the
service in a state of defectiveness which calls for prompt correction.
I therefore recommend that the whole subject be revised without delay
and such a system established for the enforcement of discipline as
shall be at once humane and effectual.

The accompanying report of the Postmaster-General presents a
satisfactory view of the operations and condition of that Department.

At the close of the last fiscal year the length of the inland mail
routes in the United States (not embracing the service in Oregon and
California) was 178,672 miles, the annual transportation thereon
46,541,423 miles, and the annual cost of such transportation $2,724,426.

The increase of the annual transportation over that of the preceding
year was 3,997,354 miles and the increase in cost was $342,440.

The number of post-offices in the United States on the 1st day of July
last was 18,417, being an increase of I,670 during the preceding year.

The gross revenues of the Department for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1850, amounted to $5,552,971.48, including the annual appropriation of
$200,000 for the franked matter of the Departments and excluding the
foreign postages collected for and payable to the British Government.

The expenditures for the same period were $5,212,953.43, leaving a
balance of revenue over expenditures of $340,018.05.

I am happy to find that the fiscal condition of the Department is such
as to justify the Postmaster-General in recommending the reduction of
our inland letter postage to 3 cents the single letter when prepaid and
5 cents when not prepaid. He also recommends that the prepaid rate shall
be reduced to 2 cents whenever the revenues of the Department, after the
reduction, shall exceed its expenditures by more than 5 per cent for two
consecutive years; that the postage upon California and other letters
sent by our ocean steamers shall be much reduced, and that the rates of
postage on newspapers, pamphlets, periodicals, and other printed matter
shall be modified and some reduction thereon made.

It can not be doubted that the proposed reductions will for the present
diminish the revenues of the Department. It is believed that the
deficiency, after the surplus already accumulated shall be exhausted,
may be almost wholly met either by abolishing the existing privileges of
sending free matter through the mails or by paying out of the Treasury
to the Post-Office Department a sum equivalent to the postage of w