FOOTNOTES:

But many mountains in other parts of the world are of much greater altitude than those in Europe. The highest in Asia and in the world is Deodunga, or Chingo-pamari, in Nepaul, 29,002 feet, or exactly 5½ miles above sea level; and there are no less than twenty-eight other mountains in Asia, the height of which exceeds 20,000 feet, besides seven that exceed 15,000, twelve that exceed 10,000, sixteen that exceed 7,500, twenty-two that exceed 5,000, and six that are below 5,000, the lowest enumerated being Taganai, in the Ural Mountains, 3,532 feet above the level of the sea. The total number of the above is 92.

The highest mountain belonging to Africa and the Atlantic Islands is Kilimanjaro, in equitorial Africa, 20,000 feet high. There are four others more than 15,000 feet high, seven more than 10,000 feet, (among which is the Peak of Teneriffe, 12,205 feet), eight above 7,500, thirteen above 5,000 and eighteen below 5,000; total, 51.

The highest mountain of the American Continent is the Aconcagua, in Chile, 23,910 feet. There are fourteen higher than 20,000 feet, forty-two higher than 15,000, nineteen higher than 10,000, twelve higher than 7,500, twenty-one higher than 5,000, twelve less than 5,000; total, 121.

The highest mountain in Polynesia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands is a volcano, in Sumatra, called Singalang, 15,000 feet high. Volcanoes particularly abound in the groups of these highlands. Thus, while there are only four volcanoes among 169 European mountains, thirteen among ninety-two Asiatic, eleven among fifty-one in Africa and the Atlantic islands, thirty-three among 121 American mountains, there are sixty-three in a total of 109 mountains in Polynesia, Australia, and the Pacific islands. There are twenty-three of them above 10,000 feet, sixteen above 7,500, twenty-nine above 5,000, and forty-one under 5,000.

Thus it appears that there are 524 mountains in the world, of altitudes varying from 1,400 to 29,000 feet, of which 124 are volcanoes. The greater portion of the foregoing information is derived from the very interesting article headed “Physical Geography,” in the seventeenth volume of the eighth (and latest) edition of the Enclyclopædia Britannica, to which the reader is referred for further details. Writing of mountains reminds us that it was on the Puy de Dome, the summit of which is 4,806 above the level of the sea, that Pascal, for whom M. de Charles has invented the letters by which he has attempted to rob Newton of the honour of having discovered the laws of gravity, first observed the decrease of barometric pressure as mountains are ascended. Honour and reputation enough attach to the name of Pascal, without attempting to add to them by fraud and forgery.

COMPAGNIE DES CHEMINS DE FER DU SUD DE L’AUTRICHE ET DE L’ITALIE CENTRALE.—Ouverture de la ligne du Tyrol. (Passage du Brenner).—La Compagnie a l’honneur de prévenir le public que la ligne du Tyrol, section d’Innsbruck à Botzen (passage du Brenner), sera ouverte au transport des marchandises entre l’Allemagne et l’Italie le 17 de ce mois, et au service des voyageurs, le 24 du même mois. Les expéditions de marchandises devront être adressées à Kustein (Tyrol), station frontière du Nord, ou à Ala, station frontière du Sud. Le livret des tarifs et celui de la marche des trains seront, dès aujourd’hui, à la disposition du public. A l’agence commerciale de la Société, à Kustein. A toutes les stations de la ligne du Tyrol. A la direction commerciale de la Société, à Vienne. Les stations d’Italie forment l’objet d’un tarif spécial, qui sera à la disposition du public, dès les premiers jours du mois de Septembre. Jusque là, l’agence commerciale à Kustein donnera tous les renseignements d’expéditions et de prix qui lui seront demandés—Vienne, 10 Août, 1867.

Later advertisements announce that the express passenger trains between Munich and Verona are to complete the journey in eighteen hours. The distance is 295 miles. Verona is 95 miles from Bologna; 565 miles from Brindisi; 178 from Florence; 411 from Rome; 574 from Naples. The following are the distances between London and Munich:—London to Paris, 296 miles; Paris to Kehl (viâ Strasbourg), 325; Kehl to Bruschal junction, 59; Bruschal to Ulm, 107; Ulm to Munich, 94—total, 881. Total—London to Brindisi, 1,741 miles; to Florence, 1,354; to Rome, 1,587; to Naples, 1,750.

Not so numerous in its locations, but equally puzzling and unsatisfactory, is “Kensington.” Besides that name, there are—Kensington Crescent, Kensington Road, Kensington Gate, Kensington Gore, High Street, Kensington; Kensington Hall, North End, Fulham, and Kensington Square on the south side of Hyde Park. Kensington Palace and Kensington Palace Gardens are situate between Kensington and Bayswater, Kensington Gardens Square is in Paddington, Kensington Gardens Terrace is in Bayswater Road, Kensington Park Gardens and Kensington Park Terrace are at Notting Hill.

It is needless to dwell upon the inconvenience and trouble to which such nomenclature gives rise. Sir John Thwaites, Tite, M.P., Ayrton, M.P., and other your colleagues of the Metropolitan Board of Works, to the rescue!

The estimated value of the 101,630,544 tons of coals raised in 1866 was £25,407,635, at the places of their production. There were 3,188 collieries at work, being an increase of 373 since 1855.

“Within living memories,—‘Lancashire-over-Sands’—a couple of score of inhabitants represented its population; and when the operations at Barrow, now consummated, were first commenced, a dozen dwelling-houses were as many as could be counted: yet in ten years Barrow has become a flourishing town, with a population of, at least, 20,000, and such prospective wealth and importance as have earned for it a municipal charter. The explanation of the marvel is contained in two words—iron and coal. Beneath the desolate soil of this savage district lay beds of rich iron ore,—the ore brought the miners, the miners brought the railway, the railway brought the docks; and now the docks, the railway, and the mines together are represented in a borough as populous as the old city of Lincoln. When the Furness Railway was first projected, a person experienced in such matters estimated that a traffic of 60,000 tons would be near the mark. The result affords an instance of how calculations of this kind have uniformly been exceeded by realities. Within three years the quantity of ore exported from Barrow exceeded 150,000 tons; this amount had risen in five years to 250,000; and in ten years, to nearly 500,000.

“This is the simple history of the rise and growth of Barrow. In other parts of the north similar miracles of progress have occurred during the present generation—one a place where there was one farmhouse thirty years since, is now a town with 30,000 inhabitants. But the truth is, that all these examples, down to the very latest here commemorated, do but express the continuous displacement of wealth, industry, and population which has been effected by the development of mineral riches in the north of England. If any reader will peruse Lord Macaulay’s description of the Northern Counties in the 17th century, and with that picture contrast the scene of the present day, he will see at a glance what a revolution has been accomplished. England began in the south, and Winchester was its capital. The south was still England, until mining called the north into place and power. It was not that the north-country people lacked energy or intelligence,—far from it; but they had no manufactures, and, for want of them, they were left behind in numbers, riches, civilisation, and all that confers social and political importance. Such elements of grandeur as the country possessed were those of a backward state. Its great feudal nobles were unmatched in power. The three northern earldoms—Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, represented by the great families of Percy, Clifford, and Neville—were like little principalities, and their rulers could combine to alarm the Government and defy the authority of the Crown. The bishopric of Durham was a Palatinate, almost a sovereignty, and its cathedral church was as grand as that of Winchester itself. The great northern abbeys—Fountains, Rivaulx, Bolton—could compete in magnificence with the most famous foundations of the south, but all around these wonderful piles reigned solitude and poverty. At last came the mighty change not unforeseen even in the days of the Stuarts. As soon as coal was brought into use, the iron manufacture left the south for the north—the exhausted forests of Sussex for the productive mines of Newcastle. The woollen trade gradually flitted from Exeter to Leeds, and the cutlery craft from Salisbury to Sheffield.

“All this is the work of coal and iron, and Barrow is the most recent product of the forces in operation. Mr. Gladstone observed with characteristic ingenuity that, whereas iron is by far the most useful of all metals—‘perhaps more useful and more necessary than all the rest put together’—it is at the same time, or rather it was till coal was discovered, the hardest to obtain. Iron is rarely found in a virgin state. It is obtained only in the shape of ore, which must be reduced and purified by fire. The great forests which once covered the whole county of Sussex supplied the necessary fuel to former generations of manufacturers, but that material was easily exhausted, and, except for the development of coal mining, our iron industry would never have been known. Put coal and iron together, and the result is wealth, trade, population, power. These mighty agents turn a barrow into a borough. They attract labour as surely as gold-fields, and it is by their instrumentality that the displacements of modern society have been accomplished. What fire and water effect in geology iron and coal effect in social history. Mr. Disraeli remarks in one of his novels, that men who sneered at the antiquity of Damascus had great faith in the future of Birkenhead. There is reason for such faith, and it is to be found in the history of England for the last two centuries. Trade is the making of cities. It will be the making of Barrow, just, indeed, as it was the making of Tyre. Furness is now drawn from its obscurity, and, for anything that we can tell, may, in a few years’ time, win a name as great as Winchelsea has lost.”—Times, 23rd September, 1867.

Penge dep. 7 6 a.m. 7 36 a.m. or 8 6 a.m.

Sydenham Hill ” 7 11 ” 7 41 ” ” 8 11 ”

Dulwich ” 7 14 ” 7 44 ” ” 8 14 ”

Herne Hill ” 7 18 ” 7 48 ” ” 8 18 ”

and to return by the trains leaving Victoria at 5·15 p.m., and Ludgate Hill at 5·44 p.m., and by any later third class train. On Saturdays these tickets will be available by the train leaving Victoria and Ludgate Hill at 2·25 p.m., or by any later third class train for the above stations.

