orders and postal notes for the year amounted to $156,821,348.24.

The number of letters and packages mailed during the year for special
delivery was 3,375,693, an increase over the preceding year of nearly
22 per cent. The special-delivery stamps used upon these letters and
packages amounted to $337,569.30, and the messengers' fees paid for
their delivery amounted to $256,592.71, leaving a profit to the
Government of $80,976.59.

The Railway Mail Service not only adds to the promptness of
mail delivery at all offices, but it is the especial instrumentality
which puts the smaller and way places in the service on an equality
in that regard with the larger and terminal offices. This branch
of the postal service has therefore received much attention from the
Postmaster-General, and though it is gratifying to know that it is in
a condition of high efficiency and great usefulness, I am led to agree
with the Postmaster-General that there is room for its further
improvement.

There are now connected to the Post-Office establishment 28,324
employees who are in the classified service. The head of this great
Department gives conclusive evidence of the value of civil-service
reform when, after an experience that renders his judgment on the
subject absolutely reliable, he expresses the opinion that without
the benefit of this system it would be impossible to conduct the vast
business intrusted to him.

I desire to commend as especially worthy of prompt attention the
suggestions of the Postmaster-General relating to a more sensible and
businesslike organization and a better distribution of responsibility