REPORT
OF
THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL:
Sir: The ordinary receipts of this Department during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1875, were $26,671,218.50, an increase of $299,344.80, or 1.13 per cent., over the receipts for 1874, being less than the estimate made in 1873 by $1,809,331.
To the ordinary receipts should be added the sum of $650,000 subsidies to steamship-lines, drawn from the general Treasury and expended, and $120,142.09 revenue from money-order business, making the receipts from all sources $27,441,360.57.
It is proper to state that the decrease on the estimate is accounted for by the general depression of business throughout the country, which affected postal affairs during the past year more than at any previous time, and also by the increase of the rate of postage on third-class matter, which has very materially reduced the amount of transient papers, books, &c., transmitted through the mails.
The expenditures of all kinds were $33,611,309.45, an increase of $1,484,894.87, or 4.62 per cent., over those for 1874, and less than the amount estimated in 1873 by $318,603.
Of these expenditures $1,338,319.50 were for special objects in previous years, provided for at the last session of Congress; consequently the legitimate expenditures for the past fiscal year were only $32,272,989.95, an increase over 1874 of $146,575.37, or 0.456 per cent., and less than the estimate made in 1873 by $1,656,922.50.
The amount drawn from the general Treasury and expended for subsidies to mail-steamship lines was $650,000, which amount is included in the expenditures under the head of "transportation."
The amount drawn from the general Treasury under appropriations to meet deficiencies was $6,054,646.96, from which should be deducted the sum of $1,338,319.50 referred to in a previous paragraph, which will leave, as the legitimate amount drawn on account of the past fiscal year, $4,716,327.46, against $5,259,933.55 for the fiscal year of 1873-'74, a difference in favor of 1875 of $543,606.09.
Table No. 2, accompanying the report of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General, shows the receipts and expenditures by quarters, and, also the increase or decrease in each item as compared with the fiscal years of 1873-'74 and 1872-'73.
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