VII. So much of the twelfth section of the Post-Office Act, passed in the session held in the 14th and 15th years of Her Majesty's Reign and chaptered 71, as requires the Postmaster General to make to the Governor General of this Province, annually, certain Reports for the purpose of being laid before the Provincial Parliament at each Session thereof, for the year ending the fifth day of April previous to such Session, is hereby repealed; and it shall, hereafter, be the duty of the Postmaster General to furnish such Reports annually so that they may be laid before the Provincial Parliament within ten days after the assembling thereof, and such Annual Reports shall be made up to the thirtieth day of September previous to each Session. * * * * * X. This Act shall take effect on and from the first day of August next. [49] See page 50. Although the enactment clause made the above Act operative on 1st August, 1857, because of which we should not expect it to affect the Postmaster General's report for the year ending 31st March, 1857, yet we find this report dated 30th September, 1857, thus including the year and a half from 1st April, 1856. Among other items of interest in this report we find the following:-- There is very material economy of labor to the Department in dealing with letters pre-paid by stamp as compared with letters on which the postage is collected in money, as well as a manifest gain to the public, in the increased facilities which pre-payment by stamp enables the Post Office to afford for posting and delivering letters so pre-paid. It is gratifying, therefore, to observe that the use of stamps is gradually gaining ground, encouraging as it does the hope that it may be found practicable and expedient ere long to make prepayment by stamp the prevailing rule in Canada, as it has for some time been in the United Kingdom, in France, and in the United States. A reduction in the charge of Book Post Packets, when not exceeding 4 oz., in weight between Canada and the United Kingdom, of one half the former rate has been made. To facilitate the pre-payment of letters passing from Canada to England by the Canadian steamers, a new stamp bearing value at 6 pence sterling, or 7-1/2 pence currency, being the Canadian Packet rate, has been secured and put in circulation. A new stamp has also been introduced of the value of one halfpenny to serve as the medium for prepaying transient Newspapers. The above is the only reference we have to the issue of the 7-1/2d. stamp. The accounts for the fiscal year ending 30th September, 1857, contain the following item:-- "Rawdon, Wright and Co., Postage Stamps, £165.9.6"