the revolutions of the
heavenly bodies; these would still appear to be the same. But almost
everything to which man had been wont to put his hand would appear to
bear the impress of some other hand; and a hundred avenues of thought
opening to his bewildered sense would consign his inward man to the
education of a second childhood.

So fruitful has been the nineteenth century in discovery and invention,
and so astounding the advancement made, that it is only by stopping in
our madding haste and looking back that we can realise how different the
present is from the past. Yet to our imaginary friend's astonished
perception, nothing, we venture to think, would come with greater force
than the contrast between the means available for keeping up
communications in his day and in our own. We are used to see trains
coursing on the iron way at a speed of fifty or sixty miles an hour;
steamships moving on every sea, defiant of tide and wind, at the rate of
fifteen or twenty miles an hour; and the electric telegraph
outstripping all else, and practically annihilating time and space.

But how different was the state of things at the close of the eighteenth
century! The only means then available for home communications--that is
for letters, etc.--were the Foot Messenger, the Horse Express, and the
Mail Coach; and for communication with places beyond the sea,
sailing-ships.

The condition of things as then existing, and as reflected upon society,
is thus summed up by Mackenzie in his _History of the Nineteenth
Century_: "Men had scarcely the means to go from home beyond such
trivial distance as they were able to accomplish on foot. Human society
was composed of a multitude of little communities, dwelling apart,
mutually ignorant, and therefore cherishing mutual antipathies."

And when persons did venture away from home, in the capacity of
travellers, the entertainment they received in the hostelries, even in
some of the larger towns, seems now rather remarkable. If anything
surprises the traveller of these latter days, in regard to hotel
accommodation, when business or pleasure takes him from the bosom of his
family, it is the sumptuous character of the palaces in all the
principal towns of all civilised countries wherein he may be received,
and where he may make his temporary abode. To persons used to such
comforts, the accommodation of the last century would excite surprise in
quite another direction. Here is a description of t