$250,041 60. Estimating the printed matter at one cent an ounce, the postage would be $91,803 52, or $1,101,642 24 per annum. Aggregate annual amount from both written and printed matter $1,351,683 84.

"For the delivery of this number of free letters, the one cent commission to postmasters amounts to $83,347 20 a year, which added to above gives the sum of $1,435,031 04 as the estimated increase to the revenues of the department to be realized from the abolishment of the franking privilege, provided the same amount of matter shall continue to be transmited through the mails. This estimate may be too high, but it should be observed, that it is confined to matter sent from this city, without any reference to what is received free, and it is supported by a previous estimate based on a statement of the amount of free matter sent from the Washington office in the month of January, 1854, referred to in my last annual report."

The following officers and persons enjoy the right of franking as a personal privilege, subject in the case of some to

restrictions:

1. The President and Vice-President of the United States; the individuals who at former periods have filled the office of President and Vice-President; Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Polk, relicts of former Presidents. Restricted in case of the VicePresidents or ex-Vice-Presidents to letters and packets not weighing over two ounces and to public documents.

2. Members of Congress and Delegates from Territories during their term of office, and until the first Monday of December after its expiration. Restricted to letters and packets not exceeding two ounces in weight, and public documents. Public documents are those printed by the order of either House of Congress, and publications and books procured or purchased by Congress, or either House, for the use of the members.

3. The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, during their official terms. Restricted as Members of Congress and Delegates.

4. Every Postmaster whose commissions for the previous fiscal year, ending the 30th of June, did not exceed $200. Restricted to sending letters written by himself on his private business, and receiving written communications addressed to himself on his private business, such letters or written communications not to exceed one half ounce in weight.

In his report of 1858, the Postmaster says, "In relation to the franking privilege it is impossible to tell to what extent it is abused, not often, it is hoped, by those to whom it is allowed by law, but by others, who take the liberty to sign their names under some pretended authority to do so, or under no authority at all. It is impossible for the 28,000 postmasters of the United States to judge of the genuineness of the signatures, and therefore they can do nothing to prevent abuses.

In

times of national as well as State elections, the Post Office conveyances are literally loaded down with partisan documents, for which it is evident somebody should pay, if it is expected that the department should ever approximate to its own support. Now if it be desired by Congress that all these documents be transmitted at public expense, let the stamps be furnished and charged to members who frank them, so that Congress may keep watch over the privileges granted to their own members, and prevent abuses which the department has no power to detect." Again he says, "The discontinuance or modification of the franking privilege having been suggested by several of my predecessors as a means of increasing the revenue, I shall not now notice the subject further than to present for consideration such a modification of it as it appears to me can be readily adopted without subjecting Members of Congress to the charge of postage on their personal or official correspondence. It is proposed that in lieu of the franking privilege now allowed by law to Members of Congress, the Secretary of the Senate, and the Clerk of the House, or such other officer as may be designated for the purpose, furnish the Members with postage stamps to be used on all letters, public documents, and packets transmitted by them in the mails, and keep an account of the stamps furnished to each member, to be paid for out of the contingent fund of each House. It is further proposed that all letters and packets, except newspapers, addressed to Members of Congress shall be prepaid at the mailing office. In this way the department would be compensated for the service rendered without a resort to the inconvenience of keeping daily minute accounts of the postage chargeable on such mail matter." We often hear it suggested that because monopolies are odious and retard civilization, that therefore the Post Office should be done away with, and the transport of the mail left to individuals. They, however, who propose these things forget that in all cases where the mail has to be carried by contract the contractors make large deductions, from the fact that the debentures of our Government are as good as cash and can be con verted without loss, and anticipated in case of need, whereas, were they dealing on their individual account, many of them would have to abandon routes where the returns do not meet the outlay, and all not having their present fixed income to rely on, would require a larger capital, be more uncertain in their times of arrival, and not having given bonds would not afford the public the security which we now enjoy. In the Appendix to the Report of the English Commissioners of Revenue we find these remarks on this subject:

"It does not really seem, though the contrary has been some

times contended, that the Post Office could be so well conducted by anyone else as by government, the latter alone can enforce perfect regularity in all its subordinate departments; can carry it to the smallest villages, and even beyond the frontiers, and can combine all its separate parts into one uniform system on which the public may confidently rely, both for security and despatch. The number of letters and newspapers conveyed by the British Post Office is quite enormous; the letters only despatched from London may be estimated at forty-thousand daily." It is easy to find fault with established usage, and the discussion is often advantageous, but the inquiry should be impartial. In the report of the Postmaster-General, for 1857, we find the following remarks upon the Post Office orders for

money:

