A great majority of the towns in this country having even less than five hundred inhabitants are already supplied with offices, and they are rapidly increasing. During the past two and a half years more than one million of dollars have been spent by the Western Union Telegraph Company alone in the construction of new lines, and during the same period it has opened more than eight hundred new offices. This it is constantly doing, as much to satisfy existing public wants as for the promotion of its own future interest. Over one hundred offices have long been sustained at a loss, because needed to protect the lines built through comparatively desert regions to reach distant points of intercourse, and several hundred more are maintained which barely pay expenses. In fact, it is a standing rule of the company to open and maintain a telegraph office at all places in the United States reached by its lines, on a guaranty that the receipts shall be equal to the necessary expenses; and, by associating the duties of the telegraphic service with other productive labor, they are often rendered extremely light. It also offers to extend its lines to any place not reached by existing lines, where the inhabitants will advance the cost of building them, the money so advanced to be refunded to the contributors in telegraphing at ordinary tariffs. Under this arrangement a large number of offices have been opened and extensive lines built, to the satisfaction of all parties. Into such arrangements the government could not enter with any similar rapidity, or by so healthy and economic processes accomplish a like amount of substantial benefit to the people. The fact that there is scarcely a community to be found anywhere in America where the people are unable to meet these offers of the Telegraph Company, is the best reason why government should not furnish at public expense what the people are so able to provide for themselves. In reply to the statement that our company is anxious only for profit, and that its charges are exorbitant as compared with those of other countries, we respectfully call attention to the following table, showing the average cost of telegrams in Europe and America for the year 1866. AVERAGE COST OF TELEGRAMS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA FOR 1866. _Official Statistics of the Telegraphs in Europe for the Year 1866._