“May 22nd, 1851.—A short time since certain towns in the West Riding memorialized the Postmaster-General to despatch a mail by an existing express train direct to Boston. The Company (the Great Northern) refused to undertake the service for less than a first-class fare each trip, or £540 a-year. The Postmaster-General called for my opinion. I offered the Company £200 a-year; they refused, and the memorialists were informed that, owing to the excessive demands of the Company, the mail RURAL DISTRIBUTION. On July 15th, 1850, I learned that the Postmaster-General had sanctioned what I regarded as a very important measure:— “Hitherto no posts have been given except daily posts; henceforth, when the correspondence will not justify a daily post, one is to be given thrice, or twice, or once a week, according to a fixed scale, under which the amount of correspondence is compared with the cost of the post. Thus, at a comparatively small cost, the postal system will, I hope, be extended to nearly every house in the kingdom.” This measure, however, though sanctioned by the Treasury, and ordered to be carried into immediate effect, to this day, notwithstanding constant progress, still incomplete, mainly, I believe, through objections on the part of the surveyors to the apparent anomaly of intermittent posts; though the necessary consequence is that many houses, and perhaps even some hamlets, must remain altogether unvisited by the postman. PACKET SERVICE. I was asked to prepare a confidential memorandum on the subject of an experimental despatch of the mails to North America from Galway, which I did accordingly, the results of my investigation, however, not being such as, in my opinion, to justify the experiment. I scarcely need add that some years later the course thus deprecated was taken by Government, not indeed in expectation of profitable results, but as a concession to Irish demands; that the attempt was altogether unsuccessful, and besides absorbing a large sum from the revenue, occasioned disastrous loss to all who held shares in the packets. POSTAL TREATIES. Although postal treaties with foreign countries had but little direct connection with my particular reforms, yet their indirect bearing was important; and still greater their relation to the general postal interests of the country; so that though, ever since my removal from the Treasury they had been managed for the most part without reference to me, I nevertheless had now frequent opportunities of suggesting improvements, and in the end the arrangement fell almost entirely into my hands. The Postmaster-General directed my attention to the state of our treaty with France. The British Office had proposed that the international rate should be reduced from tenpence to sixpence, but this was objected to by the French Government, because it was coupled with a demand for an equitable division of postage between the two Offices. It may be remembered that through a blunder made by our Office in 1843 an undue advantage was given to France, which I then estimated at £4000 per annum; but by a modification made subsequently to my reappointment, but entirely without my knowledge, our annual loss had been raised to £8000. I explained all this to the Postmaster-General, and he regretted that I had not been consulted in the matter; he thought, however, that the French Government could not refuse such concession as would at least rectify the latter error.