nual report of 1864. The decrease of revenue compared
with the previous year was 1-1/5 per cent, and the increase of
expenditures, owing principally to the enlargement of the mail service
in the South, was 12 per cent. On the 30th of June last there were in
operation 6,930 mail routes, with an aggregate length of 180,921 miles,
an aggregate annual transportation of 71,837,914 miles, and an aggregate
annual cost, including all expenditures, of $8,410,184. The length of
railroad routes is 32,092 miles and the annual transportation 30,609,467
miles. The length of steamboat routes is 14,346 miles and the annual
transportation 3,411,962 miles. The mail service is rapidly increasing
throughout the whole country, and its steady extension in the Southern
States indicates their constantly improving condition. The growing
importance of the foreign service also merits attention. The post-office
department of Great Britain and our own have agreed upon a preliminary
basis for a new postal convention, which it is believed will prove
eminently beneficial to the commercial interests of the United States,
inasmuch as it contemplates a reduction of the international letter
postage to one-half the existing rates; a reduction of postage with
all other countries to and from which correspondence is transmitted
in the British mail, or in closed mails through the United Kingdom;
the establishment of uniform and reasonable charges for the sea
and territorial transit of correspondence in closed mails; and an
allowance to each post-office department of the right to use all mail
communications established under the authority of the other for the
dispatch of correspondence, either in open or closed mails, on the same
terms as those applicable to the inhabitants of the country providing
the means of transmission.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the condition
of those branches of the public service which are committed to his
supervision. During the last fiscal year 4,629,312 acres of public
land were disposed of, 1,892,516 acres of which were entered under the
homestead act. The policy originally adopted relative to the public
lands has undergone essential modifications. Immediate revenue, and not
their rapid settlement, was the cardinal feature of our land system.
Long experience and earnest discussion have resulted in the conviction
that the early development of our agricultural resources and the
diffusion of an energetic popu