“For the first time in many years the United States Post-Office Department has become a paying institution, the revenues of the last six months having yielded a surplus of more than seven hundred thousand dollars above the expenses, and the ensuing six months will tell still better. How long this is likely to continue we cannot say. During Mr. Blair’s administration of this department he reduced the expenditures to such an extent as to afford an astonishing contrast with the old Buchanan dynasty, when the annual deficit of the department was five millions of dollars. We thought Mr. Blair’s management unprecedently good; but still he could not bring the department to a paying standard, which his successor has now done very handsomely. Mr. Dennison has done this by means of a system of the most stringent and searching economy, reducing the force of employees everywhere, cutting down salaries and allowances, examining carefully into items of expenditure, the management and compensation of contractors, &c. “In fact, Governor Dennison brought to the conduct of our postal affairs the excellent training he had received in the executive government of Ohio, like his predecessor in that office, Mr. Chase, and he has looked carefully into every thing under his charge with an eye to economy and efficiency, and the service, instead of suffering by this scrutiny, has been largely benefited. But with the renewal of our authority in the South comes back a region wherein before 1860 the postal service was always carried on at a heavy loss to the National Government. It hardly admits of a doubt that this deficit was owing solely to the running of great numbers of useless mails to gratify local influences. This was consequent upon the predominance of Southern politicians at Washington. Their demands for favors of this kind were incessant, and, as they were generally with the ruling element in Congress, they got whatever they asked for. It may be inferred that modesty was not one of their faults, and that they did not lose any thing for the want of asking.