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disordered condition..
In the contrary direction, the Correspondence is invariably received here in good order and unmutilated; very few complaints have been received from India or Australia respecting the use of bags for the Mails, and no instance is known of any bag for either of those Colonies having been tampered with..
The Mails for the West Indies, Brazil, the United States of America are known to have always been enclosed in bags, and their unfitness or their want of security has never been questioned..
Under these circumstances, the Postmaster General does not consider that sufficient cause exists for discontinuing the use of bags for the China Mails and reverting to the far more costly system of enclosing the correspondence in boxes - a change, too, which would be attended with considerable inconvenience to this Department; more particularly with regard to the return Mails -- The outward Mails are generally much larger than the homeward, and consequently, there are always surplus boxes or bags to be returned..
Bags can conveniently be folded and sent back in one or more sacks, while returned empty boxes, on the contrary, occupy as much space as full boxes, and thus inconveniently and unnecessarily increase the bulk.