The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-26 00:00:00

THE POST-OFFICE SERVICE OF THE
UNITED STATES.

The United States Postmaster-General's Annual Re.
port, delivered to Congress with the President's Mes-
sage, is, as usual, an elaborate document. Its statis-
tics and elucidations exhibit in a strong light the social,
intellectual, and commercial progress of the great Re-
public. According to the Report, during the last year
upwards of 1,200 new post-offices have been eseab.
lished. The total increase in the mail route service is
1,500,000 miles. The increase of railroad mail route
service is 2,500,000 miles. The mail service on coaches
and in steam boats has decreased. Every state and
territory in the United States have been surveyed, and
post-office facilities duty apportioned to them. In Cali-
fornia, the mail route service has been increased 68,000
miles ; and in Utah 26,000 miles. Disputes still exist
between the United States Post-office and the railway
companies—the former complains that it pays more than
first-class freight for the conveyance of the mails.
It has no objection to pay first-class freight, accord-
ing to the bulk of the mails, the speed they are
conveyed, and the accommodation required. The
Great Western Company of Canada carries the United
States mail for 01. a mile. Much inconvenience and
expense are incurred by the American Post-office de-
partment, owing to speculators without capital bidding
fur and obtaining the conveyance of mails, for the pur-
pose of selling the contracts to others. The letter cir-
culation system in the United States Post-office is to be
t• -
pleased, assimilated to that of England. Hitherto American
postmasters have sent letters to what forward offices
forto btehresorted, and
ropersen tfoonr w
atordtihnegirodffiescuti-
nthaetyionp ;bs
will be established for every post office in the States.
This is the most ge-ran 1
0 and usefol reform that has
ever been attempted in the American Post-office. The
postal revenue is about 7,000
,000 dollars, and the ex-
penditure about 8,500,000 dollars. The increase of re-
venue during 1854 is a million of, dollars, and the in-
crease is attributed to the activity of businese operations.
Nearly the whole of the increase has arisen from letters,
for the postal revenue from newspapers and pamphlets
has decreased.
It is calculated that the revenue of the Post-office
department for 1855 will be about 10,000,000 dollars,
and that the expenditure will be the same. Although
prepayment of postage is not compulsory, yet dere
ing the last three years there have been issued and
sold postage stamps and envelopes of five and a.adf
millions of dollars value. The report recommends a stile
further extension of the prepayment, in order to check
postmasters' accounts more effectually. It recommends
also a plan for registration of valuable letters. It is-dif-
ferent from the English one, and will be more effective.
It provides that receipts shall be given for valuable letters
when posted, and that duplicates of these receipts shall
be kept for reference at the office for mailing ; that the
full address of such letters shall be entered on a separate
post bill, which shall be copied at large upon an account
to be kept of registered letters sent. This post bill is to
be forwarded in a sealed envelope, separate from the
package of letters to which it relates, and its receipt at
the office of its destination is to be acknowledged by a
duplicate thereof returned to the office of nailing, marked
correct or otherwise, as it may be found on comparison.
It provides that at the large offices valuable letters shalt
be received at one window only, and that the receiving
clerk shall check them to theregister clerk, and he to the
mailing clerk. It is, in shortidesigned to fix responsi-
bility and to furnish means which do not now exist for
tracing a missing letter from the point of its reception to
that of its disappearance. Ts carry this plan into effect
it will be required that new and expensive blanks be pre.
pared and distributed, and that an increased clerical
force be employed in the principal post offices.
The English registration fee is 6d.; it is proposed that
the American fee shall be 2d. The cost of the Amen-can ocean snail packet service is 400,0001. a year. This
includes the ocean snail packet service between New
York and England, Havre, Bremen, and Aspinwall ;
between Astoria and Panama ; between Charlestown
and Havannah ; and between new Orleans and Vera
Cruz. The report recommends, if the packet contracts
are not abolished, that the Government should regulate
the passenger fares, to prevent the evil effects of the
monopoly which the contracts give to companies. It
laments that Collins's, the American line, is more costly
than Cunard's British line ; but it admits that the Ame-
rican steamers carry the mails quicker than the English
ones. The negotiations with Great Britain respecting
the transit charges on correspondence passing between
the United States and France through England have
failed. Upwards of six years ago a postal convention
was agreed to between the United States and Great
Britain, by which certain postal rates were fixed on cor-
respondence passing to or from the United States and
other countries through England. From this arrange.
meat French correspondence to and from the United
states was excluded. The excluding cause was objected
to by Mr. Bancroft, but the British Government
stated that it was necessary to prevent complaint from
France, and it was then agreed to. The report says
that Mr. Lawrence, who succeeded Mr. Bancroft,
found the statement of the British GovernMent to be
incorrect. The United States claim that French
and American correspondence shall pass through
England, in closed mails, for 61c1. an ounce, the same
as is charged for British and Canadian correspondence in
transit through the United States. Lord Palmerston,
however, in 1851, insisted upon charging a shillings&
ounce for the transit rate, and Bd. an canoe for the At-
lantic rate. Until recently, the English Government
charged 20d. an ounce on letters from France, conveyed
to New York in United States' packets, by which letters
received in America from France, in ollins's steamers,
had to be charged double sea postage. Now, however,
the Atlantic rate is not charged on correspondence from
France, conveyed by such steamers ; but still the transit
rate through England is such, that the postage on a
letter from France for America comes to 3d. more by
Collins's steamers than by Cunard's, which induces the
French public to prefer sending their letters by the
British Atlantic packets, to the injury of the American
ocean postal revenue. The report announces that letters
are conveyed now between New York and Port Philip
in Australia, Havana, and Nassau, and between New
Orleans and Havana, for an ocean postage rate of one
penny the half ounce ; that newspapers are conveyed
between those places at one farthing each, and pamphlets
and magazines for one half-farthing an ounce. A postal
convention between the United States and Mexico is on
the eve of completion, which provides for the exchange
of dead letters, and a reduction of postage on letters
between the two countries.

