Unhappily, the advantage which would have been gained by the adoption of my plan is now for ever lost. The contests it might have prevented during the last twenty years have done their disastrous work; but the future remains, and I believe it still possible to amend our railway system and even to adopt a plan more comprehensive than the one just described. My views on the subject appear in a separate Report, which I made as a member of the Commission on Railways appointed in the year 1865, the substance of which, I may remark, will be found in a summary appended thereto.[42] I have now brought the year 1847, the first which I passed at the Post Office, to a general close. I have yet to speak of proceedings relative to one improvement, which, however, was not carried into effect until the following year. I narrate this at some length, not only because of its importance, but also because it serves well as a specimen of my course of proceeding during the long period which I passed in the anomalous position to which I had been appointed. The Postmaster-General having requested me to examine the state of the Money Order Department, with a view to its improvement and extension, I succeeded in devising a plan which, while it effected many improvements, provided for a very large extension, and that without increasing the number of accounts with the chief office. I learnt now that a plan which I proposed when at the Treasury would have simplified operations exceedingly, but that its adoption, though earnestly pressed by Mr. Jackson (then at the head of the department), had been successfully resisted; and that, though some part of this plan had been superseded by other improvements, much yet remained which Mr. Jackson thought would be highly useful. In my consequent preparations I was impeded frequently for hours, sometimes for days, by the want of necessary papers, the registration and arrangement being so defective that, according to the registering clerk, his death would leave the office in absolute perplexity. When the papers came they were sometimes exceedingly imperfect, the omission being in one instance that of a very important report; and of course fresh delays occurred while these omissions were supplied. Again, when, in reference to a proposed measure of economy, I called upon the head of the department and his immediate subordinate to support my views by expressing in writing opinions which they had given in conversation, they excused themselves by pleading that they should thereby incur serious displeasure.