employer are equal there is seldom any eagerness to prefer the labour of women. A similar displacement of men is going on in other Government departments; at the War Office, in Special Commissions, and elsewhere, women are being engaged for routine clerical work, and almost always at a lower rate of payment than men. =The Post-office.=--The most important public department with regard to the employment of women is the Post-office. The Postmaster-General’s Report for 1891 shows the total number of officials on the permanent establishment, with sub-postmasters and letter receivers, to be 63,868, of whom 8877 are women. Of these, 906 women are employed as clerks in the chief offices in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and 3750 as “counter-women” and telegraphists throughout the kingdom, besides others employed as sub-postmistresses and letter receivers. These figures however do not represent the gross total of the Post-office staff, for we are informed that about 54,000 other persons are employed more or less in Post-office work, and of these 16,000 are women. In this estimate are probably included the extra clerks, generally former _employés_, who come in and help at times of special pressure, as well as the domestic servants and needlewomen whose business it is to keep the buildings and miscellaneous Post-office property in order. =Classification.=--An impression prevails that women are only employed by the Post-office in selling stamps and sending off telegrams, that being the only branch of Post-office work of which the general public has cognisance. “Counter-women,” however, as these _employés_ are technically called, are only subordinate officials, and their work is both less agreeable and worse paid than that of some of the other departments. Post-office appointments, as far as women are concerned, may be classified thus: (1) Clerkships in the four great branches of the Post-office--the Savings Bank, Postal Orders, Returned Letters, and Clearing House. (2) Sorterships. (3) Telegraph Learnerships. (4) Counter-women and telegraphists.