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extended without a corresponding rise in cost, and the maximum weight of parcels increased. In the same year a Japanese post office was established at Soochow, at Hangchow, and at Shashi (China), and in the year following at Mokpo (Corea).

The postal tariff for the International Service was changed in 1897, on the occasion of the adoption by the Government of the Gold Standard. Japanese delegates were sent to the International Congress at Washington, and the conventions and arrangements concluded there were put into force in January of the following year.

In 1898 the maximum size-limit of parcels for the inland postal service was increased.

Post-offices at the creation of the postal service were not divided into classes. It was only in 1873 that they were arranged in four classes, and in 1874 another class was added.

In 1875 these offices were divided anew into five classes. For the towns having several offices, one of them was designated the Central Office, the others, branches. This classification of offices was again submitted to change, when in 1886 the number of classes was limited to three only, with the branches. This classification still exists. In the same year, the fusion of posts and telegraphs having been adopted, post-offices and telegraph-offices situated in the same town were gradually combined, beginning with the most important localities, where the need was greatest. In the post-offices not already provided with telegraph service, it was introduced, and they were transformed into post and telegraph offices.

Postal agencies were established in 1875 in districts remote from post-offices, for the reception of registered objects, and letter-boxes established since the beginning of the postal service, to facilitate the depositing of letters into the post, were increased as the postal service developed.

The number of post-offices, which was only 180 at the end of the first year after the inauguration of the service, had risen to 4,325 at the end of the fiscal year 1898. This large increase was due to the extension of the service, which was limited in 1871 to the three great cities of the Empire—Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto—to the five ports open to foreign commerce—Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Hakodate—and to all the villages situated on the postal routes uniting the above towns.

To-day there are over 5,000 post-offices, and over 1,800 telegraph-offices, with some 23,000 officials, and more than