The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-01-26 00:00:00

OFFICIAL FRANKING.

It has been already stated that measures have been taken-to
prevent for the future the transmission, under official covers, of
any letters not strictly on his Majesty's service.
These measures of percaution have been resorted to in con-
sequence of the following communication addressed by Mr.
Stanley, the Secretary of the Treasury, to the Heads of the
different Governmentpffices

"Treasury Chamfers, January 6th, 1836.
"My LORD-I am commanded by the Lords Commissioners
of his Majesty's Treasury to acquaint you that the Postmaster-
_General has represented to this Board that there is ground for
believing that the Franking Privilege granted to certain Govern-
ment Offices exclusively for the public service, and under a
penalty, is much abused; both in this county and in Ireland, by
the transmission of private letters in the ofhcial covers, greatly
to the injury of the Revenue; that the Acts of Parliament,
which authorise the appointment of officers to frank letters and
packets on his Majesty's service, impose severe penalties on
any clerk or ocher person authorised to frank, for any illegal
exercise of those powers; and the Postmaster-General suggests
to my Lords the expediency of calling the attention of the
Heads of those Departments in which there are franking clerks,
to the subject, with an intimation that the penalties established
by law will lie enforced on the detection of any abuse of the
of the powers which are authorised for public official purposes
only; and my Lords entirely concur in the suggestion of the
Postmaster-General, and beg to draw your special attention to
the subject, with a view to the establishment of such strict regu-
lations as may prevent the illegal exercise of this duty, which
is intended by arliarnent to be strictly confined to the official
correspondence of the office. My Lords understand that -
and - are authorised to frank the official letters in your de-
partment; and my Lords request that the attention of these
gentlemen may be called to the Act 2,1 and 3d Win. 4, cap. 15,
sec. '25, and to the responsibility thereby imposed on them.
" I am, my Lord, your obedient servant,
"E. J. STANLEY."

At the court martial lately held at Sheerness, on Captain
Hope, the fallowing dialogue took place between one of, the
witnesses and the court :—" Are you a catholic ?" "No, sir."
"What are you, then?'' you a protestant ?",, "No, sir."
"Captain of the foretop!
following: is copied from. the obituary of the Society of
Fr'lleitite dsfothe year 1835 :—" It is a remarkable feature in the
present obituary, that out of rather more than 2(X) adults re-
corded in it, the ages of full one-third, or more than 80 persons,
are from 70 to 97 .years of age, presenting an average of full B'o
years. One-fourth are from 77 to 97, presenting an average of
:S5 years : full one-fifth of the 200 being front 81 to 97 years
old.''

LONDON AND GREENWICH RAILWAY.—We understand that
the experiments, with a view to ascertain the degree of vibra-
tion caused by the passing of a train of carriages, will be made
on the London and Greenwich Railway on Monday next, at
two o'clock. These experiments have been requested to be
made by the Lords Commissioners of the Admirality, in
~order
to determine the question as to the effect of t be Gravesend.trains -
on the Royal Observatory, a subject which has so much 'occu-,
pied the attention of ixieirtitic,world —Observer.