THE NET' POSTAL CONVENTION WIT.
FRANCE.

The following is the new portal convention between
France and England, concluded Dec. 12, 1854 :
His Majesty the Emperor of the French and her Ma-
jesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, alike animated by a desire to improve the
means of correspondence by letter between the two coun-
tries, have named as their representatives—[Here follow
the styles and titles of M. Drouyn de Lhuys and Lord
Cowley]—who have agreed on the following articles :
Art. I. The postage to be taken in France and Algeria
on paid letters addressed to the United Kingdom and
Ireland, as well as on unpaid letters coming from the
United Kingdom and Ireland, shall be as follows—
namely :
On paid letters, 400. for every 7i grammes, or fraction
of 7j grammes.
And for unpaid letters, 800. for every 7i grammes, or
fraction of 71 grammes.
Reciprocally the postage to be taken in the United
Kingdom and Ireland on paid letters addressed to
places in France or Algeria, as well as on unpaid letters
sent from France and Algeria, is fixed thus—namely :
For every paid letter 4d. for every quarter of an
ounce, or fraction of a quarter of an ounce.
And for every unpaid letter, Bd. for every quarter of
an ounce, or fraction of a quarter of an ounce.
Art. ll.—The price according to which the French
Post-office shall keep accounts with the British Post-
office for paid letters addressed to Great Britain, and
delivered by the French bureau d'echange to the British
bureaux, as well as for unpaid letters coming from Great
Britain, and delivered by the English to French bu-
reaux d'echange, shall be as follows :-
1. For paid letters destined for Great Britain, 60c.
per 30 grammes, net weight.
2. And for unpaid letters coming from Great Britain,
at lf. 20c. per British ounce, net weight.
Reciprocally, the price at which the British Post-
office shall charge that of Franoe for paid letters des-
tined for France and Algeria, delivered by the British
to the French bureau d'echange, as well as for unpaid
letters sent from Franca and Algeria, shall be-
1. For paid letters destined for France and Algeria,
if. per British ounce net.
half by
2, And or unpaid letters from France and Algeria,
2f. per 30 grammes net.
Art. 111. The expense of carrying by sea the letters
contained-in the despatches which the respective bureaux
d'echange shall reciprocally transmit by the commercial
thepackets
French navigating
and
half theb
by
channel,the
catalogues,
the letter.
rate of a penny or 10 centimes a
captains or owners of these packets will be paid at the
stllsahn braosbt-oornffieceh.
gazettes,
pamphlets,pe-
journls,
'semects
s printed, litho-
music, prospectuses, or advert
rioAdircta.llwVe.rkils
lied, may be exchanged
graphed, or autographed, between
be the
,h The
sewedter ms
volumes,
u be
sicy
the two countries, shall subject of a special agree-
ment, which itself shall be based on the principle o
compulsory prepayment, and of the abolition of the
right
to levy a charge on the receiver.
Art. V. The present convention, which is to be con-
sidered as additional to that of April 3, 1843, shall be
ratified as soon as possible, and shall come into action
on the Ist of January, 1855. •

TES (LO ON).--A CHURCH -EA a ehurch•rates
made or refused in the respective parishes of the 36 re.
gistration districts of London comprised within the
return of
Bills of Mortality during the years 1851, 1852, and
1853, was issued on Friday, on the motion of Mr. New-
degate, M.P. It hence appears that several rates were
granted in public vestries during the periods in question,
that in two parishes only (if we understand the answers
to the questions aright) was a rate unasked for under a
fear that the vestry would refuse it, and that in three
parishes only was a rate actually refused. In the parishes
without the walls there is no case of such refusal ; in the
out-parishes in Middlesex and Surrey one case of refusal,
and is the parishes of Westminster only one case. In
many cases the repairs of the church are otherwise pro•
vided for than by rates.

A woman who bad stolen a breast of mutton fronithe
shop of a butcher at Manchester, when taken before a
magistrate the other day, assigned as her reason for corn.
witting the theft, that she had had some angry words
with her husband, and that she "did it fitc yention.
She was coutraittcd for trig at the_ peligast