Another way people were saving money on parchment - and postage - was crosswriting. When stationery is expensive and postage is charged by the sheet (as well as distance) you are going to maximise your usage of that sheet. Envelopes counted as a page, which is why no one used envelopes. Also, the recipient pays so it's taking a bit of a liberty.

Crosswriting was usually at a ninety-degree angle, could be a full one-eighty, or even forty-five. Or all three at the same time. Good grief. How on earth they read them I do not know. Especially using messy ink and with that handwriting. Sometimes a different colour ink was used, throwing a lifeline. Many letters are also "Margin? What margin?" Exhausting.

In Emma while Miss Bates raves about Jane Fairfax's letters she mentions, I believe more than once, that they are crosswritten. Indeed there are letters from Jane to Cassandra Austen that are densely crosswritten - linked below. Austen's remaining letters are an amazing read. Nicely typed up though.

In 1840 there were postage reforms and things got a lot simpler for letter writers. Payment is based on weight and not distance. The world's first pre-paid postage stamp was introduced: the Penny Black. Victorian London had up to twelve deliveries a day. You could arrange to go to dinner that night... by post.