While due attention was thus paid to the provinces, the department did not neglect the interests of London, whose population is one-tenth, and whose correspondence is even one-fourth of that of the United Kingdom. Much as had already been done in accelerating the delivery of letters coming into the district, we saw that additional improvements might be made to carry this acceleration still further. As early as January, 1856, a hope was expressed, in the Report on the previous year, that the first delivery of the day throughout the metropolis might eventually be completed by nine a.m.,[124] instead of eleven, or even later. To effect this, however, and no less to obtain rapid intercommunication between the different parts of the metropolis, required changes so complicated, that their details could not be set forth without wearying the reader. At the same time, the greatest caution and foresight were required to prevent derangement in transition; and this, combined with other difficulties, greatly delayed the completion of the plan. Briefly stated, the changes involved were as follows; and I may remark that they are almost identical with those proposed in my evidence before the Post Office Commissioners in 1837, already mentioned in this narrative. We had to unite the two corps of letter-carriers (the impracticability of which, under divided authority, had so long delayed the whole measure[125]); to rearrange their "walks;" to divide London into districts, each to be treated in some respects as a separate town; to procure suitable buildings for district offices, or, failing this, to erect such buildings, first obtaining proper sites (no easy matter); to adopt a new plan of sorting at the chief office; and lastly, to provide for the sorting of mails according to the new districts before reaching London.[126] That everything might be done with the utmost circumspection, I nominated a committee of officers to consider the details involved in the necessary changes, which committee made a very elaborate and able Report.[127] In about three years from the first positive movement the district system, though still imperfect, was in some sort established throughout. The beneficial effect had already distinctly appeared in the augmented rate of increase in the number of district letters; the annual increment rising from somewhat less than a million and a half to somewhat more than six millions and a quarter.[128] Early delivery, meantime, so far advanced as to bring the completion of the first round of the day nearly to the point aimed at, viz., 9 a.m.[129] The number of deliveries, too, was raised to ten, and communication within the whole suburban district rendered much more frequent and rapid.[130] These improvements had received some aid from the public in the multiplication of street-door boxes,[131] and yet more in the use in addresses of initial letters indicating districts,[132] while the