reports,[27] whenever an opportunity offered, either in giving evidence before a Committee of Parliament, or in furnishing information, there was sure to be an insinuation, an innuendo, or a more open attack upon the railway authorities who had succeeded in not allowing the Post Office to have it all its own way. The Postmaster-General’s First Report partakes more of the character of an historic document than of a record of the transactions of an official year. There are, therefore, only some few unimportant remarks in it upon the subject of railways. It was otherwise in the second, as will appear by the following somewhat lengthy extract:— “Undoubtedly great advantage has arisen from the employment of railways in respect of rapid conveyance. Between districts which, even in the best days of the mail coach system, were, postally speaking, two days apart, the letters now pass in a single night. “The facilities thus afforded to commerce, and to the business of life in general, can hardly be exaggerated, nor is there any doubt that they have tended largely to increase the amount of postal correspondence, while in return cheap postage has equally tended to increase railway traffic. “Again, the service has been most materially promoted by the introduction of travelling Post Offices,[28] _i. e._, carriages in which the mail bags are opened and made up, the letters being assorted while the train is in progress; an arrangement which not only obviates the necessity of the stoppages which would otherwise be required at certain ‘forward’ offices, but has greatly tended to reduce the number of mail bags and accounts, and to simplify the whole system. “Against these great advantages, however, there is an important set-off in increased expense; for, strange as it may seem, that change, which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons or of goods, has had precisely the reverse effect as respects the conveyance of mails. “No doubt this result is attributable partly to the necessity for running certain mail trains at hours unsuitable for passenger traffic; but even when the Post Office uses the ordinary trains established by the companies for their own purposes, the rate of charge, especially considering the regularity and extent of custom, is almost always higher than that made to the public for like services. “It is important that these facts should be correctly understood, especially by those who may have to arbitrate between the Post Office and the Railway Companies, because from time to time great efforts have been made to represent the service as underpaid.