The Metropolitan Extension. Trains for the use of artisans, mechanics, and daily labourers now run every day in each direction, between Victoria and Ludgate Hill. The charge for a Weekly Ticket will be One Shilling. These tickets are only available in the morning by one of the advertised workman’s trains, which leave Victoria at 4·0 a.m., 5·0 a.m., and 6·5 a.m., or Ludgate Hill at 5 a.m., and 6·5 a.m., and the holders of such tickets may return by any of the ordinary loop line Metropolitan trains which leave Victoria or Ludgate Hill after 5·30 p.m., or on Saturdays by any similar train starting from either Victoria or Ludgate Hill after 1·0 p.m.

Conditions upon which the above tickets are issued,—

These tickets are issued subject to the conditions contained in the Company’s Act, 27 & 28 Vict. cap. 195, and use by the holder is evidence of a special contract upon those conditions. Tickets for these trains can be obtained at the booking office of any station between Victoria, Ludgate Hill, and Penge inclusive, upon personal application only. The christian and surname, address, and trade, of the applicant may be required, as well as the name and address of the employer. Each ticket will be available for Six Days, from Monday to Saturday inclusive, and for one journey only in each direction on each day whilst in force, and by the advertised Workman’s Trains only. The tickets will have to be given up to the company’s ticket collector on the Saturday on which they expire, and even if issued on a later day in the week than Monday will still be available only up to and including the following Saturday. Each subscriber will be allowed to carry, at his or her sole and exclusive risk, a basket, not exceeding 28 lbs. weight, containing trade tools, so packed as not to be inconvenient or dangerous. No other luggage of any description will be allowed to the holders of Workman’s Tickets.

The following curious paragraph is from the journal of the Financial Reform Association of April last—“Since 1851 there has been published annually a return professing to give number and tonnage of vessels and customs’ revenue at twelve principal ports of the United Kingdom. In the Commons on Friday, March 15th, Mr. Candlish stated that only seven of these ports were properly described, the other five being far below Cardiff, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Swansea, and Grimsby; and that, whether as regarded shipping, commerce, or revenue, the return was grossly inaccurate in all particulars.—Mr. Cave, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, said that for some particular reason or other, he knew not what, the return had been moved for almost beyond the memory of man, and had since been continued year after year, for which he was very sorry, since it added needlessly to the great expense of unnecessary returns, and was entirely inaccurate from beginning to end.”

The last person, not a Peer of Parliament, who was Postmaster-General, was the Right Hon. Henry Frederick Carteret, who was appointed on the 29th January, 1771, joint Postmaster-General with Lord Despencer. He became Lord Carteret on the 29th January, 1784, and continued as joint Postmaster-General with Lord Walsingham until the 19th September, 1789. On the death of James, Marquis of Salisbury, on the 13th June, 1823, Thomas, Earl of Chichester, who had been one of the two Postmasters-General since the 5th of May, 1807, became sole Postmaster-General, and there has not been more than one Postmaster-General since that date. Lord Chichester finally retired from office on the 17th September, 1827.

The travelling Post Office staff of the United Kingdom consists of 53 clerks and 147 sorters. These are exclusive of mail officers at some railway stations, and of 89 mail guards and 40 mail porters. The average daily journey of each travelling Post Office employé is 170 miles, and the average time of his duty is between 5 and 6 hours.

The “Service Ambulant” of France is much more comprehensive, as by means of the travelling offices a large amount of sorting is performed, which is the work of the ordinary post offices in England. The staff of the French travelling post offices was, on the 1st of January, 1866, composed of 518 “Agents” and 654 “Sous Agents;” total of the staff, 1,172.

In 1835 the number of newspaper stamps issued was 32,874,632, and the number of newspapers conveyed by the post was nearly the same. In 1854, the last complete year before the abolition of the compulsory stamp, it was 107,052,053, of which about 37,000,000 were for London newspapers. About 70,000,000 were transmitted through the post. It is now of course impossible to do more than estimate the circulation of newspapers, but the London morning papers alone may be taken at 400,000 a-day, or 125,000,000 per annum; the daily papers published in all other places at as many more, and weekly papers at 250,000,000: total 500,000,000. If these figures be approximatively correct, the issue of newspapers has increased five-fold since 1854, but not more than about a seventh of them circulate through the post. In fact there has been scarcely any increase in the number of newspapers through the post since 1854.

The effect of comparatively high newspaper, as contrasted with low letter postage may be thus illustrated:—the chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom have risen from 75,907,562 in 1839, the year before the penny postage, to 720,467,007 in 1865, whilst newspapers, 44,500,000 in 1839, have (including book post packets, of which there were none in 1839), advanced in 1865 only to 97,252,766.^(A) In France, in 1847, the year before the reduction of inland letter postage (one penny in each town or commune, twopence throughout France and Algeria, which latter, for postal purposes, is considered as France), the chargeable letters were 126,480,000, newspapers, printed matter, and pattern post 90,275,466. In 1856 the newspaper postage rate was reduced to four centimes per copy, not exceeding an ounce and a third, with one centime for each additional third of an ounce, and these rates are diminished one-half when a newspaper is posted and delivered in the same department. In 1865 the number of chargeable letters was 314,817,000, newspapers, &c., 275,317,880. Thus the chargeable letters only exceeded newspapers, &c., by 39,499,120. In Great Britain the excess was 643,814,241.

There is no doubt that the Post Office charge upon newspapers, especially with the facilities which the railways now afford to the department of transmission to any extent, is much too high. This is particularly so as regards the smaller, general, as well as many of what are called “class” papers, several of which do not exceed an ounce or so in weight. The author has given much attention to this subject, as also to the reduction of postage upon local letters not exceeding a quarter of an ounce in weight, to one half-penny each, but neither of these questions can be entered upon here. It may, however, not be inappropriate to say at present, that “local letters,” that is, letters which never leave the district of the office in which they are posted, are those that yield by far the largest revenue per letter to the Post Office; in fact, a very considerable portion of the total net revenue of the department is derived from them. The history and development of London local letters since the commencement of the present century is curious. In 1801 they were estimated at about 3,200,000. In 1803 they had increased to 6,000,000; and in 1813, to 9,400,000; but in the following ten years they had advanced only to 10,500,000, that being the estimated number in 1823. They were almost stationary during the next ten years, notwithstanding the increase of population; indeed, they rather retrograded, their number in 1833 being estimated at only 10,200,000. In 1835 they rose to about 11,200,000. In 1839, the year before the introduction of the penny postage, they were 12,480,000. In 1840, they bounded suddenly to 20,372,000, and in 1844 they reached 27,000,000. In nine years afterwards (1853) they were 43,000,000. In 1855 London was divided for postal purposes into ten districts, by which very much more rapid delivery was obtained for local letters. The consequence was, that, in 1858, the third complete year after the alteration, local letters had risen to 58,404,000; and in 1862, to 71,961,000. In 1865 they were about 90,000,000, of which upwards of 16,000,000 were delivered in the districts in which they were posted. At the present time the average delivery of letters in London is about 560,000, of which about half are local and half from the provinces and abroad. The daily number of newspapers and book packets delivered is about 55,000. If London correspondence continue to increase as it has in recent years, it will soon be necessary to have half-hourly collections and deliveries during certain parts of the day.

^(A) This is the number stated at page 2 of the Postmaster-General’s Twelfth Report, but at page 15, it is 97,250,000, a difference of 2,766. The difference between the number of letters, as stated at pages 2 and 15 of the same report, is 7,007; of packets by pattern post, 6,116.

The rural postmen of France walk an average of sixteen miles each,—a total of 267,600 miles daily. Of their number, 5,248 walk seventeen miles a day and “upwards.” In this last word is included a certain number who complete twenty-five miles, “a fact,” as M. Vandal informs us in the Annuaire des Postes for 1866, “of melancholy notoriety.”

“His visits,” continues M. Vandal, “are solicited with ardour and received with gratitude.” But his remuneration is not on a par with these feelings. There are 673 whose pay is only £12 a year, 996 who receive £14, 2,970 between £14 and £20, 9,988 between £20 and £24, and only 1,779 who receive higher than £24; the average is only £21. 4s. per man. They are allowed, however (as is the case in England), to supplement their postal pay by performing certain little commissions and conveying small parcels for the inhabitants of the districts in which their services are employed.

Belgium possesses a rural postal system as extensive and penetrating as that just described, but, although food and rent are cheaper there than in France, the average pay of Belgian rural postmen is £30 a year, just 2 francs a day.

On the 31st December, 1865, 3,321 Post Office Savings Banks had been opened throughout the United Kingdom. Since then the number has been considerably added to. They have had some but not a very marked effect upon the savings banks on the old system, for whilst the “capital” of these latter, that is, the amount of money to the credit of depositors at the end of each year, was, on the 31st December, 1861, 41,546,475, it had fallen to £36,307,019 on 31st of December, 1866, but on the other hand, the “capital” of the Post Office Savings Bank was, at the last date, £8,121,175, making the total of savings bank capital £44,428,194, an increase of £2,881,719 since the end of 1861. It is to be remembered that this last named sum is principally, it might very nearly be said, altogether due to depositors of the humblest classes and of the smallest means who, until the establishment of Post Office Savings Banks, were never able to, at all events did not, avail themselves of any depositories for their earnings. The subject is one of deepest interest, but it cannot be perused further in these pages.

