The Cost Of The Postal Stamps

The normal increase in the earnings of the postoffice department is eight per cent a year. When the panic of two yeara ago occurred, with its consequent business depression, the postmastergeneral estimated the increase of revenue for the following year at only three per cent. But he overestimated. There was in fact no increase, but a decrease of one per cent in postal revenues in the fiscal year 1894 compared with the fiscal year 1893. The reports of postmasters for the first and second quarters of the fiscal year 1895 (the last two quarters of the calendar year 1894) have reached the sixth auditor, and they show that the revenue tor tne nscai year 1895 will be probably neven or eight per cent greater than the revenue for the year 1894. Unless the increase should prove to be more than this though, a year has been lost in the progress oL the postal service toward the condition of self-support. Only a few years ago the postmaster-general believed that the day when postal revenues would equal postal tures was near at hand. Mr. wanamaker, who was then at the head of U19 postofflce departnient, even considered seriously the possibility of increasing expenditures, on the theory that the postal service should not be self-supporting; for Mr. Wanamaker held that the carrying of. the mail was a great public good, to which the tax-payer should contribute, says Harper's Weekly. Mr. Wanamaker's successor. Mr. Bissell, held a different opinión. In his last annual report to congress he expressed the belief that "the best condition of the postal business- the condition from which the greatest general benefit to the country is derivable- is that in which there shall be enough revenue to provide for thorough and efficiënt administration without any iharge whatever to the public treasiry."