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compositor by trade, and a well-known identity in the old newspaper offices. Peter was to make two rounds daily from the Melbourne Post Office, and a receiving-box was fitted u p at the shop window of a Mr. William Sterry, in Brunswick Street, which the postman was to empty, and thus secure a return cargo for Melbourne. There were no postage stamps then, nor any uniform rate, the letter postage being payable on a graduating scale of from id. to is. 3d., according to distance, and as only unpaid letters were receivable by the box, Peter's back freight was neither very onerous, nor the advantages of the branch office m u c h of a convenience. A very valuable mail, which left Sydney for Melbourne on the 23rd M a y , 1847, was lost in the river near Yass, when both m a n and horse were drowned. Throughout the whole of this winter m u c h difficulty and danger was experienced in passing the mails between W o d o n g a and Albury. It never could have been done but for the employment of bark canoes, steered by the blacks, and under the direction of a very active officer of police, known as Sergeant O'Neil. O n the 1st January, 1849, Mr. E. B. Greene, a most efficient mail contractor, started a four-horse coach on the route between Melbourne and Sydney, but smashes and mishaps of some kind or other were the order of every second or third day. A new Post Office Act came into operation on the 1st January, 1850, when the often abused privilege of " (ranking " was abolished. Uniform rates of postage were established by which half-an-ounce prepaid letters were to be passed at the following rates :—For delivery not in the town where posted, 2d.; for delivery in the town, id. Ship letters, in addition to inland postage, 3d. If not prepaid, double charge — t h e scale to be increased according to weight. Newspapers, if sent out of the colony, id. prepayment, or, in default, to be charged by weight; and no hackney coaches were allowed to ply, or hawkers, newsvendors or strollers to loiter on the pavement near the Post Office under a penalty of ,£5. There was also a scale for the carriage of packets. Postage stamps were n o w for thefirsttime issued in the colony, and through an amusing bungle, either designed or accidental, the supplies were non-adhesive, so that a person could not stamp a letter without sealing-wax, gum, glue, paste, or some other equivalent. S o m e of the newspapers attributed the blunder to the parsimony of the N e w South Wales Government, through a desire to do the thing as cheaply as possible. T h e stamps, however, though inferior to the English aritcle of the time, were pronounced superior to those used in Sydney. They were supplied by Mr. T h o m a s H a m , one of the earliest of our engravers, a brother of the present firm of that n a m e in Swanston Street. In September, 1850, the Post Office was surmounted with a tower, and Melbourne had the satisfaction of, for thefirsttime, getting the time o' day from a decent town clock, specially imported from England. A n d here I may dovetail a historiette of thefirstpublic clock in Melbourne. This horological machine was purchased in 1840, under difficulties described elsewhere, and in 1841 was m a d e afixturein the top of the building. It was placed under the superintendence of Mr. Joseph Greening, a watchmaker w h o kept a small shop in the western part of the n o w Chancery Lane. H e used to divide his time between his mechanical calling and "clerking" at St. James' Church, and the probability is that his skill in chronometry was about equalled by his knowledge of psalmody. However, he had m u c h trouble with his charge, and used to be sadly put about by its vagaries. T h e principal trait in its bad behaviour was the bad hours it kept, sometimes jumping forward half-an-hour at a time, and the'next day limping as if on crutches. It was the worry of Greening's old age, and to m a k e confusion worse confounded, the Post Office authorities used to humour the eccentricities of the versatile time-keeper by regulating the mail hours according to its crotchets. Often it would be a quarter of an hour slow in the morning and three-quarters fast in the evening, and vice versa a day or two after, and the window was opened and closed, and the mails delivered or despatched accordingly. O n e day in February, 1847, the guardian of the clock was in a terrible state of consternation, for both he and his ward lost their heads altogether. Greening ran about everywhere, declaring that he had no artificial horizon wherewith to ascertain the real time, and as the clock was equally confused, it could not help him. At length the so m u c h needed horizon was found, and the town clock had to be put back eighteen minutes seven seconds. In the course of this year Mr. K e m p was superannuated on the ground of ill-health, and was succeeded by Captain M'Crae, transferred from the Chief Clerkship of the Treasury, to which Mr. W . H. Hull was promoted.