“The number containing stamps and articles of small value was 8289, and of unpaid and misdirected letters, 166,215. “The number of ordinary dead-letters returned to the writers was 1,188,599, and the number not delivered was 297,304, being about 23 per cent. of the whole. Of those not delivered, less than 4 per cent. were refused by the writers. “The number of foreign letters returned was 167,449, and the number received from foreign countries was 88,361. “In the last report the attention of Congress was called to the expediency of restoring prepaid letters to the owners free of postage. The measure is again commended, with the additional suggestion that letters be forwarded at the request of the party addressed from one post-office to another without extra charge. “The number of letters conveyed in the mails during 1865 is estimated at 467,591,600. Of these, 4,368,087 were returned to the dead-letter-office, including 566,097 army and navy letters, the non-delivery of which was not chargeable to the postal service, they having passed beyond its control into the custody of the military and naval authorities. Deducting 1,156,401 letters returned to writers or held as valuable, the total number lost or destroyed was 2,352,424, or one in every two hundred mailed for transmission and delivery. Fully three-fourths of the letters returned as dead fail to reach the parties addressed through faults of the writers, so that the actual losses from irregularities of service and casualties, ordinary and incidental to the war, did not exceed one in every eight hundred of the estimated number intrusted to the mails. “The returns of dead-letters from cities are largely in excess of proportions based upon population. To them special efforts have been directed to secure the most efficient service, and it is believed improvements in operation, chiefly that of free delivery, will diminish the number of undelivered letters at offices in densely-populated districts. “The number of applications for missing letters was 8664,—an increase of 3552 over the previous year. A misapprehension prevails in regarding the dead-letter-office as a depository for the safe keeping of undelivered letters, and not as the agent for their final disposal, to correct which the regulations are appended. “The amount deposited in the treasury under act of 3d of March last were:— On account of sales of waste paper $9,420 67 Unclaimed dead-letter money 7,722 70 —————————— $17,143 37