“Every peer who employs the opportunities furnished by his high position, together with his natural gifts, in conscientious labour for the public good, is now, more than ever, an ornament and a bulwark to the State, and a blessing to the people. It is therefore, with unfeigned satisfaction, that we find another of our nobles, one of the highest in rank, and not the least wealthy in traditional fame, adding himself to the number who are pledged in the face of the world, by early efforts, to a life of continued labour. The Duke has not entered the field of ostensible authorship with any light or frivolous aim, nor has he incurred the heavier responsibility of handling subjects of deep moment to human destiny, for the purpose of displaying his intellectual gifts. The theme he has chosen is one of extended interest, and has points of contact with a wider sphere, while his pages bear throughout the marks of an earnestness not to be mistaken; besides, they present specimens of acuteness and of eloquence full of promise for his literary fame.”

Of the Duke’s last work, the “Reign of Law,” four editions have gone rapidly through the press. It is described respectively by the Times, the Spectator, and the Examiner, as “a very able book,” “a masterly book,” and “a very remarkable volume;” whilst the Pall Mall Gazette says of it,—“The aim of this book is lofty, and requires not only a thorough familiarity with metaphysical and scientific subjects, but a breadth of thought, a freedom from prejudice, a general versatility, and sympathetic quality of mind, and a power of clear exposition rare in all ages and in all countries. We have no hesitation in expressing an opinion that all these qualifications are to be recognised in the Duke of Argyll, and that his book is as unanswerable as it is attractive.”

“Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.”

At the present day, there are Anthony Trollope, Edmund Yates, besides many who adopt the anonymous, and are contributors to our magazines and reviews, and occasionally to comic periodicals. But there is one man who, if his duties, first as Accountant-General, and now as one of the secretaries of the Post Office, had not been so unceasing and absorbing for many years, would have been, in another sense, among the most distinguished men of letters of his day. Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore’s “People that One Never Sees” and his essays “On Dreams,” are amongst the most brilliant and exquisite little conceptions that pen has ever committed to paper. Mr. Scudamore finds “sermons in stones,” and sweetest harmony also.

“To the mechanical engineer the name of Manchester has a significance similar in a certain sense, to that which the name of Mecca has for the people of Mahommet’s creed. ‘He is not a true follower of the Prophet who has not been to Mecca once in his life at least;’ so is the saying in the Orient; and, in drawing the parallel, we are tempted to say—he is not a true mechanical engineer who has not visited Manchester once in his life, who has not seen the monuments raised to the memory of the prophets of modern generations, only recently dead, and more than that, who has not seen the faces of those great prophets still living and daily effecting marvels and revealing truth for the benefit of future generations. With the monuments raised to the dead we do not of course mean any special bronze memorial of James Watt, nor the unsightly monument of Crompton which ornaments the central part of Bolton, nor indeed, the memorial of Richard Roberts, which ought to stand somewhere in Manchester, but does not stand anywhere. But there are 150,000 boilers in operation in Manchester and the manufacturing district surrounding it—we state this figure as estimated by Mr. Longridge, the chief engineer of the Boiler Insurance and Steam Power Company—they represent, perhaps, one million of horses’ power in steam engines daily at work, and these we call the memorial raised by the town of Manchester to the name of James Watt. As for the monuments of Crompton and Roberts, they form great groups like the pyramids in the graveyards of Egyptian rulers, only more numerous, more valuable, and more useful. Every cotton mill, every manufactory of textile machinery, is a memorial to Samuel Crompton and Richard Roberts. Take the largest of these groups—the Hartford Ironworks, Oldham—there are 8,000 men under the command of one leading mind, assisted by every aid that mechanical appliances can give, and indebted in almost every one of the details of their machinery to Richard Roberts again, employed in carrying out the ideas of this great inventor for the benefit of themselves, their families, and mankind at large. What a sight to compare with that of a solid chimney standing between four bronze lions! It is characteristic to the engineering profession that the works of our great men form monuments for their names which no national munificence can equal.

“To pass from the memory of those gone by to those who make Manchester what it is at present, viz., the centre and metropolis of mechanical engineering, we need scarcely make an interruption in our cursory reference to the history of mechanics. Mr. William Fairbairn, Mr. Whitworth, Mr. Nasmyth, are fellow travellers of Richard Roberts on the road of progress. They also are erecting monuments to their names; and the great engineering establishments which bear their names, form some of the most important items in the great total of Manchester manufactories, which great total may be considered at this moment to represent almost every one of the more important branches of mechanical engineering in the widest sense of that term. To commence with coal-mining, the Lancashire coal-bed is one of the richest and most important of this country; its different seams are applicable to all the varied branches of industry, commencing with the most valuable of all, the cannel coal, down to the cheapest coal slack, which is still capable of being converted into coke of good quality, and by the assistance of the washing machine can be made to yield the best coke required for the smelting of hematite iron of the highest marks. We have entered in detail into some interesting points connected with the coal-mining and iron manufacture of this district, in our recent account of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company. The iron manufacture in that locality is rapidly rising. It is based upon an exchange of coal and ore with the Ulverstone district, and may thank the introduction of the Bessemer process for its recent prosperity and its excellent prospects for future success. The Bessemer process itself (this important element in modern engineering), has found a centre in Manchester and its neighbourhood. The Bolton Steel Works, the Lancashire Steel Works, the Manchester Steel and Plant Company, the important steel works at Crewe, and the Mersey Ironworks in Liverpool, form an aggregate power of production fully as great as that which is centred in Sheffield, and of course much greater than in any other part of the world, that small district in Prussia, on the banks of the river Ruhr, excepted. The foundries of Manchester, although their production does not reach that of the largest establishments in Scotland with regard to quantity, are fully equal to them with regard to quality and size of individual castings which they are capable of producing. We have had occasion to mention the hydraulic ram of the hoist for charging the Woodward cupola at Messrs. Dobson & Barlow’s works, which has been cast in one piece, 22 feet long, standing on its end, at the Union Foundry in Bolton, and we have been informed that this foundry is laid out for casting articles of the heaviest description, up to a depth of 30 feet. In the Bolton Steel Works, the anvil of the 25-ton hammer, which has been cast in its place, is said to be about 200 tons in weight. Machine-moulding, with all its delicacy and beauty of form, is more developed in the Manchester district than in any other locality. We have heard of wheels 3 feet in diameter, with teeth pitched one-eighth of an inch, i. e., about 900 in number, being moulded by machinery at the Hartford Works, Oldham. The application of machine-moulding to railway axle-boxes we have noticed in our description of the Ashbury Works. For the construction of stationary engines of different sizes Manchester, we believe, admits of few rivals. We have noticed the large blowing-engines, with 100-inch cylinders, 12 feet stroke, made at the Bridgewater Foundry, Patricroft; the pumping-engines for the Abbey Mills Station, and the Liverpool Waterworks engines, now in progress at the Union Foundry, Bolton; the beautifully finished rolling-mill engines for the Barrow Hematite Steel Works, made by Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves & Co.; and Messrs. Musgrave & Sons’ engines at the Lancashire Steel Company’s Works and at Barrow-in-Furness. All these, and numbers of others, which may be counted by hundreds, form the vast group of engine constructions in Manchester. Engineers’ tools have had their early development, and still have their principal seat of manufacture, in this important place. One by one they have come into existence at the Atlas Works in their first and original types, have obtained their graceful shapes, the hollow castings of their framework, the scraped surfaces of their slides, and the dead accuracy of their movements, at Mr. Whitworth’s works, and have then become standard types of form more or less closely imitated by every tool-maker, not only in Manchester, but all over the world.

“Of specialities in tools, such as Messrs. Collier & Co.’s multiple drills, Messrs. Hetherington & Son’s new drilling machines, and some new tools at work at Messrs. Parr, Curtis & Madeley’s, we have had opportunities of taking notice some short time ago. They are only single items selected out of a great crowd of others, and that great crowd again forms only one small part of the entire mechanical business of Manchester. We pass to boiler construction, and we find it developed into a branch of engineering by itself. It stands upon a higher level in Manchester than elsewhere, and we need only refer to our recent description of Mr. Adamson’s works, if we desire a proof for this assertion. The construction of locomotives—and we comprise Crewe, St. Helen’s, &c., in the name of that manufacturing district generally understood under the designation of Manchester by mechanical engineers—shows the same predominance over that of any other town as the branches previously named. For railway plant we have now the newly established Bessemer Steel Works, making rails, axles, tires, and other articles; we have the Ashbury Works, with their large production of carriages and waggons; for iron bridges, the Fairbairn Engineering Company’s Works. Of the machinery employed in the Bessemer process, the manufacture is exclusively in the hands of Messrs. W. & J. Galloway & Sons, and Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves & Co. The Nasmyth and the Condie hammer, and almost all the rolling mills for weldless tires, such as Messrs. Collier & Co.’s., Messrs. Galloway & Sons’, and Mr. Jackson’s mills, belong to the workshops of Manchester, and form elements of its trade. In wood-working machinery the production of Messrs. Thos. Robinson & Son, of Rochdale, is the largest of that class. For shipbuilding and marine engineering we need go no farther than the Mersey; but in this line, and in the branch of agricultural machinery, the great centres of manufacture lie elsewhere, and must remain so in the future from natural causes. With the consideration of these facts we think it sufficiently established that ‘the city of the tall chimneys’ is more than what it used to be half a century ago ‘the cotton metropolis;’ it is now the metropolis of mechanical engineering as well. There is another important institution which gives to Manchester the character of a metropolis for manufactures, and that is the Exchange. To attend at the Exchange forms part of the business of a commercial engineer in Manchester, and the Exchange has thereby become one of the most important institutions for one branch of the profession. The Manchester Exchange forms a general place of appointment for all parties interested in the manufactures of that district, where every manufacturer expects to find everyone engaged in trade at a certain hour once or twice in every week. To point out what saving of time, what enlargement of power for transacting business, this institution has given to the whole industrial population of Manchester, will hardly be necessary, but the extraordinary aspect which the Manchester Exchange presents to the eye of a stranger entering it any Tuesday between twelve and one o’clock is worthy of a brief remark. There is a dense crowd, numbering by thousands of heads, filling the entire area of the large hall, which is divided longitudinally in three parallel passages by two rows of columns or pillars supporting the roof. By universal admission, a kind of rule seems to have been established, perhaps without its having ever been expressed in words. This rule refers to the division of the total space in the hall between the different branches represented there. One of the outer passages belongs to engineers and machinists; the central part is devoted to the manufacturers of textile fabrics; and the part of the hall at the opposite side is occupied by the mercantile part of the assembly, the cotton brokers, exporters of goods, &c.

