The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-03 00:00:00

POST-OFFICE PROGRESS.

Whatever department might stand still it could
never be the Post-office. In the London district
alone more than 11,000 new houses were built in
1862, 2,300 within the town limits and 9,400 in the
suburbs. But the Post-office makes constant pro-
gress. The post-offices and road letterboxes have
now increased to 14,776, and day mails and free de-
liveries are continually extended,and new rural posts
established. The mails are now conveyed over 160,000
miles a day in the United Kingdom. The number of
letters delivered in the year 1862 was 605,471,000,
being twelve millions more than in 1861, but that
is an unusually small increase. In 1862 the Post-
office carried as many letters as would make, in
England, 24 to each person ; in Ireland, 9; in Scot-
land, 19. At Liverpool and Birmingham the pro-
portion was as high as 30 letters to each person, at
Bristol 35, at Manchester 38, at Dublin 39, at Edin-
burgh 41, and in London 49. The increase in printed
circulars has been very great; in relation to the
Lambeth election there were nearly 40,000 posted
in a single day. Nearly half a million letters passed
through the temporary post-office in the Interna-
tional Exhibition. More than 450,000 valentines
passed through the London office on the last anni-
versary.lB62 was nearly 73,000,000—about half a million
The number of newspapers delivered in
more than in the previous year. The number of
book packets was rather more than 14,000,G00--an
7,687,045 inland money
for £15,761,259---
e
aboveor increaseders
zlo:foraboute din
X 1,000,000 o
issued
le ,m700O,re00108;6,
than
in 1861. In Eng-
land and Wales there was about one to every
three persons, in Scotland one to every five, in
Ireland one to every eleven. A
stamped with ld. stamp, may ba‘'lninad°etiY not order,payable i
till ten days after date, thus allowing time
for ac-
knowledgment or for stopping the payment. Small
sums sent in postage-stamps may be exchanged for
money at all the larger offices
of ld. on payment of a com-
missionon forty stamps; and in London
alone nearly X6O,000
was thus paid last year for
stamps. In sendin
gthem by post they should be
folded in rather thick paper, so that the contents
may neither be seen nor felt
regulation compelling payment of the registration
charge on letters containing money or articles of
value has:answered well, and will soon be extended
to the country. It has caused a great diminution
in application for missing letters containing coin—
a diminution by more than one-half; the
regulations came into operation in London
last August; and 58,000 letters were com-
pulsorily registered in the remainder of the
year. It is most satisfactory to learn that,
while in the last quarter of 1861 four London let-
ter-carriers were convicted of stealing cash letters,
in the corresponding quarter of 1862 not one was
even charged with such an offe •
nce During the
last half of 1862, out of about 900,000 registered
letters, the whole number lost was only 12, con-
taining together £9 Os. (ict•

IRON-PLATED Sarrs.—ln a Parliamentary
iron-platedre-
turncj.
ith
ut. shipsand qu obuilt
inand h building, usiul in
anngd,
otherpub-
lished
ournals, her Majesty's ships Favourite, Research, and
journals,
were described accidentally as "turret-ships,"
An awended Parliamentary paper has
csincees,bs nceen issued,
in which these vessels are distinguished as ships " on Mr.
principle.
Pri
Reed's principle ;" the only turret-ships building in this
country for the British Government being
th
Albert and Royal Sovereign., on Cap taill oi