despatch of their letters involve. The occupations in which large numbers of natives are engaged connected with the internal trade of the country are such as naturally to render their correspondence on matters of business far more extensive than that of Europeans, the greater part of the latter being engaged in the service of Government and not under the necessity of writing letters except on their own personal concerns or those of their friends. With the improvement of the means of communication, extension of trade and the gradual spread of knowledge throughout the country, the instructed and writing portion of the native community will continue to bear an increasing ratio both to the rest of their fellow-countrymen men and to the European residents in India, but to the bulk even of these the amount they can afford to expend on the postage of their letters must ever be a matter of strict economical calculation. It may be regarded as certain that the utmost care will always be observed by the native community in keeping the weight of their letters within the minimum chargeable weight; and unless some considerable reduction is made in the existing rates of postage to distant places they will continue to resort to ingenious contrivances for the purpose of saving expenditure under that head, or avoiding it altogether." The practice of "clubbing" or of enclosing a number of small letters in one cover addressed to a person who undertook to deliver them by hand was very common in India before 1850 and is not unknown at the present time. When the difference in cost between a single and double letter was considerable, this practice entailed a great loss of revenue to the Post Office, and in order to stop it the Commissioners proposed to make the unit of weight a quarter of a tola and to charge extra postage for each quarter tola of weight. The unit finally adopted was half a tola, as it was thought that Post Office clerks would have difficulty in detecting such small divisions of weight as a quarter of a tola. At the same time heavy penalties were imposed on clubbing, and the practice has gradually fallen into disuse. [Illustration: SIR CHARLES STEWART WILSON, K.C.I.E. DIRECTOR GENERAL 1906-1913]