“A stranger entering the hall for the first time may recognise the side belonging to the engineers at a single glance. Their faces, their general appearance, and their whole bearing are characteristic, and not to be mistaken. There is, of course, no possibility of knowing one engineer from one merchant at first sight, but an assembly of, say, two hundred engineers looks as different from a congregation of two hundred merchants as two groups of men possibly can be. Those habits of thought and observation, that consciousness of—we may say—creative power, that determination to succeed in spite of difficulties, which are the attributes of the mind of an engineer, never fail to show themselves in the outward appearance of the man; they may be too faint for recognition in the single individual, but they are stamped upon an assembly of the members of our profession, where the marks common to the group come out more prominently by repetition. There are other things clearly visible in the appearance of the great crowd collected ‘on Change’ which are not perceptible by observation of single individuals, and that is the state of the trade and the nature of the transactions afloat. Looking at the crowd from above, and knowing the positions which the different branches habitually occupy in the building, the manner in which the groups cluster together, and the greater or less speed with which they change their positions, give remarkably clear indications to the practised eye. The Manchester Exchange is to be rebuilt and very considerably enlarged. At a public competition of plans for a new Exchange building, Messrs. Mills and Mergatroyd, architects of Manchester, have gained the two first prizes, and they are now entrusted with the construction of the new building. There are some other points, with regard to which the town of Manchester has just commenced to take up its proper position as the great centre of mechanical engineering. A college for engineering science is to be established in the cotton metropolis very shortly, and the funds for this purpose have been raised by subscriptions amongst the leading members of our profession, who have responded to the call with a princely munificence.”

On the 23rd of August, 1839, the Lords of the Treasury offered to “all artists, men of science, and the public in general,” a premium of £500 for the best design of an envelope that should fulfil the double purpose of illustrating the universality of the new postal system, and of acting as a frank of the value of one penny. The premium was awarded to the late Mr. Mulready, R.A., but the appearance of the envelopes caused such fun, banter, and amusement, that they were withdrawn as soon as possible, and they are now extremely scarce. We hope we shall not be accused of one of the highest of crimes, if we mention a belief very current in 1840, that it was not to Mr. Mulready, but to a very exalted personage, that the authorship of the design should really have been attributed.

At the first institution of postage stamps, there were only two forms, black (very shortly afterwards changed to red), one penny; blue, twopence. There are now ten forms, the value of each of which varies from one penny to five shillings.

In France, in Switzerland, and in Belgium, in consequence of the cost of transmission of newspapers and other printed matter in those several countries being so low, there are postage stamps of the value of one centime, two, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and eighty, each. France has also postage stamps of the value of five francs (four shillings) each.

The number of stamps of different values circulating in the different countries of the civilised world that issue them (and there is hardly one such country that does not do so), is rather over 2,000. In case the reader should be travelling abroad, he may perhaps like to know what he must ask for, as the equivalent for the English compound word “Postage-Stamp.” If in France, Switzerland, or Belgium, the word is “Timbre-Poste;” if in Prussia proper or Sweden, “Freimarke;” Hamburg or Lubeck, “Postmarke;” Austria, “Post-Stempfel;” the territory that was Hanover, “Bestelgeld-frei;” Holland, “Post-zegel;” Italy, “Franco-bollo;” Spain, “Timbre (with the final e pronounced) de Posta.”

Timbromaniacs (so collectors of postage stamps are called), give employment, as we learn from the editor of the Every Boy’s Annual, for 1866, to a considerable number of persons who are especially engaged in the collection and sale of foreign stamps. These for the purposes of the trade are of two orders, the “maculate,” or those which have gone through the post, and the “immaculate,” or those which, if the owner were in the country to which they belong, would give free transmission to his letters, the adequate amount of stamps being fixed upon them. Some postage stamps have already become out of date, in consequence of the dominions in which they were issued having been absorbed in other kingdoms. Thus, in Italy, there are no longer the postage stamps issued in the former kingdom of Naples, or in the overthrown Grand Duchies of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena. (The last Stuart Queen of England, wife of James the Second, was the Princess Mary of Modena.) In 1866, Hanover, Frankfort, Nassau, and Electoral Hesse, having been seized by Prussia and absorbed into that kingdom, have ceased to issue postage stamps. The sovereign of the largest territorial possessions, since the time of Imperial Rome, Charles the V., of Spain, reigning also as Emperor over Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and the Netherlands, gave authority in or about 1540, to the Prince of Thurn and Taxis, to establish a line of posts from Vienna to Brussels; and the family of this House has, ever since, held special rights and privileges in relation to the postal systems of Germany, their posts being distinct from those appertaining to the Crown, in the kingdoms through which their rights extended. But these privileges absolutely ceased in the countries absorbed by Prussia in 1866, and negotiations have since been completed for the transfer to Prussia of the remaining postal rights of the princely house of Thurn and Taxis. Their cessation, however, will have no consequence as regards postage stamps, those of the Governments of the countries through which their privileges extended, only having been issued in them.

Had France at the commencement of this year, been able to obtain possession of the Duchy of Luxemburg there would not have been an absorption of postage stamps, as those in use are Dutch.

But, apart from political considerations, France has had a very fortunate escape, in one respect, by not obtaining the desired annexation. In the canton of Diekerch there are three rather picturesque villages, the names of which are respectively, Schindermanderscheid, Oberschindermanderscheid, and Nederschindermanderscheid. What the French, with their dislike to consonants, would have converted those words into it is impossible to say. Even “Nantzig,” when they got possession of Lorraine, was changed to “Nancy,” and Metz, instead of retaining its original German pronunciation, is invariably spoken in France as if it were written “Messe.” Although the Annuaire des Postes for 1867, gives the names of upwards of 19,000 foreign post offices in Europe and North America, it has not ventured to include in it the above named Luxembourg villages; yet, there are among them several Welsh, Polish, and Russian towns, with many names totally unpronounceable except by natives, and even they must, at times, experience difficulty; witness—Solnychewsku, Wysselok, Domojirowe, Oiaskoe Sermanske (Russian); Jjewsku, Zawod, Wjätka (Poland); Yaysymudw, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, and Llanfairynghornwy (Wales).

“The correspondents of English papers give melancholy accounts of dull business in commerce and manufactures in America, but the remedy for this is so easy, as pointed out in a Times’ leader, that it is only necessary to call an extra Session of Congress and adopt it. You have only to remove all restrictions upon Free Trade. Repeal all duties upon imports, and every shipyard would be alive with workers, every factory in full operation, and the whole country prosperous and happy. But the trouble is that nobody in America knows anything about political economy. Under the actual tariff it is said that American manufacturers are undersold by those of England and Germany, and Free Trade would bring all right again. It happens, however, that England, with Free Trade, is scarcely building any ships, and that she is in serious danger from Continental competition. How is this muddle to be disposed of? With Free Trade, half the labouring population in England lives upon wages just above the point of starvation, with no resource in sickness or old age but the workhouse, and Ireland is in a state of chronic poverty and discontent. With Free Trade there is a perpetual war between capital and labour, and the enormous burden of pauperism is increasing. Americans may be ignorant of political economy, but I cannot see that the English are overburdened with wisdom, or that the practical results of their system are of a very enticing character. The working men of England believe in Protection, and the English Colonies practise it to the great annoyance of the theorists at home.

“After all, Free Trade is a proved impossibility. Parliament is constantly interfering with what, according to our philosophers, should regulate itself. The Poor Law system is itself a Protective measure. So are all the laws limiting the hours and ages, and regulating the conditions of labour. There are Acts of Parliament forbidding the employment of women in coal-pits, where a few years ago they worked naked like brute beasts; Acts forbidding the employment in factories of children of twelve years; and during the last Session laws have been passed for the protection of children in the numerous trades and in the agricultural gangs which would disgrace Dahomey. There is need of abundance more of such interference. In the black country, north of Birmingham, there is a large population engaged in making nails by hard labour, especially horseshoe nails. On an average, three females are employed in this work to one male. I wonder if in all America there is one female blacksmith. Even the strongest-minded of the advocates of woman’s rights have not claimed for women the trade of a blacksmith. But here little girls from seven to nine years old, are set to work and kept to work, as long as they can stand, hammering at the anvil, roasting by the forge, blacked with soot, never seeing schoolhouse or playground, but employed their whole lives making horseshoe nails for a bare subsistence. Absolute Free Trade sets women and children to work at forge and mine, and reduces wages to the lowest possible standard, and that is the system against which humanity protests, and with which Parliament, in spite of theories, finds it necessary to interfere. Free Trade, as ultimated in England, is the most debased ignorance, the most abhorrent cruelty, the most disgusting vice, and the most heartbreaking misery that can be seen in any country calling itself civilised and Christian. There is too much freedom of all kinds in England, and especially a great deal too much in Free Trade.”

