This gentleman’s views of the postal department were more practical and business-like than those of his predecessor. He says in his report, dated December 2, 1841, “As has already been remarked, the original design in the establishment of the post-office department was that its income should be made to sustain its operations. That principle ought never to be abandoned. Whilst the department should not be regarded as a source of revenue to the nation, it never should become an annual charge to the treasury. Upon assuming the discharge of the duties pertaining to the office of postmaster-general, my first object was to investigate its financial condition; and it becomes my duty to inform you that I did not find it in that prosperous state which the demands upon it require. “The income of this department is liable to be affected by the fluctuations of the business of the country. It is increased or depressed in proportion to the increase or depression of that business.” Mr. Wickliffe also took another sensible view of the department: he says, “Besides this cause of fluctuation in its income, other causes of a reduction, more or less in every year, may be found in the increased facilities which the travel upon railroads and steamboats furnishes for the transmission of letters and newspapers by private conveyance; secondly, in the great extension, to say nothing of the abuse, of the FRANKING PRIVILEGE; thirdly, in the recent establishment of what are called private expenses upon the great mail-routes of the United States; fourthly, in the frauds practised upon the department in evading by various devices the payment of the postage imposed by law.” CAVE JOHNSON.—Born January 11, 1793, in Robertson county, Tennessee. His opportunities for education were limited, but made available to the greatest extent. In his youth he acted as deputy-clerk of the county, his father being clerk. He was thence led to the study of the law. In 1813 he was appointed deputy-quartermaster in a brigade of militia commanded by his father, and marched into the Creek nation under General Jackson. He continued in this service until the close of the Creek War in 1814. In 1816 he was admitted to the bar; in 1817 he was elected by the legislature one of the attorneys-general of the State, which office he held until elected a member of Congress in 1829. He was re-elected in 1831, 1833, and 1835, defeated in 1837, again elected in 1839, 1841, and 1843. Appointed postmaster-general March 5, 1845. In 1849 he served for a few months as one of the circuit judges of Tennessee, and in 1853 was appointed by the Governor and Senate as President of the Bank of Tennessee, at Nashville.