The Scotch transactions fell off considerably in the year 1849, but the English and Irish offices have steadily increased their business, nor is any effect perceptible in the latter country, either from the famine or the rebellion. The return of "money orders issued" is distinguished from that of "money orders paid," and the difference between these gross amounts is no less than 11,000_l._ in favor of the Post-office for the year ending the 31st of last December. Some of these orders will no doubt have come in for payment during the current year, but we suspect that ignorance, negligence, or accident must be leaving an appreciable balance to accumulate on the side of the office. Country bankers, we believe, used to reckon upon a gain of 5l. per cent. on the score of notes lost, mislaid, hoarded, destroyed, or otherwise not presented for payment. Money orders are doubtless more rigorously exchanged for cash, but there must still, we imagine, be a profit from this source, especially as the Post-office circumscribes the term of its liability, which bankers did not. The total expenses of the Money Order offices, both in London and the country, are returned at 70,577_l._ and the total amount of commission received at 73,813_l._--a fair balance of charge and service. The actual benefits, however, of this prodigious reform extend far beyond those immediately represented in the figures we have given. It is not the mere saving of 4d. or 5d. on a letter by which the country has so enormously gained. The facilitation of business, the diffusion of information, the correspondence of friends, and the maintenance of family connexions, which in old days were severed for ever, are the real and inestimable advantages of Mr. ROWLAND HILL'S invention. Like most reformers, he had to contend with violent and not always sincere opposition. The system, indeed, was long deprived of a fair trial by the obstinate resistance of those who should have aided him, and it is mainly owing to this concerted hostility that the results are not as favorable to the revenue as they are to the welfare of the country. But the principle is now established, and of all the reductions which a Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever made there has been none attended with such universal relief, convenience, and benefit as this sacrifice of 800,000_l._ for the sake of the letter writers. OCTOBER. BY MISS ALICE CAREY. Not the light of the long blue summer, Nor the flowery huntress, Spring, Nor the chilly and moaning Winter, Doth peace to my bosom bring, Like the hazy and red October, When the woods stand bare and brown, And into the lap of the south land, The flowers are blowing down; When all night long, in the moonlight, The boughs of the roof tree chafe, And the wind, like a wandering poet, Is singing a mournful waif;