"The adoption of some plan for the more convenient and safe remittance of small sums of money through the mails, by means of orders drawn upon one Postmaster by another, having been frequently urged upon this department as a matter worthy of its attention, it is deemed proper here to state that on the 31st January last, my predecessor transmitted to the Chairman of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, in the House of Representatives, in compliance with his request, the outline of such a plan as might be put in operation in this country. The submission of it does not appear to have been accompanied by any recommendation of the department, nor does it appear that the hon. Committee acted upon the subject. A system of remitting sums of money not exceding £5 sterling ($25), in amount, was adopted by the British Post Office department in 1839; and some idea may be formed of the growth and extent of its operations from the following brief statements derived from the Annual Report of her Majesty's Postmaster General, dated March 1857. By this report we find that there were issued in the year 1840, 188,921 orders for sums not exceeding £5, amounting to £313,124; and that in the year 1856 the number of orders was 6,178,982, £11,805,562, proving how the people appreciate the advantage of the system." If such an arrangement were made the profits on drafts would, if a very small charge were made, go far to relieve the expenditure of the Post Office; or in the larger cities the prominent banking-houses would contract for the delivery of the mail in return for being made Post Office bankers. Facilitities afforded by the Post Office to the people in new countries appear by the following: The superintendent of the route from San Antonio, Texas, to San Diego, California, says, "An emigrant passing over our route will meet or be overtaken by a mail party four times every month; whilst from our mail-conductor he can

always obtain the reliable information as to road, wood, water, grass, camping places, with directions where to find safe valleys in which to feed his stock for a few weeks, and transmit messages, letters, or any desired intelligence from friends before or behind him. I have received many expressions of satisfaction from emigrants I met on the road, and also from others in California, who last season, on the trip, realized in a small way the advantages of the mail in these respects to overland emigration. The War Department uses the facilities offered by our line for regular semi-monthly correspondence with seven military posts. Persons interested in mining pursuits are now looking with great interest towards the silver and copper mines of Arizona. Our mail not only carries the correspondence which takes the money to the mining parties, but regularly brings reports of their success, while passengers are all the while taking our line to Arizona. Our line is already forming the basis of a new State, rich in minerals, half-way between Texas and California." Thus, whilst the tyrants of Europe are contending to ruin and enslave the finest portions of the old world, at a vast expense of men and money, our Post Office-whilst pursuing its necessary routine is founding an empire, at a less cost to the nation than what members of Congress annually waste in the transport of bulky trash. Should the system of Post Office orders be introduced, were the franking privilege curtailed, and postage reduced to cheaper rates, our people would have nothing to ask of the department, but that it should continue in well-doing.

THE FAMILY CIRCLE-HOW SHALL IT BE
PRESERVED?

THE one absorbing topic of a recent day, which the indignation of an outraged husband brought forward, the question as to whether a man is justified in killing the destroyer of his domestic peace, naturally leads us to consider the condition of

that large and wretched portion of the community, the history of each of whom, could it be arrived at, would appear to have originated in a like instance of manly vice and female weakness. There was a time when he who attempted to draw aside the veil which night casts over the deeds appropriate to darkness, would have been the victim of the false modesty whose feelings he outraged, and reprobated by the indignant purists, who would cover up what they do not attempt to cure. That true benefactress of our nation, Mrs. Trollope, who sketched us as we really were, and pointed out the vanity and pretension of many portions of our people, in colors so clear that the truth stung us to madness, states, that on visiting a gallery of the fine arts at Philadelphia, after passing in review some fourth-rate pictures, she came to a door, the woman in charge of which said, "You may pass in, madam, none of the gentlemen are looking." And this door led to a small collection of statues, faint imitations of those which adorn the Tribune at Florence, and form the pride of the Vatican in the Eternal City. Should any of the fair ladies of our country, when no gentlemen are looking, cast their eyes upon these pages, we trust that their native good sense will induce them to acknowledge that to the pure all things are pure, and that the labored work of a highly educated medical public officer, who in a spirit of candid inquiry enters upon the task, will be deemed worthy of a serious review at our hands. England has already set the example of rewarding the labors of Dr. Sanger, by an article of uncommon force in one of her leading Quarterlies. As a very considerable portion of the work is devoted to New York, as that is the city for whose benefit he wrote, and as active and immediate legislation is there needed, if her people would tear the garment of Nessus from their backs, and hand down to posterity a heritage of health and vigor, instead of the specimens, dwarfish, debile, and prematurely bald, who crowd the ball-rooms, and loll in the clubs of her Belgravia, we believe that the ladies have no small personal interest in this matter, and that their natural guardians are bound to look into it in all seriousness and with that attention which they give to the accumulation of worldly wealth. Many specimens of the class of which the work of Dr. Sanger treats meet us at each page of Holy Writ, brought forward as necessary evils, and treated as objects of pity, and capable of restoration to social rights. The waters which are allowed to flow back, after filtration, to their natural bed, irrigate and enrich the verdant pastures through which they wander. The mountain torrent, pent up in its impetuous course, finding no onward outlet, rolls back with irresistible force, and sweeps away the peasant's cot,