The effect of the opposition was that an act was passed which differed essentially in character and conditions from the bill that had been presented to Parliament. The chief power given to the Post Office was that the railway companies were bound to convey mails at such hours as the Postmaster-General should direct; if required, they were to apply separate carriages exclusively to their conveyance, and remuneration was to be according to agreement between the Postmaster-General and the Directors, but in case of difference recourse was to be had to arbitration. The era of postal reform commenced on the 10th of January, 1840. In the year previous to it, the number of letters circulating through the post was 82,471,000. In these were included 6,563,000 franks. The estimated number of newspapers conveyed by the post in 1839 was 44,500,000. In 1840 there were about 1,300 miles of railway open. What had before been an advantage to the Post Office, and to the letter-writing public, by the gain of speed which railways afforded, at once became a necessity to the department, in consequence of the sudden increase in the weight and the bulk of the mails. The number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom, in 1840, was more than double that of 1839. They were 168,768,000, and there was every indication that they would increase, if not in the gigantic ratio of the first year, at all events very rapidly; such was the case, for the number carried in 1841 showed an increase of nearly 28,000,000. Newspapers increased about 500,000 in 1840. It would have been supposed that the Post Office would have entered into negotiations, in a friendly spirit, with the officials of the railway companies; this, however, was not the case: on the contrary, from the earliest period of postal reform until recent years, the railway has experienced nothing but hostility and reproach from the department. Personal and friendly communication with its heads became out of the question, for the demeanour of one high official (whose name, without being mentioned, can easily be surmised) to many of the leading railway officials was such, that several declined to meet him; recourse was then had to arbitration, in accordance with the powers conferred on the Post Office by the provisions of the Act of Parliament. The result of references, many of which were very protracted, and in the course of which very minute and elaborate evidence was adduced on both sides, was that decisions were given much more favourable to the railways than the Post Office had expected. The proof that the demands of railway companies did not justify the appellations which the Post Office attributed to them was, that they were not much above the amounts awarded. But as regards the Post Office, the payments proposed by it, and those awarded differed very widely. This, however, did not make any difference in the crusading energy of the department. Long before the issue of Postmaster-General’s