The course actually taken, viz., that of abolishing the limitation on weight and halving the postage, with no arrangement for economy in operation and no set-off, save what is implied in the abolition of the impressed stamp (in itself an important advantage, I acknowledge--one, indeed, for which I had often striven), largely increases a loss already great, and, what is still worse, greatly strengthens an example already mischievous. Its ultimate consequences it is impossible to predict. Demand has already arisen for the conveyance of other printed matter at the same rate, a demand which can plead in its support that such matter may, by existing rules, be detained to suit the convenience of the office, while newspapers must, of course, be forwarded at once. In short, I am myself quite unacquainted with any logic by which it can be maintained that while a newspaper weighing six or eight ounces is conveyed for a halfpenny, a letter weighing but half an ounce should be chargeable with a penny, or, in other words, why the lightest letter should be charged twice as much as the heaviest newspaper. On a careful comparison of the two plans, I cannot but think that mine would have proved not only better for the Post Office, but also more acceptable to the publishers and news venders, because, while the cost of transmission would have been practically the same, they could have been saved the great trouble of folding, covering, and addressing each separate copy; processes necessarily performed at a time when every minute is of great value. I may add that, as my plan is, in its essential features, independent of rates of postage, it may still be adopted without interfering with recent changes; nay, by relieving the Post Office of railway conveyance and sorting, the cost of both of which is seriously augmented by increased weight and bulk, it would go far towards justifying the late innovation. MISCELLANEOUS. One of the most striking and impressive events of this period is thus mentioned in the Report for 1856:-- "In recording the chief events of last year, I must not omit the melancholy loss, by shipwreck, of the 'Violet' mail-packet, between Ostend and Dover; a catastrophe attributed at the time, in one of our public journals, to an undue strictness by the department in requiring mail-packets to put to sea at the appointed time, even in a violent storm. "I need scarcely say that no such rule exists, and that no such orders had been given. It would certainly be the duty of the captain of a mail-packet not to allow slight obstacles to cause delay; but on this point we may always fully rely on the courage and sense of duty of a British commander.