One memorable instance of the way in which, under the cheapening system, the public revenue has been recklessly and needlessly thrown away, is to be found in the Penny Postage. It is well known that, prior to the change, the Post-office income, after paying _the whole charges of the Packet Service_, yielded a clear surplus revenue to the nation of £1,500,000 or £1,600,000 a-year. The postage of letters, however, was decidedly too high; a reduction was loudly called for by the public; and, if cautiously and judiciously applied, the increase of letters might have compensated the reduction of rates of postage, and a boon have been conceded to the community, without any detriment to the public service. A uniform 2d. or 3d., or even 4d., postage would have been hailed with unmixed satisfaction by the people, who had been paying 10d. or 1s. for their letters, and no material diminution of that important branch of the revenue experienced. Instead of this, what did the Government, urged on by the cheapening party, actually do? Why, they reduced the postage at once to a penny for all letters, from all distances within the two islands. We were told, that not only would there be no loss, but a certain gain, after a few years had elapsed, from the vast and certain increase in the number of letters that would be transmitted. How have these expectations been realised? The revenue set down as coming from the Post-office, immediately after the change, was only £500,000 or £600,000 a-year; and, after having been nine years in operation, it has only risen, in the year ending 5th April 1850, to £803,000; much less than half of what it would have been under the former system, when the increased population and transactions of the country are taken into consideration, if either the old rates had been continued, or a reasonable reduction to 2d. or 3d. had taken place. It is to the embarrassment produced by this great defalcation that we are mainly indebted for the renewal of the income-tax.