Viewed in reference to the postal facilities they afford, the railways are the great public instructors and educators of the day. Contrast the size of the _Times_, in 1830, and in 1856. Do you suppose that the huge mass of paper, which you are permitted to forward by to-night’s post, would have been conveyed upon the same terms, if the means of conveyance had remained limited to the mails and its four horses? Look at the immense mass of parliamentary reports and documents, now distributed, every session, amongst all the constituencies of the Empire, at almost a nominal charge. To what do the public owe the valuable information embodied in those documents, but to railways? except as parcels, by waggons or by canal boats, they never could have been conveyed prior to the existence of the railway system; and if they never could have been distributed, we may rely upon it they never would have been printed. The reasoning which applies to the _Times_ and to State Papers, applies to newspapers generally, and to the distribution of the prices current of merchants, and of magazines, monthly publications, and bulky parcels of every description. Without railway facilities they would probably never have been circulated at all. Certainly they never could have been circulated to the extent necessary to make them profitable. Hence, the railway, as before observed, is the greatest engine for the diffusion of knowledge.” These words called forth Mr. Page’s Report, and, as the public usually feels interested in matters relating to the Post Office, we have given it in full as an Appendix. We also have done very nearly the same with the Reply to Mr. Page, which Mr. Stephenson read to the Institution on the 20th of May, 1856. Combinedly these documents are long; nevertheless, we think they will repay perusal; at all events, our readers, if they choose to read, will get both views of the question, about which we also wish to say something.