Thus I could not have
escaped paying four and tenpence for the conveyance of my baggage
alone--rather more than three times as much as it would have cost to
convey my baggage and myself the same distance in London. It must not be
forgotten, of course, that the New York Express Company would, if
necessary, have carried the goods much further for the same charge of
forty cents a package. The limit of distance I do not know: it is
probably something like twenty miles. But a potential ell does not
reconcile me to paying an exorbitant price for the actual inch which is
all I have any use for. This method of simplification--fixing the
minimum payment on the basis of the maximum bulk, weight, and
distance--seems to me essentially irrational. In some cases, indeed, it
cuts against the Express Company. When I first had occasion to move from
one abode to another in New York--a distance of about a quarter of a
mile--I thought with glee "Now the famous express system will save me
all trouble." But I found that it would cost two dollars to express my
belongings, whereas even the notoriously extortionate New York cabman
would convey me and all my goods and chattels for half that sum.
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