The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-06-03 00:00:00

ins been prepaid. Nevertheless, at the Chief Office in
London, including the small offices in the Eastern Cen-
tral district, as much as £35,000 was received last year
for unpaid postage. The number of registered letters
last year was about 1,550,000, or one registered letter
to about 380 ordinary letters. Upwards of 72,300,000
newspapers were delivered last year, and nearly
12,300,000 book packets; being an increase of about
a million and a half of newspapers, and half a million
of book packets. The increase of newspaners in the
London district was again much above the average.
During last year 113 additional money-order offices
were opened in England and Wales, 16 in Ireland, and
10 in Scotland. The whole number in the United
Kingdom is now 2,722. The increase in the number of
money-orders last year was about 350,000, being about
90,000 more than the increase in the previous year.
There are in all, 2,532 Post-Office SaVillgil banks—viz.,
1,725 banks in England, 129 in Wales, 299 in Scotland,
300 in lrelend, 9 in islands. According to the latest
return on the subject, the number of old savings banks
in the United Kingdom is only 638. A tabular
statement of the amount and nature of business shows:
For the United Kingdom, number of depositors 91,955;
number of deposits, 202,308; amount of deposits,
£735,253 16c 4d; number of withdrawals, 2,711 ;
amount of withdrawals, £40,650 17s. Id. More than
one-third of the whole amount deposited was received
in London and the London Distriet. The gross revenue
of the Post-office in 1860 and 1861 was as follows:
Postage, 1860, £3,227,662; in 1861, £3.402,691.
Comniission on money orders, 1860, £121,693; 1861,
£127,866; giving a total, in 1860, of £3,38d,355; in
1861, £3,530,557; to which sum must be added £134,571
for impressed stamps on newspapers (collected by the
Commissioners of Inland Revenue,) making a total of
£3,665,128; and this sum being adjusted with reference
to the balance due to and from the colonies and foreign
countries gives a gross revenue properly appertaining to
the year of £3,662,998. This sum shows an increase of
£138,288 on the adjusted gross revenue of 1860; being
an increase at the rate of rather more than 41 per cent.,
which is about the same as the average of the last five
years. The total expenditure for the year 1861, under
the head of salaries, pensions, beadier., repairs, Ste.,
and the conveyance of mails, is stated in the report to
be £3,154,527, as compared with £2,983,972 in 1860.
At the end of 1861, the staff of officers employed by the
Post-office, including clerks, mail-guards, porters,
letter-carriers, messengers, at home and in the colonies
and foreign countries, was 25,473, as (tempered with the
staff at the same period in 1860, 25,282. The report of
the principal medical officer, Dr. Lewis, relating to the
chief office and district offices in London, states that
the general health of the large body of men under his
care has been very good. Under the arrangement for
enabling officers of the department to insure their lives
by a small reduction from their salaries, 226 additional
policies were effected daring the year. More than
£2,700 were contributed by the department last year
towards the payment of premiums on life policies. In
concluding his report the Postmaster-General urges the
necessity of the public using more care in securing large
packets, to obviate the danger of other packets in the
same mail-bag, especially small letters getting within
the folds, and being delayed in their delivery. He also
states that a troublesoine practice is on the increase of
lasing envelopes bearing another person's name and
address embossed on as adhesive seal, leading to the
falling of letters into the wrong hands. An appendix,
embodying various returns and documents, illustrative
of the operations of the Post-office department, accom-
panies the report.
DZATES IN PUBLIC INSITITTIONB.—The returns
hutted for the year 1860 show that one in every 6•5 deaths
in London took place in a public institution. In that
year 5,161 persons died in the workhouses of the metro-
polis, 4,035 in its hospitals and military and naval
asylums, 313 in the lunatic asylums, and 41. in the
prisons. Of the persons who died in the metropolis one
in every 12 died in a workhouse.
The Government have sent down Mr. H. B. Fantail,
Poor Law Inspector, as a commissioner to enquire into
the distress caused by the cotton famine in South Lanca-
shire. Six hundred out-of-work men are employed by
the Blackburn Guardians at stone-breaking at la. a-day,
and the railways have agreed to convey any of them
out of the district at • halfpenny per mile, No fewer
than 10,089 persons were relieved in the Blackburn
Union last week.

Mr. Knox, of the Marlborough Police-office, London,
has earned a momentary notoriety, by sending a lady's
coachman for a month to the treadmill for whipping •
horse 1 It was not pretended that any injury was done
to the animal, which was shown to be so stubborn •
temper that its mistress desired it to be corrected. The
only mark deposed to was a "weal," a dozen of which
may be found on a schoolboy's beck; and yet, whoever
heard of a schoolmaster being committed to the House
of Correction for producing it? The affectation of
regard to animals, which makes them more eared for
than human beings, is not a virtue, but a weak and
foolish error. If this magistrate were arraigned before
the High Court of Public Equity and Common Sense, we
should like te know what his fate would be when the
following issue is left to the Jury, "Who is guilty of
the greatest cruelty to animals—the man who flogs •
restive horse, or the man who crushes the hopes, pros-
pects, and self-respect of an erring brother by visiting
upon him, for • misdemeanour, the punishment awarded
to felons?

A cue of death from starvation is reported from
Burton-on-Trent, Derbyshire. The victim was a
nailor, and the verdict of the jury was that the deceased
died in consequence of the want of proper medical
aid, and the absence of the common necessaries of
life.

_
Particulars of our expenditure on national defences
have been published, from which we learn that up to
the end of March last there had been expended on
works the sum of £575,000. The estimated cost
of works and land is about .27,000,000, and the general
accounts leave an available balance of £316,000, which
will only suffice to meet the payments for works under
contract up to about the end of August.
THE REV. Da. Wearmar.—Shortly before midnight,
on Friday, 23rd May, the Rev. Samuel Warren, LL,D.,
rector of All Souls, Every-street, Manchester, died
at his residence in Ardwick. The 23rd was the birth-
day of his son, the well-known author of the "Dairy
of a Late Physician" and "Ten Thensandk Year." The
news of his first seizure reached Mr. S. Warren, Q.C.,
at the close of the first day's proceedings in the
I Windham case, and was the affliction alluded to at the
'tme of that cause celebre. The early life of Dr. Warren
I was one of some adventure. With his father, be was
! taken prisoner by a French frigate in the time of
Robespierre; and about 20 years ago he published in
Blackburn's Magazine a very interesting account of
his adventures, under the title " Narrative of a
Capitivity in France during the Reign of Terror." Re
was twice married, and he is survived by Mr. Samuel
Warren, QC., and Mr. Edward Warren, of Liverpool.
TEE MIDDLE LEVEL DELUGHL—A select committee
of the Middle Level Cominiesioners—vis., Mr. Lawrence
and Mr. Martin, with their clerk, Mr. Wise, and their
surveyor, Mr. Lunn—proceeded on the 25th ultimo to
St. Germaine, and returned at night, but nothing is
known of their views and intentions. The work of
damming proceeds very slowly, and the impatience of
those whose property is submerged or is in peril is very
great. To dam up the water is a work of easy accomplish-
ment, and I heard two able men say that they would
undertake to execute it in a week. But the point is,
would not the consequences be more disastrous than
at present? There is, I think, but one wise measure
that can be adopted. That is to draw off the water in
the Middle Level Cut by a lateral cut on the eastern
side into the Ouse at a higher point, in the same
direction as Tongue Cut takes, but this is a work of
magnitude, and would require long time. Yet those
who desire quick results will be surely disappointed,
and those who go to St. Germaine next year will see the
same broad lake.—Daily New&