penny post

• penny-post

penny post (plural penny posts)

1. (historical) Any of various postal systems in which a short letter or light package could be sent for the price of one penny, particularly uniform penny post in which the rate applied regardless of distance.
   • 1847, "Vote for Alderman Johnson", Punch, Vol. XIII, p. 40:

     Alderman Johnson condemns the Reform Act, and is for going backward, in all things, to the good times. Punch humbly suggests that every man who votes for the Crab Alderman should be punished as follows:— The said voter never to be permitted to travel by rail, but to journey to York or elsewhere by the very slowest coach. Never to go to Margate by steamboat, but to take three days to the voyage, per hoy. Never to send a letter by penny-post, but to pay 10d. or 13d., as the case may be—the good old price of the good old times.

   • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:

     The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest.