Of one motive to retirement from more active railway duties I have not yet spoken: it was supplied by the generosity of the public, as will appear hereafter. I first return to transactions connected with the Post Office, from which attention has been withdrawn by the above narrative. Of such limited progress, however, as was made towards the adoption of my plans, I shall speak more conveniently when the period of my exclusion approaches its close. I had the high gratification to learn that the leading feature of my plan had been introduced to some extent into the United States, and that the President had announced to Congress his desire to reduce the postage throughout the Union; a measure carried into effect in the spring of 1845, when the postage was fixed at five cents (twopence-halfpenny) for distances within three hundred miles, and ten cents between places more remote. At home, however, the Liberal party wisely judged that the time for further parliamentary action on the subject of postal reform was not yet come, though occasional motions on postal affairs showed that the question did not altogether sleep. Meantime, an occurrence took place which brought postal affairs, on a point of much importance, repeatedly before Parliament and the country. This was the opening of letters to and from Signor Mazzini and other Italian exiles, by authority of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, from whose name such practices were for a time termed "Grahamizing," though, in truth, Sir James Graham was by no means their originator. The unhappy consequences, however, in this particular instance, raised so strong a feeling of indignation against the individual minister, as in great measure to withdraw public attention from the precedent pleaded in his defence. There were two debates on the subject in each House in June, 1844, and these were followed by many further discussions, ending in each House by the grant of a committee of inquiry, each of which made its Report in the following August. In that of the Lords alone there is reference, and that I think somewhat obscure, to what, as I afterwards learned, was a regular practice at the Post Office, though for it the Post Office authorities were nowise responsible. Incredible as it may appear to my readers, it is nevertheless true that so late as 1844 a system, dating from some far distant time, was in full operation, under which clerks from the Foreign Office used to attend on the arrival of mails from abroad, to open the letters addressed to certain ministers resident in England, and make from them such extracts as they deemed useful for the service of Government. Happily, the feeling manifested on this occasion led to the entire abandonment of this most questionable expedient; though it must be recorded that a motion made by Mr. Duncombe, on April 9th, 1845, to forbid the further opening of letters under any circumstances, was lost, the House apparently holding that there were circumstances