PREFACE. \U 



other branches of knowledge. Indeed very useful Annuals 

 may be brought out on subjects not exactly scientific. 



Already following in our wake, the Post Office, the most 

 go-a-head department of our Government, has brought out 

 its Annual, with an account of "the progress, changes and 

 improvements effected in the various departments of Post 

 Office" during; the vear 1854. Like the Entomologist's 

 Annual for 1855, this Post Office Annual begins by stat- 

 ing what had been done in previous years, and then enters 

 more into details, in the part corresponding to our " New 

 British Species in 1854." It also further carried out our 

 idea of introducing amusing chapters ; and the story of the 

 old woman who lived in a house between a No. 14 and a 

 No. 16, but whose street door was ornamented with a brass 

 number 95, it having been the number of a house she had 

 formerly lived at in another street, and "which (meaning 

 the brass plate) being a very good one she thought would do 

 for her present residence as well as any other," is well told 

 at page 101. 



Here, however, the similitude between the two Annuals 

 ceases, more especially if we look at the colours of the 

 wrappers; ours was a, yellow book, the Post Office Report 

 was a blue book.* 



* While alluding to the Post Office, I wish to suggest that a monthly 

 publication of all the Foreign and Colonial Postage Rates, with regu- 

 lations for letters, newspapers, and books, both at home and abroad, 

 would be very serviceable to many people. Why should not the Post 

 Office have its own Bradshaw ? If people could tell by it, at a glance, 

 what the postage was on a letter from here to such a place, and how long 

 the letter would be in transit, many more foreign letters would be posted, 

 and the revenue would be increased. Those who are in the habit of 

 writing letters to residents abroad get to know all these matters, but how 

 many there are who do not write simply because they do not know ! 



