Exorbitant claims having been advanced and admitted for compensation in respect of abolished fees, perquisites, &c., I made arrangements for such returns as to the current amount of those irregular emoluments as would keep these claims thenceforth within due bounds. The efficiency of this plan will be evident when it is considered that, though at the period of abolition claimants would naturally seek to make this amount appear as large as possible, yet, in ordinary times, when the receipt of large fees might act as a bar to demand for augmented salary, the interest would lie in the opposite direction. All, therefore, that was necessary was to get the ordinary estimate on indisputable record. This had been provided for before I left the Treasury, but, in the interim, the plan had been abandoned. Finding that any attempt to establish a parcel post, which I had formerly suggested, would raise more opposition in the railway companies than I thought it prudent just then to encounter, I suggested the establishment of a book post, pointing out how much such a measure would promote education, and how acceptable it would be to the public. The Postmaster-General expressed apprehensions of the department being overloaded on magazine days, and I had to point out the means by which all such difficulties could be surmounted. Vehement objections came from the usual quarter, but these were overruled. Before closing the account of the year, I must mention two attempts at improvements which have met with no success. Upon an application from Colonel Maberly's extra clerks for an increase of salary, I proposed instead a regular system of promotion, whereby all vacancies in the establishment should be filled by selection from the extra clerks instead of from without, an arrangement which would have obtained the collateral advantage of submitting every candidate for regular clerkship to a probation in the extra corps. The Postmaster-General seemed favourable to the principle, which, indeed, had been occasionally recognised in practice, but unfortunately I never succeeded in obtaining its adoption as a rule, the real obstacle being, no doubt, that it would have acted as an impediment to patronage.