"It is with much satisfaction that I contemplate the many improvements made within the last few years in relation to the staff of officers. The arrangement under which every person who enters the service is placed on probation before being fully admitted; the gradual increase of salary within the respective classes according to each officer's good conduct and increasing usefulness; the promotion from class to class, and from appointment to appointment, according to merit and superior qualification practically demonstrated, and irrespective of all other consideration; the strengthening of responsibility and of energetic management by giving to the postmasters the choice of their own clerks and letter-carriers; the improvement that has been made, where necessary, in the sanitary state of the post offices generally, and the appointment at the Metropolitan offices of medical men to attend gratuitously on all employed there (except the higher paid officers), and thus to stop disease at an early stage; the extension to all the servants of the Post Office of a pension in old age; and the arrangement by which every man can obtain aid in insuring his life, and thus provide for his family at his death,--are excellent, and have, I believe, produced the best effects. "I have the less hesitation in giving my testimony to these improvements, because as I have been but a short while in office, most of them were effected during the time of my predecessors."[174] APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXIV. FIRST ANNUAL REPORT, 1854. The first of the series of Annual Reports was prefaced with an historical sketch of the Post Office from its origin, written by my nephew, Mr. Alfred Hill. To this interesting narrative I beg to refer such of my readers as may desire to become acquainted with the early history of the department.[175] Like all similar documents, it will be found in any collection of Parliamentary papers. Here, however, I shall only quote one or two statements not previously given, and some few other passages that may interest or amuse. _Soldiers' Letters._ It had formerly been maintained, even by so high an authority as the Duke of Wellington, that British soldiers were but little disposed to make use of their long-existing privilege of penny postage. That opinion found little confirmation at this time, since during the first eight months, after arrangements had been made for postal communication during the Crimean War, more than three hundred and fifty thousand letters each way passed between England and the seat of war; neither did the higher rate attaching to the quicker route through France prevent its engrossing six-sevenths of the whole correspondence. _Colonial and Foreign Posts._