Her Majesty's Mails

If a letter should be found to contain anything of value, such as bank-notes, drafts, postage-stamps, the precaution is taken of having a special record taken of it, and it is then sent back as a registered dead letter. Money to the value of 12,000l. or 14,000l. is annually found in these returned letters. Of this sum about 500l. per annum falls into the public exchequer, on account of no address being found inside, and no inquiry being made for the missing letters. A vast number of bank post-bills and bills of exchange are likewise found, amounting in all, and on the average, to something like 3,000,000l. a-year. These bills, however, as well as money-order advices, always afford some clue to the senders, even supposing no address should be given inside the letter, and inquiries are set on foot at the bankers and others whose names may be given in the paper transactions. Forty thousand letters reach the English returned branch each year containing property of different kinds. Many presents, such as rings, pins, brooches, never reach their destination, and are never sent back to the sender, because they are often unaccompanied with any letter. These articles, of course, become the property of the Crown.