The Times, of the 5th of October last, replies at great length. Having fully explained the reasons why the United States adhere to Protection, the writer proceeds:—

“Free Trade in this country has been the labour of several generations of scientific and public-spirited men; it has been established on principles that have acquired the force of axioms, and is now proved and illustrated by splendid results. It may be said to have outlived prejudice, and to require no vindication. This, at least, is true as regards the educated classes, for it cannot be denied that lower down in the social scale Protection lingers still, in company with many other heresies, superstitions, and manifold forms of unreason. Free Trade requires a man to look beyond himself, beyond his own employment, beyond his own class, to the common right and weal, and this requires a certain amount of moral education. But it would be scarcely possible to detect in any respectable organ of opinion any trace of the old error, however ingeniously disguised.

“The New York Times abuses Free Trade, by charging upon it everything unhappy or disagreeable in the condition of this country, and by asserting that Free Trade cannot be carried out consistently, and is therefore a hollow hypocrisy. Our agricultural labourers work like slaves for a pittance, our women and children make horseshoe nails, or traverse the country in gangs such as would disgrace the kingdom of Dahomey. Our shipyards are idle, our workhouses full, and the most repulsive and incessant toil receives wages just above starvation point. The English labourer pines for Protection; the Irish peasant for any possible escape from the allegiance and laws that keep him poor and degraded. Meanwhile, when the pinch comes, we give up Free Trade. In the opinion of the New York Times, it is an abandonment of Free Trade to provide workhouses for destitution, sickness, and old age; to prohibit the employment of women and girls in coal-pits; to limit the hours of factory children and provide for their schooling; to interfere with any trade for sanitary ends; or to aid any man, woman, or child to be what they ought to be, to have what they ought to have, or to do what they ought to do. Free Trade, the writer says, has produced all this hideous mass of misery, and, having done it, recoils in horror from its own work, and hands the matter over to Protection in the shape of public charity and philanthropy.

“As the writer has taken his picture of England from the columns of its public press, and from its Parliamentary debates and returns, we should be the last to deny that there is in it a foundation of truth. But it is only as if an American were to fill his boxes with the very worst and filthiest rubbish he could pick up in this metropolis, and take it home as a fair average and faithful representation of the capital of the mother country. There is no falsehood so mischievous as truth partially and malignantly selected. As to Free Trade, the writer does not know what it is, and probably does not care to know. It is trade emancipated from all restrictions and burdens which are not in the interest of all the parties concerned; that is, which are for one person against another, one class against another, or one nation against another. As it is in the interest of common humanity—that is, of all the world—that the destitute, sick, and aged should not be left to perish; that children should not be worked above their strength, or left without education; that women and girls should not be made mere beasts of burden, or reduced to savagery, these are not questions of trade at all, free or not free. Little as “Monadnock” seems to be aware, he is himself interested in the maintenance of human nature at its highest possible elevation all over the world. At all events, he must allow Englishmen to indulge the sentiments of benevolence without having it imputed to them that they do it on protective—that is, selfish—principles, and, in so doing, are offending against the great doctrine of Free Trade. But is it Free Trade that has produced the scandals which Protection, this writer says, is invoked in vain to mitigate? They all existed, far worse, in the days of Protection. They are the evils of a crowded country. The population of these isles has doubled since the beginning of the century, but it is impossible to rescue an acre from the surrounding seas except generally at an extravagant cost, or even to reclaim an acre without risk of loss. The land won’t employ all, and the surplus must do what they can. America, on the contrary, has millions upon millions of the best land in the world to draw upon as fast as she wants them. She has all the charm of novelty, as well as its more solid advantages. Till her citizens fell out with one another in the mere excess of youthful energy, and the mere exuberance of wealth and power, they had no need of an army to call an army, or of a fleet to call a fleet. It is folly, if not mockery, to compare such a country with England, as if the circumstances were equal, and laws responsible for all the difference. A septuagenarian may be healthy and strong for his years; his activity of mind and body may speak well for the moderation of his diet, the regularity of his habits and the calmness of his temper. What would be thought of a young man of twenty, of remarkable strength and stature, who taunted the old gentleman with his inability to carry a sack of corn, to throw a cricket ball a hundred yards, to run a mile in five minutes, to leap over his own height, to walk twenty miles in a day, to eat a dish of raw fruit or a quart of oats without indigestion? Should the old gentleman even confess himself unequal to such feats, that would be no disparagement of the habits and plan of life which have made him what he is—healthy for his time of life, strong, with good heart, and with duly cultivated mental powers.”

The following, from the Scientific American of August last, furnishes a present comment upon the value of “Protection” in the United States:—

“The mills are running at a loss in Lowell, Lawrence, and most of the other manufacturing towns of Massachusetts, and throughout New England. The Manchester mills and print works have goods on hand unsold of the value of $2,000,000 (£430,000). The same state of things exists with the Amoskeag Company.”

Of the value of ice in actual railway transport, we have the testimony of recent American papers. The New York Times says,—“Large quantities of dead meat are brought to New York from distances of 800 to 1,200 miles, by railway. Ordinary covered goods waggons are employed, and the meat, in quarters, is laid upon the ice, the ice being laid directly upon the floors of the waggons. Ice is laid also upon the top, and additional quarters are laid upon this, with a final layer of ice over the whole. At one time a break of gauge existed, and the waggons had to be unloaded, and the meat repacked in ice. This expense and delay are now saved. This mode of carrying meat is found to be very cheap and satisfactory.”

The author avails himself of this opportunity to give his experience of a strike, which he went through as principal officer of the Eastern Counties Railway Company in 1849. In that year the locomotive superintendent had frequently to direct engine-drivers of passenger trains, not to leave their engines at stations, except to oil or look after them. The order not having been attended to by some of the men, the locomotive superintendent issued a notice to the effect that a shilling fine would be inflicted upon any driver who quitted his engine except for the purposes above stated. A man, notoriously not a first-class man, but with an abundance of that quality which is vulgarly, though effectively, expressed by the word “jaw,” undertook, as was afterwards learned, to set the rule at defiance. Accordingly on the next day, he alighted from his engine at a first-class station, and ostentatiously walked up and down the platform with his hands in his trowser’s pockets; he was, of course, fined. He declined to pay the shilling; and, owing to what is unfortunately usual in such cases, the influence of outsiders, men who had never done the honest day’s work of an honest workman in their lives, the engine-drivers to a man, gave notice of their intention to leave the service in a week, unless the order were withdrawn. Had the demand been complied with, the discipline of the line was at an end. The Board, for it now became a Board question, therefore, after much serious and protracted deliberation, took this view. Orders were consequently given to the principal officers to lose not a moment, and to spare no expense in procuring engine-drivers elsewhere. This was no easy task to accomplish in so short a time as a week, but by arranging for the diminution of the number of trains, and through the sympathy of the public, which in the first instance had been altogether with the men, but was totally changed when the real facts became known, the service of the line was continued, and within nine days from that on which the old hands had given notice of retirement, almost all the usual trains were restored to the time table. The anxieties of a strike on a great leading railway are of a fearful character; those only who, like the author and his other brother officers, had to go through one, can attempt to describe them, and the very best description that could be written would fall far short of their reality.

But as regards the men; at first their leaders and the outsiders who were urging them to destruction, were very sanguine of success; in fact, at the meetings that were held three or four times a day (for there was a species of sittings en permanence) it was assured to them. But as days passed on and the order was not withdrawn, the passions of the leaders rose; not only were threats uttered, but notwithstanding apparently most careful watching on the part of men whose trustworthiness there was no reason to doubt, some of the engines were tampered with, tow was introduced along the piston rods to prevent their acting; parts that should be oiled were not oiled, and some other things were done that at the time were described as “not intended to do serious damage, just to maim and lame the engines a bit, not to destroy them.”

But in this strike, that happened which has happened in every other strike, combination, or conspiracy of men of the humbler classes, since the days that strikes, combinations, or conspiracies first existed—that is, there was what is usually known as “a traitor in the camp,” for the author knew, within less than an hour after each meeting broke up, all the material facts that had occurred at it. It is needless to say that the information given was of great value in check-mating the men, and leading to their eventual defeat.

So far as regards the strike during its progress, and until its death; and now for its consequences. The men were no sooner completely beaten than they were of course deserted by the leaders and the puppet-movers. The subscriptions that were promised by “the trades” during the strike were not forthcoming when the strike was over. The very word implies that the workers work not, but that, nevertheless, the employers require their service. But, unhappily for the men, this had ceased to be so on the railway.

The reverse of the picture was now seen by the men whom Lord Derby so happily describes as the “bread-winners,” as well as by the wives, whom His Lordship, with equal aptitude, names the “bread-managers.” The two pounds sterling a-week—or more—that the men were accustomed to receive each Saturday afternoon, were no longer ready at the pay-table; no, they did not even have the ten, fifteen, or twenty shillings a week, so vauntingly promised just a fortnight previously. “Strike-pay” was promised for six months certain, actual payment was for one week only.

