ght, it may be safely predicted that the stimulus of 33-1/3
per cent reduction in the tax for carriage would at once increase the
number of letters consigned to the mails.

The advantages of secrecy would lead to a very general substitution of
sealed packets for postal cards and open circulars, and in divers other
ways the volume of first-class matter would be enormously augmented.
Such increase amounted in England, in the first year after the adoption
of penny postage, to more than 125 per cent.

As a result of careful estimates, the details of which can not be here
set out, I have become convinced that the deficiency for the first year
after the proposed reduction would not exceed 7 per cent of the
expenditures, or $3,000,000, while the deficiency after the reduction of
1845 was more than 14 per cent, and after that of 1851 was 27 per cent.

Another interesting comparison is afforded by statistics furnished me by
the Post-Office Department.

The act of 1845 was passed in face of the fact that there existed a
deficiency of more than $30,000. That of 1851 was encouraged by the
slight surplus of $132,000. The excess of revenue in the next fiscal
year is likely to be $3,500,000.

If Congress should approve these suggestions, it may be deemed desirable
to supply to some extent the deficiency which must for a time result by
increasing the charge for carrying merchandise, which is now only 16
cents per pound; but even without such an increase I am confident that
the receipts under the diminished rates would equal the expenditures
after the lapse of three or four years.

The report of the Department of Justice brings anew to your notice the
necessity of enlarging the present system of Federal jurisprudence so as
effectually to answer the requirements of the ever-increasing litigation
with which it is called upon to deal.

The Attorney-General renews the suggestions of his predecessor that in
the interests of justice better provision than the existing laws afford
should be made in certain judicial districts for fixing the fees of
witnesses and jurors.

In my message of December last I referred to pending criminal
proceedings growing out of alleged frauds in what is known as the
star-route service of the Post-Office Department, and advised you that
I had enjoined upon the Attorney-General and associate counsel, to whom
the interests of the Government were intrusted, the duty of prosecuting
with the utmost vigor of the