en advantage of for the transmission of
ordinary business or domestic parcels, but it is made the channel for
the exchange of all manner of out-of-the-way articles. The following are
some instances of the latter class observed at Edinburgh: Scotch oatmeal
going to Paris, Naples, and Berlin; bagpipes for the Lower Congo, and
for native regiments in the Punjaub; Scotch haggis for Ontario, Canada,
and for Caebar, India; smoked haddocks for Rome; the great puzzle "Pigs
in Clover" for Bavaria, and for Wellington, New Zealand, and so on. At
home, too, curious arrangements come under notice. A family, for
example, in London find it to their advantage to have a roast of beef
sent to them by parcel post twice a week from a town in Fife. And a
gentleman of property, having his permanent residence in Devonshire,
finds it convenient, when enjoying the shooting season in the far
north-west of Scotland, to have his vegetables forwarded by parcel post
from his home garden in Devonshire to his shooting lodge in Scotland.
The postage on these latter consignments sometimes amounts to about
fifteen shillings a day, a couple of post-office parcel hampers being
required for their conveyance.

And we should not omit to mention here the number of persons employed in
the Post by whom this vast amount of most diverse business is carried on
for the nation. Of head and sub-postmasters and letter receivers, each
of whom has a post-office under his care, there are 17,770. The other
established offices of the Post Office number over 40,500, and there
are, besides, persons employed in unestablished positions to the number
of over 50,000. Thus there is a great army of no less than 108,000
persons serving the public in the various domains of the postal service.

A century ago, and indeed down to a period only fifty years ago, the
world, looked at from the present vantage-ground, must appear to have
been in a dull, lethargic state, with hardly any pulse and a low
circulation. As for nerve system it had none. The changes which the Post
Office has wrought in the world, but more particularly in our own
country, are only to be fully perceived and appreciated by the
thoughtful. Now the heart of the nation throbs strongly at the centre,
while the current of activity flows quickly and freely to the remotest
corners of the state. The telegraph provides a nervous system unknown
before. By its means every portion of the country is placed in immediate
contact wit