When the Post Office acquired the telegraphs, a uniform rate was introduced of 1_s._ for twenty words or part thereof and 3_d._ for each additional five words or part thereof, exclusive of the names and addresses of sender and receiver, which were transmitted free. Delivery was free within a radius of one mile from the terminal telegraphic office, or within the limit of the town postal delivery when it contained a head office and the postal delivery extended more than a mile from it. Beyond the above limits the charge did not exceed 6_d._ per double mile or part thereof. When special delivery was not required beyond the free delivery, the message was sent free by the next ordinary postal delivery. The newspapers succeeded in having incorporated within the act a clause prohibiting a higher charge for press messages than 1_s._ for every one hundred words transmitted between 6 P.M. and 9 A.M., or 1_s._ for every seventy-five words between 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. when sent to a single address, the charge for the transmission of the same telegram to each additional address to be not greater than 2_d._[809] On the day of transfer the Post Office was able to open about a thousand postal telegraph offices and nineteen hundred offices at railway stations where the railways dealt with the public messages as agents of the Postmaster-General. On the 31st of March, 1872, the system comprised more than five thousand offices (including nineteen hundred at railway stations), twenty-two thousand miles of line, with an aggregate of eighty-three thousand miles of wire, and more than six thousand instruments. A decided increase in the number of messages was the result. During the first year after the transfer there were nearly ten millions of messages, the second year twelve millions, and the third year fifteen millions, or more than double the number transmitted in 1869. The period from 1872 to the adoption of a sixpenny tariff in 1885 was one of steady progress. The number of new offices opened was not numerous, the increase having been only one thousand, but the improvements in existing connections were marked and the number of messages transmitted had increased to thirty-three millions. The new tariff rate was 6_d._ for twelve words or less, with a halfpenny for each additional word, but the old system of free addresses was abolished. Under the old tariff each figure was charged at a single rate. Under the new schedule five figures were counted as one word. A large proportion of telegrams were brought within the minimum sixpenny rate, while the average charge, which had been 1_s._ 1_d._ in 1885, was reduced to 8_d._ in 1886. The number of messages increased from thirty-three millions in 1884-85 to fifty millions in 1886-87. Four cables between France and England and one between France and the Jersey Isles were purchased by the governments of the two countries, two by the Belgian and English governments, two between Holland and England, and