POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT.

The accompanying report of the Postmaster-General furnishes a full and satisfactory exhibit of the operations of the Post-Office Department during the year.  The ordinary revenues of the Department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1872, amounted to $21,915,426.37, and the expenditures to $26,658,192.31.  Compared with the previous fiscal year the increase of revenue was $1,878,330.95, or 9.37 per cent, and the increase of expenditures $2,268,088.23, or 9.29 per cent.  Adding to the ordinary revenues the annual appropriation of $700,000 for free matter and the amounts paid to the subsidized mail steamship lines from special appropriations, the deficiency paid out of the General Treasury was $3,317,765.94, an excess of $389,707.28 over the deficiency for the year 1871.

Other interesting statistical information relating to our rapidly extending postal service is furnished in this report.  The total length of railroad mail routes on the 30th of June, 1872, was 57,911 miles, 8,077 additional miles of such service having been put into operation during the year.  Eight new lines of railway post-offices have been established, with an aggregate length of 2,909 miles.  The number of letters exchanged in the mails with foreign countries was 24,362,500, an increase of 4,066,502, or 20 per cent, Over the number in 1871; and the postage thereon amounted to $1,871,257.25.  The total weight of the mails exchanged with European countries exceeded 820 tons.  The cost of the United States transatlantic mail steamship service was $220,301.70.  The total cost of the United States ocean steamship service, including the amounts paid to the subsidized lines of mail steamers, was $1,027,020.97.

The following are the only steamship lines now receiving subsidies for mail service under special acts of Congress:  The Pacific Mail Steamship Company receive $500,000 per annum for conveying a monthly mail between San Francisco, Japan, and China, which will be increased to $1,000,000 per annum for a semimonthly mail on and after October 1, 1873; the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company receive $150,000 per annum for conveying a monthly mail between New York and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the California, Oregon and Mexican Steamship Company receive $75,000 per annum for conveying a monthly mail between San Francisco and Honolulu (Hawaiian Islands), making the total amount of mail steamship subsidies at present $725,000 per annum.

Our postal communications with all parts of the civilized world have been placed upon a most advantageous footing by the improved postal conventions and arrangements recently concluded with the leading commercial countries of Europe and America, and the gratifying statement is made that with the conclusion of a satisfactory convention with France, the details of which have been definitely agreed to by the head of the French postal department, subject to the approval of the minister of finance, little remains to be accomplished by treaty for some time to come with respect either to reduction of rates or improved facilities of postal intercourse.