[138] It is possible that this useful measure may be delayed. However it is, the Post-Office machinery is ready for this incidental application, and it is surely thrifty to make the most of available resources, though they may have been originally provided for very different purposes. PART II. DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE. "It has often struck me that some pains should be taken to make the main features of the Post-Office system intelligible to the people."--_Speech of Mr. Rowland Hill at Liverpool_, 1847. PREFATORY. It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of the postal regulations of this country. Every section of society, and, to some extent, every individual, participates in the benefits--commercial, social, and moral--bestowed by our cheap Post-Office. It is not our purpose here to urge the value and utility of the Post-Office institution--which most of our readers gratefully admit--but rather to furnish some general information relative to the organization and ordinary working of the Department, sensible that an intelligible account of the principal features in the system will increase the interest already felt in the Post-Office, as a mighty engine spreading the influences of commerce, education, and religion throughout the world. The Postmaster-General for 1854, in starting an annual report of the Post-Office, stated that "many misapprehensions and complaints arise from an imperfect knowledge of matters which might, without any inconvenience, be placed before the public;" and also, "that the publicity thus given will be an advantage to the Department itself, and will have a good effect upon the working of many of its branches." Endeavouring to exclude all matter that is purely technical, and presenting the reader with no more statistical information than is necessary to a proper understanding of the subject, and only premising that this information--for the correctness of which we are alone responsible--has been carefully collated from a mass of official documents not easily accessible, and others presented to the public from time to time, we will first describe-- CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE POST-OFFICE.