The Second Annual Report of the Postmaster-General on the state
of the Post-office for the year 1855 has just been issued. It represents a general extension of Post-office conveniences, including considerable ac- celeration. The Postmaster-General hopes to complete the first general delivery throughout the metropolis as early as nine o'clock a. m. The whole metropolis will be divided into ten districts, two central and eight surrounding districts ; each to be treated as, to a great extent, a separate post-office system, with direct transmission between any two. Thus, a letter would go direct from Cavendish Square to Grosvenor Square. It is hoped that special night-mail trains will run directly to the North, increasing the regularity and speed. Already, by accelerations, letters received from France by the night-mail can be answered, and letters from the further parts of the United Kingdom are_ forwarded direct to France by the day-mail. Travelling post-offices are multiplied. Some items of increase and decrease are remarkable. Of "valentines," at the customary season, 800,000 passed through the Post-office within the week. They are increasing in England and Scotland, decreasing in Ireland. Letters from the United States decreased 500,000 within the year, in consequence of steamers withdrawn for the war. The news- papers sent through the post decreased about one-fourth in number on the change in the stamp-law : the present number is 200,000 daily ; 600,000 are sent to the Dead-letter-office within the year. Of letters 2,400,000 annually were entirely "dead" ; misdirected letters are diminishing, but they are about three-quarters per cent on the gross number ; letters returned, chiefly for non-payment of postage, are about 5 per cent from the United States, and about 11 per cent from France. There is still a remarkable degree of carelessness with respect to letters of some im- portance : of money-orders 1 in 837 is allowed to lapse from neglect of presentation ; but of those which have lapsed from the expiry of the term, but are renewed by payment of a second commission, 1 in 39 is again allowed to lapse.
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