In some instances, where the emoluments of the office itself would not exceed the sum of fifty dollars annually, and where its entire abolishment would not prove any serious inconvenience, a whole neighborhood has been thrown into the most intense excitement, and feuds and animosities have been engendered which the parties concerned will perhaps carry with them to the grave. But, like numerous other phases of post-office life, they furnish many admirable and instructive illustrations of human nature _as it is_. During his experience, the writer has himself been frequently charged with the duty of becoming the medium for the settlement of local disputes such as have been alluded to; and a difficult and unpleasant duty has he often found it, though a better school for studying the selfishness and other hard points of the human character, cannot be desired. But the Government official who is sent to ascertain the truth in one of these post-office disputes, will sometimes find himself about as much embarrassed as have been his superiors, and unless he is well posted up in the shrewd dodges and ingenious appliances that he will have to encounter, will find it quite as troublesome to give an impartial and just recommendation. Decide satisfactorily he cannot of course, for those whose ends are not answered are not only sure to grumble, but to charge all sorts of unfairness upon him in conducting the investigation. The town of M., situated somewhere East of a line drawn across the map, from New York city to Whitehall, N. Y., but out of the State of New York, was recently the scene of one of these hotly contested controversies; and it is proposed to give an outline of the investigation, as it stands sketched among the author's official notes, under the head of a "Hard Case," with, of course, some additional comments and illustrations. In extent of territory, the town referred to is about six miles square, and contains three small villages, one comparatively new, having sprung up at the rail road depôt near the West line of the town. The second, about two miles to the Eastward of this; and the third, about two miles still further to the East. Village number two, in the order in which they have just been mentioned, had for many years been the site of the only post-office in the town, and continued in the uninterrupted enjoyment of this monopoly until the office became vacant by the death of the post master. This was the signal for a movement for some time privately contemplated and discussed within a limited circle composed of a few of the knowing ones residing in villages numbers one and three, which movement involved nothing less than the establishment of a post-office at each of those points, and the abolishment of the old established one at village number two.