At the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, in the Post-Office exhibit, was a double picture showing the postal service at the beginning of the century and as it is to-day. On one side was a postman--perhaps Franklin--on horseback, jogging over a corduroy road, "through the forest primeval," making a mile or two an hour; and on the other a representation of the fast mail train, the "catcher" taking a pouch from the "crane" as it passes at the rate of fifty miles an hour! Standing in the foreground is the pretty daughter of the village postmaster with the mail pouch just thrown from the car in her hand, a group of rustics, with ill-concealed admiration in their eyes, watching her as the swiftly passing train goes on its journey. This picture is not, perhaps, a work of art, but it is an "object lesson," giving at a glance the progress that our country has made in a hundred years. [Illustration: Postal Progress, 1776-1876. (Facsimile of a print in the Post-Office Department.)] Of all the executive departments of the Government, the Post-Office is the one nearest the people, and the one with which they are the most familiar. In addition to its work of collecting, transporting, and delivering legitimate mail matter, viz., letters, newspapers, and magazines, it is the greatest express company of the continent, since it has an office at almost every cross-roads, even carrying merchandise cheaper (considering the distance) than its rivals. Its registration system affords a means of forwarding valuable packages, at a slight additional cost, with almost absolute security. It is the greatest banking institution on this side of the Atlantic. The transactions of its money-order system, not only in our own country, but with almost every nation in the civilized world (Russia and Spain excepted), run up to wellnigh fabulous sums. Its drafts are easily obtained and cheap. Its notes are "gilt edged," and have never been repudiated. With the creation of the Postal Savings Bank system, the working people's department in its organization will approach perfection. The first mention of a travelling post-office occurs in a memorial addressed to Congress in November, 1776, by Ebenezer Hazard, Postmaster-General under the Continental Congress, in which he states that, owing to the frequent removals of the Continental Army, he was subjected to extraordinary expense, difficulties, and fatigues, "having paid an exorbitant price for every necessary of life, and having been obliged, for want of a horse--which could not be procured--to follow the army on foot."