cost you ten
millions of dollars.' "

Instead of a revenue of nearly four millions, it is therefore
probable that the revenue of the first year of the experiment will
not much exceed a million and a half. It will be remembered that
Congress appropriated $750,000 to make up the expected deficiency;
but this will fall far below the necessities of the service; and
it is very probable that this sum will be consumed in the payments
of the contracts for the two first quarters. They are very busy at
the Department sending off letter balances, the postage of which
will of course constitute a charge on the Treasury; and as the
postage on each of these packets will amount to about three times
as much as the first cost of the balances, the Department will
make money out of this transaction.--_Charleston Mercury._

"I voted against this act. It is probable that a reduction might
have been made in the rates of postage which would not have
diminished the amount of revenue; but the reduction made by this
act is too great, and will have the effect of throwing the
Post-Office Department as a heavy charge on the general treasury,
which has not been the case heretofore. The post-office tax was
the only one in which the North and the East bore their share
equally with the South and the West. We would all like to have
cheap postage; and if that were the only consideration involved, I
would have voted for the act; but there were others which
influenced me to oppose it. The reduction of postage will cause a
diminution in the post-office revenue, which must be supplied by
the _general treasury_. The treasury collects the revenue which
must supply this deficiency, by a duty levied on imports; so that
the tax taken off of the _mail correspondence_ will have to be
collected on _salt_, _iron_, _sugar_, _blankets_, and other
articles which we buy from the stores. The manufacturing States
profit by this, because it aids the _protective_ policy. I might
add other objections, but deem it unnecessary at present."--_Letter
of Hon. D. S. Reid, of ----, to his constituents._

The Postmaster-General, in his report made Dec. 1, 1845, says:

"So far as calculations can be relied on, from the returns to the
department, of the operation of the new postage law, for the
quarter ending 30th September last, th