Nor have the advantages derived from the post office by the great body of the public ended here. It has shown itself the most progressive department of the government, and has undertaken many benevolent branches of work which were never contemplated by Sir Rowland Hill. Thus it carries on an extensive savings-bank system, worked out by Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, adopted by Mr. Gladstone when Chancellor of the Exchequer, and established by Act of Parliament in 1861. This valuable department, whose operations are now of a very extensive character, keeps a separate account for every depositor, acknowledges the receipt, and, on the requisite notice being furnished, sends out warrants authorizing post-masters to pay such sums as depositors may wish to withdraw. The deposits are handed over to the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt, and repaid to the depositors through the post office. The rate of interest payable to depositors is two and a half per cent. Each depositor has his savings-bank book, which is sent to him yearly for examination, and the increasing interest calculated and allowed. The post office now acts, too, as a life-insurance society, offering advantages to the operative which no other society can offer, and which the public are beginning to appreciate. In 1869 the entire telegraphic system of the United Kingdom passed into the hands of the post office, whose administrators have shown themselves anxious to offer increased facilities to the public for the transaction of business. The number of telegraphic stations has been greatly increased, and the rate reduced at which messages are flashed from one part of the island to the other. Finally, a recent innovation, made entirely in the interest of the public weal, is the introduction of _Halfpenny Post Cards_. On one side of these missives the sender writes the name and address of his correspondent; on the other, the communication intended for him. The card already bears a halfpenny stamp impressed, and nothing more remains to be done but to deposit it in the nearest office or pillar-post. We think, then, it may fairly be said that the post office has shown itself anxious to "keep abreast" with the ever-increasing wants of the commercial classes of Great Britain. * * * * *