close as possible to the brink. In this way, therefore, it seems to have come about that not only must modifications be made, but steps must be taken to perfect the plan, and present it in such a shape as a measure of reform as should silence cavil and complaint. Twelve months for such a work might seem long--might, indeed, be unnecessary; but few will say that the scheme,--so much remodelled as fairly to be considered a new one, did not amply atone for the delay. The task of adopting Mr. Sikes's proposals just as they originally stood, and which proposals the Post Office authorities had generally acquiesced in, seems to have been abandoned on account of the practical difficulties which stood in the way; one of which Mr. Gladstone indicated in the letter we have already given. The object now, therefore, was to originate a mode of working altogether independent of Mr. Sikes's plan, in which the desirable modifications to be made in Mr. Sikes's scheme should also be introduced. Before, however, we show how this was eventually accomplished, it is necessary to say in what these important modifications consisted. 1. Mr. Sikes's scheme was proposed to be worked by a Commission who should preside over a central bank and employ the agency of the Post Office. Such a division of authority would have been unprecedented, and must have led to confusion and great expense, if even it could have been so arranged. 2. The Commissioners were to have been empowered to receive Money Orders as deposits and acknowledge them in the form of an expensive description of "Interest Notes." The Money Orders and the "Notes" themselves would have required all the surplus interest to have been expended upon them, and there would have been little chance of the scheme turning out self-supporting. 3. Mr. Sikes proposed to open only 1,527 Money Order Offices as Savings Banks. He proved at great length that the system he proposed was not only the best, but the cheapest; yet at the solicitation, we believe, of several Savings Bank actuaries, he did not go the length of including any town where provision had been made for provident people. This, of course, restricted the inhabitants of 600 towns to the dearer mode of operation, though the cheaper one was shown to hold out anticipations of producing by far the best article. Such considerations could not, we should imagine, weigh with the Post Office when once the matter was taken in hand, and no arbitrary test of the above nature could ever have been entertained.