There was an abuse demanding correction, of which the following is a specimen. A clerk in the chief office, in receipt of about £82 per annum, was sent to act temporarily as clerk to one of the surveyors, and, for one cause or other, his exceptional employment was prolonged from two months to fourteen. Further, it happened that during two months of the fourteen he had charge of the Gloucester Post Office. By this lucky combination of circumstances, his emoluments for the time were at the annual rate of £452, or between five or six times his ordinary income. I took some steps with a view of putting things on a juster footing, but found the abuse too strongly sustained to allow me much hope of removing it until I should obtain more uncontested authority. _Prepayment._ I again considered the question of totally abolishing prepayments in money. Both Mr. Tilley and Mr. Johnson (the excellent surveyor of the home district), whom I consulted, agreed in the practicability of the measure, and spoke strongly of its importance, as greatly simplifying, and therefore economising, the mechanism of the department; but, for fear of inconvenience to the public, I hesitated to take the step all at once. To Mr. Tilley, however, I mentioned, in confidence, a plan which I had conceived for dealing with unpaid letters, viz., that wherever posted they should be sent in the first instance to the Metropolitan office, thence to be forwarded to their respective destinations. This arrangement would have tended much to economy, as it would have wholly superseded the "by-accounts," _i.e._, the accounts between one provincial office and another. This device I must myself have afterwards forgotten, for certainly it was never acted upon. Some years later, it was attempted to make prepayment in respect of inland letters absolutely compulsory, but public objection proving too strong, the attempt was abandoned. I believe that this forgotten plan would still be the best step towards attaining the desired end. _Mail Conveyance._ I discovered instances in which the serious expense of railway conveyance was incurred, when, speed being unimportant, a cheaper mode served equally well. It is obviously of no use to a place that its letters should arrive in the middle of the night, every purpose being answered if they come in time to be included in the earliest practicable delivery. Consideration of this led me to propose, in such cases, the substitution of mail-carts. In one such case this year the effect was an annual saving of about £800, and in one in the following year more than £2000.[89] _A Summary._