4th. Petitions to either House of Parliament. 5th. Printed parliamentary proceedings. (_d_) Late letters, &c. are received till within five minutes of the despatch of the mails, except where the Post-Office surveyor may deem a longer interval necessary, and providing that this arrangement does not necessitate any office being open after ten o'clock at night. In each post-office window placards are exhibited showing the time up to which such letters may be posted. No late letters can be forwarded by the mail preparing for despatch unless prepaid in stamps, including the ordinary postage and the late-letter fee. Government letters are an exception to this rule; they may be posted, without extra fee, up to the latest moment. (_e_) Letters containing sharp instruments, knives, scissors, glass, &c. are not allowed to circulate through the post, to the risk of damaging the general correspondence. Such communications, when posted, are detained and forwarded to the Metropolitan Office, where correspondence is at once opened with the senders. Letters for the United Kingdom found to contain coin are only forwarded to their destination under certain restrictions. Such letters, if not registered, are at once treated as if they were, and charged on delivery with a double registration-fee, or eightpence in addition to the postage. REGISTERED LETTERS. The registration-fee of fourpence, prepaid in stamps, will secure careful treatment to any letter, newspaper, or book-packet addressed to any part of the United Kingdom. Record is kept of all such letters throughout their entire course. The registration of a packet makes its transmission more secure, by rendering it practicable to trace it from its receipt to its delivery. For a fee of sixpence letters may be registered to any British colony, except Ascension, Vancouver's Island, British Columbia, and Labuan, for which places they can only be registered part of the way. Letters may be registered to several foreign countries at varying rates. (_See British Postal Guide._) Every letter meant for registration should be presented at the post-office window, or counter (as the case may be) and a receipt obtained for it, and must on no account be dropped into the letterbox among the ordinary letters. If, contrary to this rule, a letter marked "registered" be found in the letter-box, addressed to the United Kingdom, it will be charged an extra registration-fee of double the ordinary fee, or one of eightpence instead of fourpence.