Engine drivers, as a rule, are not more provident than the other sections of the working community of the railways; yet, some had saved a little money, with which they expected to hold out a few weeks, by which time they believed they would easily get into work again. But, in this respect, they were mistaken. There is a rule on railways that when an engine driver applies for a situation, the locomotive superintendent of the company at which employment is sought, writes for the man’s character at his last place. This is obviously requisite, not only as an ordinary precaution, but as an act of necessity, in case a man should have been dismissed in consequence of intoxication, or owing to having caused an accident. In the case of the Eastern Counties engine drivers, the locomotive superintendents of the already opened lines throughout the country refused to engage them for fully a year after the strike had ended.

The more necessitous of the men appealed to the author, and to his brother officers, to be reinstated. Many a man, hard working, honest, and worthy, accompanied his appeals by tears, caused by bitter sorrow and anguish at their positions; and, some of them, when reproached, that they, so esteemed and respected, as they knew they always had been, by their officers—yet had deserted—invariably replied, that they were told, in the plainest terms, that if they did not join the strike, they, their wives and children, should be made to suffer for it in their persons. No doubt they then knew, what the world at large has only recently known, that such threats were meant, not as threats, but as realities. It was felt, however, that it would be unjust towards the new men if the old were re-admitted, at all events at first; but, by degrees, as vacancies occurred, some of those who had not emigrated, or who had not been taken on lines which just then were opened in various parts of the kingdom, came back into the service. But they came back at the bottom of the list of drivers, with six shillings a-day, as goods engine drivers, instead of seven shillings and sixpence a-day as passenger drivers of the first class, and it took some of them two years after re-admission, before they regained their former first-class pay. Of the distress in many forms which the strike caused to men who had no alternative but to join in it, innumerable instances could be cited, and the author was able to confirm by personal experience what he had always believed to be the case, that in strikes, workmen are usually beaten, and that, if even apparently successful, they are, they must be, losers.

“But our Chaucer was only a middle link in a long chain. Before his birth, the literature of this country had maintained, for a longer time than has passed since his birth, a foremost place in the intellectual history of Europe. To say nothing of the yet earlier Beowulf, English Cædmon poured the soul of a Christian poet into noble song 650 years before Chaucer was born. Six centuries before Chaucer, Bede, foremost of Christian scholars, was the historian of England, and Chaucer wrote his “Canterbury Tales,” not quite five centuries ago. It is only because we have done so much during these five centuries, and every stroke of the work has told upon our present, that we are content to look on Wycliff, Chaucer, Gower, and the author of “Piers Plowman,” as men of a remote time who lived in the dim caves about the bubbling source of our literature. They did not live at the source of our literature, and they are not remote. Their aspirations were ours, their ways of thinking ours, their battle ours, except that we have the advantage of a few points gained.

“With Chaucer our own day begins, but he is not the day-spring of our literature. In prose and verse for century after century before the time of Chaucer, there was a literature here of home-speaking earnestness, practical wit and humour, that attacked substantial ills of life; sturdy resistance against tyrannies in Church and State; and as the root of all its strength, a faithful reverence for God. With all this, Chaucer was in harmony; and so too, as we shall find, have been our best writers of every succeeding generation. For in our literature, which is but our voice as a people, the mind speaks, that has so laboured as to win for England, almost alone among the nations, the inheritance of an inalienable freedom.”—English Writers from Chaucer to Dunbar.

The most distinguished among our classical scholars, the Rev. T. E. Yonge, says, in his recent edition of the complete works of Horace, that, partly in consequence of some resemblance in our present national character to that of the Romans in their cultivated age, our literature bears many traces of Horace. His sentiments, if not indicative of deep thought, are so instinct with the practical common sense on which we pride ourselves, so genial, and, above all, so charmingly expressed, that they are continually recurring to the recollection of every educated mind, and re-appearing in our best authors. The Pall Mall Gazette hasn’t a good word for Mr. Yonge, nohow.

A writer in the eighty-seventh volume of the Quarterly Review, in the course of a very pleasant article upon the mechanism of the Post Office as it was in 1850, says: “Of dead letters, a considerable number containing property valued in two consecutive years at upwards of £10,000, have actually been posted without any addresses at all! Indeed many years ago, a blank undirected letter, on being opened at the Dead Letter Office in London, was found to contain in notes no less than £1,500. The only way,” proceeds the writer, “in which this extraordinary, and at first sight almost incomprehensible, fact can be accounted for is, that the attention of the good lady or good gentleman who had folded and sealed such a valuable money letter had been so hysterically exhausted by the desire to do both with extreme caution, that, under a moral syncope, there had not remained between the crown of the head and the soles of the feet strength of mind enough to enable her or him to finish the operation. In short, the neglect had proceeded from what is properly enough called ‘absence of mind,’ which, in a description for which we humbly beg pardon, we will endeavour to exemplify by the following anecdote:—An over-tired Yankee, travelling in Kentucky, called at a log-hut for refreshment. The young woman of the hovel, that she might quickly spread the table, gave him her infant to hold, and in a few minutes laying before him a homely meal, she then modestly returned to her work. The long-backed man, naturally enough, was enraptured at the sight of the repast, and overwhelmed by conflicting feelings of gratitude to the young woman, of admiration of the lovely infant that sat smiling on his knee, and of extreme hunger, in a fit of absence of mind exactly such as caused the person in England to post a letter containing £1,500 without any address, he, to the horror of the hostess, all of a sudden, with great energy ... kissed the loaf, buttered the child’s face, and cut its head off—at least so runs the story in Kentucky.”

Our second case of remarkable absence of mind is also American, and it has in one respect the advantage over the foregoing, it occurred at the beginning of this year. A judge “out West,” presiding at a trial, so completely lost his presence of mind by the presence of a beautiful young English lady about to be examined as a witness, that when she had repeated the words of the oath, previous to her examination in the case, he placed his face for her to kiss instead of the book. The young English lady, not being acquainted with American jurisprudence, but having a great respect for the law, did as she was ordered to do by the judge. His absence of mind was so great, that when the witness had completed her evidence he swore her again, this time, however, varying the form of the oath slightly; “The evidence you have given is the truth, the whole truth,” &c. The kiss was in the act of being repeated, and there is no knowing how long the Judge’s absence of mind might have continued, had not his wife very fortunately come on to the bench in the very nick of time to administer to him a sharp blow on one ear, which, for fear of ear-jealousy, was passed on to the other with almost electric rapidity. The spectators in court, as well as the counsel, attorneys, jury, and officers, were unanimously of opinion that the remedy was equally effective as it was rapid and pungent. As regards the beautiful English lady, the only inconvenience she experienced was that she had to be sworn all over again and to be examined all over again. Both the direct and cross-examining counsel were bachelors. “The next news that is expected to be heard of one of them,” says the editor of the American newspaper from which the foregoing is extracted and its truth guaranteed, “and of the beautiful English lady, is in the portion of our advertisements that we call ‘Our Ladies’ Column’; and as regards the other counsel, we have already set up in type the following headings of a sensational article we intend to write: ‘Appalling suicide of a very distinguished and remarkable Member of the Bar.—Disappointed love.—A beautiful young English lady.’”

Sometimes scenes that ought to be very heart-rending and touching occur when a dog for which the fare has been regularly paid is separated from its owner, but as a rule, objection is not made to a dog travelling with passengers if they have no objection, and the dog be only a small one. We have more than once had conversations with ladies on “the great dog question,” and some of them say truly that, as there is no charge on railways for “nasty cats and parrots, and other birds,” or “for babies under three years of age,” why should they be made to pay for what does not give a twentieth part of the trouble that only one baby causes. But after all, the number of dogs that are paid for, as compared with “free” dogs, is very small indeed.

Dr. Ogden Fletcher, the Medical Officer of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, in his recent interesting work, Railways in their Medical Aspects, to which, as well as to the subject upon which it treats, we hope to refer hereafter, says that there are five times more people killed by carriages in the streets of London every year, than were killed on all the railways in Great Britain during any of the last seven or eight years.

“On reviewing the dismal record, we are bound to take courage from the many gratifying facts it reveals in regard to saving of life, which, after all, is our principal object in commenting on this doleful Register. Noble work has been done, and is doing, in that way, which has not only elicited the admiration of the British public, but also that of many foreign nations; and this was strikingly illustrated last July by the International Jury of the Paris Universal Exhibition awarding to the National Lifeboat Institution one out of their nineteen great gold medals, in acknowledgment of the important services it had rendered to shipwrecked sailors of all nations, hundreds of whom, and thousands of our own hardy sailors, it had rescued from a premature grave, and many homes from the desolation of widowhood and orphanage.”

