| The expenditures of all kinds for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, are estimated at | $14,098,500 00 |
| The gross revenue for the year 1866, including foreign postage and miscellaneous receipts, is estimated at an increase of six per cent. on the revenue of 1864, making | 13,184,547 79 |
| —————— | |
| Estimated deficiency of revenue compared with estimated expenditures | 913,952 21 |
| From this sum must be deducted the amount of the permanent appropriations to compensate the department for carrying free mail-matter, under acts of March 3, 1847, and March 3, 1851 | 700,000 00 |
| —————— | |
| By which the estimated deficiency is reduced to | $213,952 21 |
The grants for the transportation of free mail-matter for the last two fiscal years have not been expended. Assuming that the amount of $700,000 for the last year is still available, no appropriation for any deficiency in the revenues will be required.
In making the estimate of probable expenditures for 1866, the amounts actually expended under the several heads during the past fiscal year have been taken as a basis; but an increase in several of the items named has become necessary, particularly in the appropriation for postage-stamps and stamped envelopes, the estimated cost of the latter being increased $140,000 per annum, according to the terms of a new contract elsewhere referred to in this report.
IMPORTANT FACTS.
The maximum annual receipts of the postal department, previous to the rebellion, from all the States was $8,518,067.40, which was exceeded in the sum of $6,038,091.30 by the receipts of the last year from the loyal States alone. The revenues during the past four years amounted to $46,458,022.97, an average of $11,614,505.74 per annum. Compared with the receipts of the four years immediately preceding, which amounted to $32,322,640.73, the annual average increase of revenue was $3,533,845.56, which has not resulted from any considerable additions to the service, the ratio of receipts to expenditures having been larger than, with few exceptions, at any previous period. A proper regard to economy in administration, aided by larger contributions from all the States of the Union, will enable the department to increase its usefulness from year to year in all its legitimate functions. But it must not be overlooked that the ability to fully perform its mission as the postal agent of the Government is greatly impaired by the burdens imposed by the franking privilege and expensive service upon routes established for other than postal purposes, the receipts from which are largely unremunerative. However much the establishment of these routes is to be commended for national objects, in which regard they command the approval of the country, it is not possible to see upon what principle they are wholly chargeable to the postal fund, which belongs to those by whom it has been contributed, and is pledged to meet the wants of the postal service.
The subjoined table illustrates the misapplication of the postal funds:—
| Routes. | Pay. | Receipts. | Excess of pay. | |
| Salt Lake City to Folsom | $385,000 | } | $23,934 44 | $726,065 56 |
| Atchison to Salt Lake | 365,000 | |||
| Kansas City to Santa Fé | 35,743 | 6,536 57 | 29,206 43 | |
| Lincoln to Portland | 225,000 | 24,791 67 | 200,208 33 | |
| The Dalles to Salt Lake | 186,000 | 5,660 77 | 180,339 23 | |
| Total | 1,196,743 | 60,923 45 | 1,135,819 55 |
THE RAILWAY POSTAL SYSTEM.
This system, which was suggested by the celebrated Rowland Hill, originated at a period in English postal history when the requirements of trade and commerce demanded a revisal of the code. Perhaps no man was better qualified for the purpose than was Mr. Hill. In 1839 railroad post-offices were in use for mail-bags. Each railway company provided a car, when desired to do so by the postmaster-general, for the exclusive use of the mails. These cars were fitted up with boxes to facilitate the distribution and reception of the mails. On the London and Liverpool Road (1839) it required the constant and active employment of two clerks to assort, receive, and hand out the mails: such is the rapidity of travel, and so numerous are the post-offices upon this route. Subsequently these cars were used for the distribution of letters in large cities, by assorting them on the routes. Not only were such distributions made on the cars for all the principal stations on the line of the railroads before the arrival of the cars, but distributions for the offices connected with the stations, and therefore incidentally for the entire district of country through which the lines are in operation. It was some time before our postal department could be made sensible of the necessity of the system in our country. Perhaps no other country in the world possessed a larger amount of railroad travel and postal extent than ours, and yet the spirit of old fogyism was hard to be subdued in the encounter Young America had with it on this subject, nor was it until the cars were almost forced upon the department (experimentally) that they were first introduced. These experiments were made on the routes from Chicago, Illinois, to Clinton, Davenport, and Dubuque, Iowa, with the most satisfactory results, as were those between Washington and New York. The attention of the public was called to this new postal system by the postmaster-general (William Dennison) in his report for the fiscal year 1864, who stated “that cars requisite for the purpose are prepared for one daily line between New York and Washington, and, by means of clerks taken temporarily from the post-offices at Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, letters intended for distribution at either of these points are distributed in the cars, and so arranged that they can be despatched without delay on connecting routes.”