The scheme for the extension of the telegraph system, in anticipation of the meditated introduction of the sixpence rate, is a most comprehensive one, and indicates that the Post-office authorities anticipate a very considerable increase of work. The arrangements cover the entire kingdom, and the sum to be expended is half a million, part of the sum having been voted in the official year 1883-84, and the remainder to be voted in the new estimates. From London, upwards of eighty new wires are to be erected to the principal towns of the kingdom, including four additional wires to Liverpool; two each to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and Newmarket; three to Glasgow; two to Edinburgh; and one each to a large number of towns, including, in Scotland, Aberdeen and Dundee. Within London itself, five new pneumatic tubes are to be provided; about seventy new wires will be erected; forty existing wires will be provided with instruments to work ‘duplex’—that is, with the power of transmitting two different messages by one wire from each end simultaneously; and a very large number of offices will have simple apparatus substituted by other and improved instruments. In the city of Liverpool, in addition to the London wires named, three new wires to Manchester are to be put up; and one new wire to Belfast, Birmingham, Blackburn, Bristol, Carlisle, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, and Newcastle. All those wires and all the new London wires are to be ‘duplexed,’ and thus each new line practically counts as two. A number of wires out of Liverpool and the other large towns will be converted to duplex; and Liverpool is to have eight new pneumatic tubes for its busier local offices. At Manchester, besides the London and Liverpool communications already named, there will be new wires to Birmingham, Chester, Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, Bolton, Burnley, Derby, Huddersfield, Hull, Isle of Man, and Nottingham, all duplexed. At Newcastle, an evidence of the curious ramifications of trade is seen in the fact that a new wire is to be put up between that town and Cardiff. Bristol obtains new wires to London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Swansea, and Cardiff; and a share of a new wire for news purposes with Exeter, Plymouth, &c. Sheffield in the same way has a new wire to London, and a share in a news circuit with Nottingham, Leeds, and Bradford. At Birmingham, a number of new local wires, and the duplexing of others, are provided in addition to the various new trunk wires already named. In Scotland, a considerable number of new wires fall to be erected. Edinburgh obtains two of the new London wires, and wires to Manchester, Kelso, and Musselburgh, with the duplexing of some important wires, such as those to Kirkcaldy and Perth. Glasgow, with three London wires added, gets new wires to Dundee, Leeds, Liverpool, Oban, Kilmarnock, Falkirk, &c.; while a large number of the existing wires will be duplexed, and in some cases re-arranged to give more suitable service.