“Steel-laid Railways.—A line of railway laid in steel is now well known to be superior, in respect of economy of working, to one laid in iron. It requires less labour in keeping up, and, all other things being equal, it can be maintained in a better running condition than an iron way. The reasons of its superiority are apparent enough. A yielding roadway is a bad roadway for traction; and while bad at all speeds, it is especially bad at high speeds. Whatever may be the explanation, the following are well-established facts:—The axle friction of carriages, and the mere resistance to rolling along a smooth rail, are constant at all speeds. The actual resistances to the motion of trains upon our best railways are, however, considerably greater at high than at low speeds, and the excess is very much beyond that known to be due merely to the atmosphere. Besides the latter resistance, there is a considerable resistance known to increase in the ratio of the square of the speed, and it is, we believe, the universal custom of the profession to speak of this as the resistance due to “concussions;” and what but an irregular, uneven, or yielding line can cause concussions? These increased resistances apply to lines in good and even first-rate condition, and are much greater on lines not well kept up. The constant resistances are but from 8 lb. to 10 lb. per ton for the engine, tender, and train, so that the resistances due to “concussions” are about equal to the constant resistances at 40 miles an hour, and twice as great at 60 miles an hour. At the high and increasing speed at which railways are now worked, these “concussions,” due to the irregularities of our lines, thus absorb the principal portion of our locomotive power, and entail a heavy charge in the shape of working expenses. But for these “concussions” our lines might be worked, probably, at 35 per cent. instead of 50 per cent. of their present gross receipts, there being always a considerable proportion of the working charges which, like management, station attendance, &c., are independent of the condition of the line. Although we have no precise data to show the superior working condition of a steel-laid, as compared with an iron-laid line, it is notorious and beyond dispute that the steel lines are worked at less expense, not only so far as renewals of rails are concerned, but in respect also of maintenance of way, locomotive power, and wear and tear of carriage and waggon stock. Steel rails, by their superior hardness, strength, and stiffness, approach much nearer than iron to the mathematical planes to which all rails should conform, in order to diminish the resistance to traction to a minimum. Taking the working expenses of railways at their present average rate, it would be a low estimate indeed to say that, even apart from all consideration of the renewals of rails, the superiority of steel over iron rails does not amount to at least 2d. per train mile, taking into account the saving of locomotive power, wear of carriage and waggon stock, maintenance of way, &c. At this rate a line, having fifty trains each way daily, and having 240 tons of steel per mile of double line, would save, yearly, £304 per mile of way, equal to more than 25s. per ton of the steel in the line. One great objection heretofore made to the introduction of steel has been the extent to which the compound interest upon its increased cost would mount up in a series of years; but even if the saving in working expenses were but half that estimated above, it would fully pay for the whole interest of steel, at £12. 10s. per ton, at which rate steel rails are now often sold. Under the hardest wear, steel rails have outworn twenty-five times their weight of iron, and no estimate now made of their service is ever less than that of a three-fold durability over iron; but if their durability was only as much greater than that of iron as their cost is greater, or even if it were absolutely no greater, it is virtually certain that they would prove cheaper in use than iron, because of the superiority of working condition of a steel-laid as compared with an iron-laid line, and the consequent very considerable saving in working expenses.” Abridged from Engineering, October 11, 1867.

“Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem,”

which produced a most gracious smile from Her Majesty.

Eton College was founded by Henry VI. The Procuratory is dated the 12th September, 1441; but the Charter is dated twenty-nine days later—on the 11th October; and the royal endowment was not completed until 1443. The most pious, but most unfortunate, of English sovereigns took the warmest interest in the success of the school, and whenever he heard of any of the boys visiting his officers and attendants at Windsor Castle, he would send for them, and admonish them to follow the paths of virtue; besides his words, he would give them money to win over their good will, saying to them “Sitis boni pueri; mites et docibiles, et servi Domini.” “Be good boys, be gentle and docile, and servants of the Lord.” The motto of Eton is, “Floreat Etona.”

John Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, founded St. Paul’s School in 1509. The motto is “Doce, Disce, et Discede.”

Westminster School (the motto of which is “In patriam populum que”) was established in its present shape by Henry VIII.; but it existed as a school even in the time of Edward the Confessor. The Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth, who took an interest in the school from the patronage bestowed upon it by her father, are the oldest extant about it. They bear date the 11th of June, 1560.

Rugby School, founded by Laurence Sheriff, grocer and citizen of London, celebrated the tricentenary of its existence on the 26th of June, 1867, with Dean Stanley, of Westminster, as President. Rugby’s motto is, “Nihil sine Laborando.”

The Royal Grammar School of Shrewsbury was founded by the Corporation of the town in 1549; and in two years afterwards obtained from Edward VI. for its endowment, a portion of the estates of the dissolved collegiate churches. Its motto is “Intus si recte, ne labora.”

Edward VI. founded several grammar schools, the first of which was that of Norwich, but his name is more intimately associated with that of Christ’s Hospital, London (popularly known as the Blue Coat School), than with any other. He died on the 6th July, 1553, having just one month previously signed its charter of incorporation. Christ’s Hospital is without a motto.

The foundation of the Merchant Tailors’ School is due to the wisdom and munificence of the ancient “Company of the Marchaunt Tailors,” which, according to Stow, has been a guild or fraternity from time immemorial. The statutes of the School, which has for a motto “Homo plantat, homo irrigat, sed Deus dat incrementum,” were authorised and sanctioned on the 24th September, 1561.

The motto of Harrow is “Stet fortuna domus.”

The site upon which Charterhouse School stands was purchased by Thomas Sutton in 1611 from Thomas Earl of Suffolk, fourth son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk (beheaded in Queen Elizabeth’s reign), for the establishment of a hospital for the support of poor and aged people, and a free school for the maintenance and education of poor children. Letters patent to carry out both these objects were immediately granted by James I.; the motto is “Floreat Æternum Carthusiana Domus.” For full particulars of these schools see “The Great Schools of England,” by Howard Staunton; and for details concerning the early history of Eton College, and of all authors who have written respecting it previous to 1858, Vols. 1 and 2 of the “Annals of Windsor,” by Messrs. R. R. Tighe and J. E. Davis, should be consulted.

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollections Embitter the present, compared with the past;

Whence science first dawned on the powers of reflection, And friendships were formed too romantic to last;

Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance Of comrades in friendship and mischief allied;

How welcome to me your ne’er-fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied!

Again I revisit the hills where we sported, The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought;

The school where, loud warned by the bell, we resorted, To pore o’er the precepts by pedagogues taught.

Again I behold where for hours I have ponder’d, As, reclining at eve, on yon tombstone I lay;

Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander’d, To catch the last gleam of the sun’s setting ray.

I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo overthrown;

While to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone;

Or, as Lear, I poured forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdoms and reason deprived;

Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself as Garrick revived.

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you! Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;

Though sad and deserted, I ne’er can forget you, Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.

To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me, While fate shall the shades of the future unroll!

Since darkness o’ershadows the prospect before me, More dear is the beam of the past to my soul.

But if through the course of the years which await me, Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,

I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me, “Oh, such were the days which my infancy knew.”

Byron used to lay on the tombstone above referred to for hours, when labouring, even as a boy, under those morbid excitements that embittered his comparatively short life. It is still called “Byron’s Tombstone.”

“In dealing with the British Nation, it is an axiom among those who have most deeply studied our noble character, that to keep John Bull in beaming good humour it is absolutely necessary to keep him always quite full. The operation is very delicately called ‘refreshing him;’ and the London and North-Western Railway Company having, as in duty bound, made due arrangements for affording him, once in about every two hours, this support, their arrangements not only constitute a curious feature in the history of railway management, but the dramatis personæ we are about to introduce, form, we think, rather a strange contrast to the bare arms, muscular frames, heated brows, and begrimed faces of the sturdy workmen of railways.

“The Refreshment Establishment at Wolverton is composed of—1. A matron or generalissima. 2. Seven very young ladies to wait upon the passengers. 3. Four men and three boys, ditto ditto. 4. One man-cook, his kitchen-maid, and his two scullery-maids. 5. Two housemaids. 6. One still-room maid, employed solely in the liquid duty of making tea and coffee. 7. Two laundry-maids. 8. One baker, and one baker’s boy. 9. One garden-boy; and lastly, what is most significantly described in the books of the establishment—10. ‘An odd-man.’

“‘Homo sum, humani nihil à me aliemun puto.’

“There are also eighty-five pigs and piglings, of whom hereafter.

“The manner in which the above list of persons, in the routine of their duty, diurnally revolve in the ‘scrap drum’ of their worthy matron, is as follows:—very early in the morning—in cold winter long before sunrise—‘the odd-man’ wakens the two housemaids, to one of whom is intrusted the confidential duty of awakening the seven young ladies exactly at seven o’clock, in order that their ‘première toilette’ may be concluded in time for them to receive the passengers of the first train, which reaches Wolverton at 7·30 a.m. From that time until the departure of the passengers by the York mail train, which arrives opposite the refreshment room at about eleven o’clock at night, these young persons remain on duty, continually vibrating, at the ringing of a bell, across the rails (they have a covered passage high above them, but they never use it), from the north refreshment room for down passengers to the south refreshment room, constructed for hungry up-ones. By about midnight, after having philosophically divested themselves of the various little bustles of the day, they all are enabled once again to lay their heads on their pillows, with the exception of one, who in her turn, assisted by one man and one boy of the establishment, remains on duty receiving the money, &c., till four in the morning for the up mail. The young person, however, who in her weekly turn performs this extra task, instead of rising with the others at seven, is allowed to sleep on till noon, when she is expected to take her place behind the long table with the rest.

