In 1789 the Post-office Department was a crude enough affair. The Postmaster General had but one clerk, there were but 75 post-offices and 1,875 miles of post-roads in the whole country. In the first year of the department's activities the cost of mail transportation is given as being $22,081, with the total revenue $37,935. The total expenditures of the department that year were $32,140, leaving a surplus for the twelvemonth of $5,795, a somewhat better showing than has been made in some years since that time. The report of the Post-office Department for the year ending June 30, 1910, lies before us as we write this chapter. It tells the graphic growth of a great business in one hundred and twenty years. For in this last twelvemonth the receipts were $224,128,657--a really vast sum compared with that modest $37,935 for 1789-90. The expenditures for this year ending June 30, 1910, were even higher--$229,977,224--leaving a deficit of $5,848,567. The Postmaster General has asserted, however, that he will have succeeded in turning that loss into a slight profit for the year ending June 30, 1911. These figures do not alone show the growth of the mail service of a great land that has become entirely dependent upon this great function of its business and social life. Think of the 75 post-offices of 1789, compared with the 59,580 offices of 1910--and that because of the marvellous development of the rural free delivery during the past ten or twelve years, a decrease from the high-water mark of 76,688 in 1900. Figures are sometimes impressive and the statistics of the Post-office Department show that 78,557 postmasters, clerks, and carriers give the major portion of their time to its service. In addition to these, those same statistics enumerate 40,997 rural delivery carriers, who bring the entire post-office force up to the astounding total of 119,554 men and women. * * * * * Without the railroad the Post-office Department could not have come to its present great development as one of the chief arms of government activity. The postal service is an interesting adjunct of the railroad; the railroad is a vital factor in the successful conduct and development of the postal service. Away back in 1836, Postmaster General Barry, in his annual report, spoke of the rapid multiplication of railroads in all parts of the country and asked if it was not worth while to secure the transportation of mail upon them. He added: "Already have the railroads between French Town, in Maryland, and New Castle, in Delaware, and between Camden and South Amboy, in New Jersey, afforded great and important facilities to the transportation of the great Eastern Mail."