The tendency of the Post Office Report is to depreciate the advantages afforded to the Post Office by Railways. It is said that the railway working is “so irregular as to require from the Post Office serious and repeated remonstrances,” and also that against the advantages afforded by railways “there is an important set-off in increased expenses,” that “that change, which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons, or goods, has had precisely the reverse effect as regards the conveyance of mails.” It is also alleged, that the claims of the companies are often exorbitant, and that the loss inflicted upon the companies by the Post Office, in undertaking the carriage of parcels by their book post, is not, as the railways allege, “an injury, but is, in reality, a benefit,” and that even if it were otherwise, the companies “are compensated by the law relieving newspapers from the compulsory stamp, which has largely transferred the conveyance of newspapers from the mail bags to the luggage vans.” Annexed to the Report, which contains these statements, is a letter from Mr. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails, who carries these allegations still further. I shall endeavour in reply, not only to sustain my own argument, but to show, that the assertions contained in the Report are fallacious; and that on the contrary, railways, viewed in reference to postal facilities, are “the great public instructors and educators of the day.” The Post Office Report commences with certain admissions. It introduces the subject by the following sentence:—“Increased use has been made of several of the railways.” Now, if the railways are so irregular, if their claims are so exorbitant, and if, as the Report says, the same work could be done by the old mail coaches at much less expense, why is “increased use made of the railways?” The next sentence states, that “By means of the establishment of an additional express mail train from London to Dover, ... a much later despatch from London of the day mail to France has been afforded, the time being now as late as 1·30 p.m. This change, besides affording to the merchants in London the opportunity of replying, the same morning, to letters from France, received by the night mail, admits of letters from Scotland, Ireland, and the north and south-west of England, which arrive in London by the day mail, being sent forward by the day mail to France, instead of being detained, as previously, for the night mail.”