“The scene in the refreshment room at Wolverton, on the arrival of every train, has so often been witnessed by our readers, that it need hardly be described. As these youthful handmaidens stand in a row behind bright silver urns, silver coffee pots, silver tea pots, cups, saucers, cakes, sugar, milk, with other delicacies over which they preside, the confused crowd of passengers simultaneously liberated from the train, hurry towards them with a velocity exactly proportionate to their appetites. The hungriest face first enters the door, ‘magnâ comitante catervâ,’ followed by a crowd very much resembling in eagerness and joyous independence the rush at the prorogation of Parliament of a certain body following their leader from one house to the bar of what they mysteriously call ‘another place.’ Considering that the row of young persons have among them all only seven right hands, with but very little fingers at the end of each, it is really astonishing how, with such slender assistance, they can in the short space of a few minutes manage to extend and to withdraw them so often; sometimes to give a cup of tea, sometimes to receive half-a-crown, of which they have to return two shillings, then to give an old gentleman a plate of warm soup, then to drop another lump of sugar into his nephew’s coffee cup, then to receive a penny for a bun, and then again threepence for four ‘lady’s fingers.’ It is their rule, as well as their desire, never, if they can possibly prevent it, to speak to anyone; and although sometimes, when thunder has turned the milk, or the kitchen-maid over-peppered the soup, it may occasionally be necessary to soothe the fastidious complaints of some beardless ensign by an infinitesimal appeal to the generous feelings of his nature, we mean, by the hundred-thousandth part of a smile, yet they endeavour on no account ever to exceed that harmless dose. But while they are thus occupied at the centre of the refreshment table, at its two ends, each close to a warm stove, a very plain matter-of-fact business is going on, which consists of the rapid uncorking of, and the emptying into large tumblers, innumerable black bottles of what is not inappropriately called ‘stout,’ inasmuch as all the persons who are drinking the dark foaming mixture, wear heavy great-coats, with large wrappers round their necks, in fact are very stout. We regret to have to add, that among these thirsty customers are to be seen, quite in the corner, several silently tossing off glasses of brandy, rum, and gin.

“But the bell is violently calling the passengers to ‘Come! come away!’ and as they have all paid their fares, and as the engine is loudly hissing—attracted by their pockets as well as by their engagements, they soon, like the swallows of the summer, congregate together, and then fly away.

“It appears from the books that the annual consumption at the refreshment room averages 182,500 Banbury cakes; 56,940 Queen’s cakes; 29,200 patés; 36,500 lbs. flour; 13,140 lbs. butter; 2,920 lbs. coffee; 43,800 lbs. meat; 5,110 lbs. currants; 1,277 lbs. tea; 5,840 lbs. loaf sugar; 5,110 lbs. moist sugar; 16,425 quarts of milk; 1,095 quarts of cream; 8,088 bottles of lemonade; 10,416 soda water; 45,012 stout; 25,692 ale; 5,208 ginger beer; 547 port; 2,095 sherry; 666 gin; 464 rum; 2,392 brandy. To the eatables are to be added or driven, the eighty-five pigs, who after having been from their birth most kindly treated and most luxuriously fed, are impartially promoted, by seniority, one after another, into an infinite number of pork pies.

“Having, in the refreshment sketch which we have just concluded, partially detailed at some length, the duties of the seven young persons at Wolverton, we feel it due to them, as well as to those of our readers who, we perceive, have not yet quite finished their tea, by a very few words to complete their history. It is never considered quite fair to pry into the private conduct of any one who performs his duty to the public with zeal and assiduity. The warrior and the statesman are not always immaculate; and although at the opera ladies certainly sing very high, and in the ballet kick very high, it is possible that their voices and feet may reach rather higher than their characters. Considering, then, the difficult duties which our seven young attendants have to perform—considering the temptations to which they are constantly exposed, in offering to the public attentions which are ever to simmer and yet never to boil; it might be expected that our inquiries should considerately go no further than the arrival at 11 p.m. of the ‘up York mail.’ The excellent matron, however, who has charge of these young people—who always dine and live at her table—with honest pride declares, that the breath of slander has never ventured to sully the reputation of any of those who have been committed to her charge; and as this testimony is corroborated by persons residing in the neighbourhood and very capable of observation, we cannot take leave of the establishment without expressing our approbation of the good sense and attention with which it is conducted; and while we give credit to the young ladies for the character they have maintained, we hope they will be gratefully sensible of the protection they have received.” Stokers and Pokers, by the author of “Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau.” London: John Murray, Albermarle Street, 1849.

Mr. Joseph Mitchell, the engineer, by whom the line was constructed, read a paper descriptive of it at the Meeting of the British Association at Dundee in August last. This paper is given in full in Engineering of September the 13th.

As soon as the blot had been hit it was discovered by the Post Office. It was therefore determined to postpone the commencement of a new contract for six months. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company was applied to, to continue the service for that period. The Company expressed its willingness to comply with the request, upon receiving an advanced price of ten shillings a mile instead of four shillings, the price now paid for the service. Mr. Hunt, the Secretary of the Treasury, in a debate upon this question and upon the attempt of the Post Office to place the conveyance of our eastern mails in the hands of Compagnie des Messageries Impériales de la France, designated the demand of the Company as “preposterous.” Whether that be so or not, the omission on the part of the officials of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, an omission or blunder which a junior clerk in a large commercial establishment would at once be dismissed for being guilty of, is to cost the country rather more than £60,000, equivalent to what the Post Office pays for over two millions miles of railway conveyance for mail bags.

Punch, in its number for the 2nd of November, 1867, has a vignette of Toby holding the envelope of a letter for Lord John Manners, Chief Commissioner of Works, and says, “I will not, for the moment, adopt the tone of my friend, the Pall Mall Gazette, who bitterly says, a new principle governs the performance of official duties in England. Elsewhere, where certain men are appointed to take part in the Government of a country, they understand that they are to do the duties of their offices forthwith. With us the understanding is quite different: no work is to be begun except under such emphatic demand as in private life would answer to the practice of regularly kicking your footman to the coal-scuttle, when the fire needs replenishing.” Punch then reminds His Lordship, that at the commencement of this year it was resolved that the water of the lake in Regent’s Park should be drawn off, the mud of half a century be cleared away, and the lake be rendered shallow and safe for skaters this winter. Punch having learned that, practically, nothing is done as yet, proceeds, “Here I repeat, my dear Lord John, is November. We shall have frost soon, and when the ice forms, the foolish crowds will be rushing upon it. I say no more. The rate at which Government work is done, singularly contrasts with the rate at which private work is performed. But, of course, John Bull’s servants never hurry themselves.” On the 30th of September we wrote to the Post Office, complaining that a letter posted in a London pillar box by a member of our family was not delivered to its address in London in due course. On the 25th of October, an answer comes, the whole gist of which is, that as the letter was not delivered at the time expected, it could not have been posted at the time stated. It is hardly necessary to say, that this allegation is unfounded. On the 2nd of October, and again on the 8th, we wrote to complain of the continuous irregularity in the transmission of our book packets; in one instance a letter to us and a book-packet having been posted at Lombard Street post office, and by the same fingers at the same time. The letter came in two hours and a-half, the packet in 39 hours and 20 minutes. Exactly on the day of our closing this sheet for the press (the 8th November), the promised answer to our complaints was delivered. Mr. Punch may well say, “John Bull’s servants never hurry themselves.” The Post Office not only never hurries itself, but, like Mr. Sturgey, the stockbroker, and other immaculate persons, considers itself always in the right.

“Proceeding to the Calcutta terminus of the East Indian Railway, a line 1,000 miles in extent, we find a wretched little building with brick flooring and no punkahs, where tickets are so slowly issued as to raise doubts as to how the demands of a Derby-day would be discharged. Scores of coolies dash down upon our boxes, and, after much altercation, succeed in carrying them off. The waiting-rooms resemble lock-ups intended for the worst species of pick-pockets, and are simply uninhabitable. Parcel’s office, book-stalls, refreshment rooms, and other and more necessary conveniences are wanting. As there is no accommodation for any class of traveller, the public sit and stand about the verandahs and covered ways, choking the approaches, thus rendering impossible any attempt at order. The railway staff, represented by baboos and a few lounging slovenly policemen—there are no porters—are swallowed up in the crowd, whilst the two English sergeants content themselves with keeping the carriage-ways clear. All care appears to cease after the traveller has committed himself to the hands of the East India Railway. By-and-by the steam ferry-boat arrives, bells ring, and the living stream pours and crushes down a covered path, which, stopping suddenly, leaves some thirty or forty paces of open platform, upon which the sun and rain beat uninterruptedly, inconveniencing children, delicate women, old age, invalids, and what not. We are not in the least surprised; thirteen years of neglect has accustomed us to this sort of thing. Immediately afterwards, the Howrah side of the Hooghly is reached, and another uncovered platform presents itself; and if the crushing has hitherto been excessive, the natives being hustled and driven together like sheep, what shall be said of the scene at the Howrah station platform—a narrow stone terrace of considerable length, where other crowds of travellers are already collected and arriving, shrieking and gesticulating? A dense mass of natives, from which an Englishman, by pure muscular power, may occasionally be seen to break, flows onwards, and fills the railway carriages to overflowing. Resistance is out of the question. The pressure onward and inward towards the train, by a simple law of gravity, accomplishes the desired end amid cries and protestations, and forces the human units into acquiescence and the railway carriages. Anything is preferable to being left behind, and such is the option offered to four-fifths of the travelling native population of India. Whether the crowd be great or small, we have never known it considered necessary, so remarkable is the elasticity of the carriages, to afford extra accommodation. Nothing is impossible to the policeman’s baton and the brutality of a station-master, not even death itself. Last year no less than seven or eight corpses, if we remember rightly, were taken from the carriages of this line alone—victims to a barbarous system of overpacking. How many subsequently die from exhaustion will never be known. Men and women are often so crushed in third-class carriages as to be compelled to remain standing for the entire length of a journey, sometimes 400 or 500 miles, and at the hottest season of the year. Scenes daily occur at our Indian railway stations which make an Englishman’s blood burn with shame and anger, not that natives should oppress natives, but that his countrymen should be guilty of, and tolerate in others, acts at once unjust, cowardly, and inhuman; for, as the confusion subsides, many railway officials may be discerned, some on duty, others from the adjoining offices, all connected with the line—all supremely indifferent to its proper management—all smoking, spitting, and gossiping.