in a newspaper, or among any package of newspapers, which he shall have delivered into any post-office, or to any person for that purpose, in order that the same may be carried by post, free of letter postage, he shall forfeit the sum of five dollars for every such offence; and the letter, newspaper, package, memorandum or other thing, shall not be delivered to the person to whom it is directed until the amount of single letter postage is paid for each article of which the package shall be composed. No newspapers shall be received by the postmasters to be conveyed by post, unless they are sufficiently dried and enclosed, in proper wrappers, on which, beside the direction, shall be noted the number of papers which are enclosed for subscribers, and the number for printers. The Postmaster-General, in any contract he may enter into for the conveyance of the mail, may authorize the person with whom such contract is to be made, to carry newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, other than those conveyed in the mail. When the mode of conveyance and the size of the mails will admit it, magazines and pamphlets may be transported in the mail at one cent a sheet, for any distance not exceeding fifty miles, at one cent and an half for any distance over fifty and not exceeding one hundred miles, and two cents for any greater distance.
Compensation of the postmasters.Limitation of compensation.Sec. 28. And be it further enacted, That the Postmaster-General be authorized to allow to the postmasters respectively, such commission on the monies arising from the postages of letters and packets as shall be adequate to their respective services and expenses: Provided, that the said commission shall not exceed thirty per cent. on the first hundred dollars collected in one quarter, and twenty-five per cent. on a sum over one hundred and not more than three hundred; and twenty per cent. on any sum over four hundred and not exceeding two thousand dollars; and eight per cent. on any sum collected, being over two thousand four hundred dollars; except to the postmasters who may be employed in receiving and despatching foreign mails, whose compensation may be augmented, not exceeding twenty-five dollars, in one quarter, and excepting to the postmasters at offices where the mail is regularly to arrive, between the hours of nine o’clock at night and five o’clock in the morning; whose commission on the first hundred dollars collected in one quarter, may be increased to a sum not exceeding fifty per cent. The Postmaster-General may allow to the postmasters respectively, a commission of fifty per cent. on the monies arising from the postage of newspapers, magazines and pamphlets; and to the postmasters, two cents for every free letter delivered out of the office, excepting such as are for the postmaster himself; and each postmaster who shall be required to keep a
