Mr. Frederick Hill, having informed the Commissioners that he anticipates (“anticipations” to which Sir Rowland Hill says, “I concur”) “greater securities against accidents, and _also_, against assaults and robberies on railways (_query_, in railway trains?), by the establishment of a uniform system of signals (!), and by clauses in the leases imposing penalties for unpunctuality and other irregularities (what?), and requiring that means should always be provided for enabling passengers to communicate readily with the guard,” winds up the list of “benefits” which the nation is to obtain from purchase as follows:—“Additional facilities for the conveyance of the mails, with a consequent increase in the number of posts, and in the celerity of communication, and the removal of the chief difficulty in the establishment of a parcels post.” If the reader will please to refer _ante_ to page 106, he will see the number of postal services there are daily only between London and other post towns. Their name is legion, and we are indebted for the information given upon this subject exclusively to Post Office documents. In Liverpool,[49] there are either six or seven collections a day for Manchester,[50] and a like, or very nearly a like number at Manchester for Liverpool and intermediate towns, so that, for postal purposes, Liverpool and Manchester are practically the same town. And so it is with the great net-work of towns in the north of England, as well as with towns in every other part of the country, north, south, east, or west. We confess to the weakness that if we are in a country town or village, we cannot pass the post office without having a look at the notice in the window, telling for what places and at what hours mails are made up and despatched, and from what places and at what hours mails arrive for delivery: we are therefore in the position of being able to state that despatches and deliveries are innumerable in the vicinity of railways; away from them, the collections and deliveries are at most twice a day, frequently not more than once. “Celerity of communication.” If Mr. Hill will refer to page 58 of the Royal Commissioners’ Report, he will see that the average speed of the quickest trains in England (those by which the great mails are conveyed) is 36½ miles an hour; the average for similar trains in France is 31 miles, and in other states of Europe it varies from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 30. The speed of our fastest trains is stated at page 109, _et seq._