companies are subsidised by the state to the amount of twenty-four millions of francs per annum.

The last-mentioned company has not been in existence for more than four years. It began with monthly packets from Saint Nazaire to Vera Cruz and Aspinwall, like the packets from Havre to New York, but the service in both is now fortnightly. With only four or five steamers in 1863, the company now reckons twenty, among which Le Napoléon III., of 1200 horse-power, L'Impératrice Eugénie, of 1000 horse-power, and the Washington, of 900. It is to be feared that the service to Vera Cruz will receive a check with the departure of the French troops from Mexico. The Cochin-Chinese packets leave Marseilles on the 19th of each month, at two in the evening. After touching at Messina, they are due at Alexandria on the 26th. The packets on the Red Sea average a power of 500 horses; they are 100 French yards in length by 12 in breadth, and can accommodate 138 passengers in 51 first-class cabins, and 46 in second-class berths. Part of the equipage is made up of Malays and negroes. The service on board these packets is said to be admirable. We find 1500 plates and 5000 napkins, as also a piano, among the objects enumerated. These packets touch at Aden, then at Point de Galles, then at Singapore, whence they steam on to Saigon, "a young colony, already prosperous and powerful. A freer air is breathed there, the foot treads on a generous soil, you hear a sharp clear language, your eyes are riveted by lively colours, and you salute the flag of France!" As Saïgon, however, albeit so prosperous, does not pay, the packets extend their journey to Hong-Kong before returning to Suez. The postal agent on board these packets is, we are told, "the missionary of European industry and commerce to benighted lands." "The institution of packet service," we are further told, "does not date more than thirty years back (in France), and already our fleet equals in number those of our predecessors, and there is not a country visited by our allies where the flag of France does not also show itself." This, although hardly correct, is a praiseworthy rivalry far more advantageous to France than the old-fashioned struggles for military glory and other bubble "ideas,” and it is one which, while it benefits the home country, also carries the blessings of commerce and civilisation to the remotest parts of the earth. It is to be hoped that the progress made by France in modern times in thus so greatly extending its commercial relations will detach the people more and more from their misplaced affection for military supremacy; there is, no doubt, already a great change operating in the feelings of the thinking portion of the community in this respect, and there can be no question but that the present ruler is as anxious to curb the bellicose ardour of his subjects as he is to turn their zeal in a new channel, and to enhance the material prosperity of the country. "The time has gone by," said M. Vaudal, in his address at the inauguration of the line from Havre to New York, "when nations, in obedience to a spirit of narrow egotism, laboured at confining their relations to their own country, and blindly repelled everything that came from without. These barbarous prejudices have disappeared, frontiers are being wiped out, and the age which has seen two railways, one of which crosses the Pyrenees, while the other pierces Mount Cenis, is called upon to favour many other manifestations in the order of general interests."

The postal conventions of France with other countries go back to

1630, at which epoch a kind of congress was held at the hôtel of the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. But so slow was progress in these matters, that not thirty years ago these conventions existed only in respect to eight of the adjacent countries. It is, we are told, "to the glory of the empire" that within 1860 and 1866 eighteen diplomatic conventions have been brought about with foreign governments on the subject of postal communication. The progress of liberal ideas is unquestionably manifested in such developments. They are also advantageous to all parties concerned, in a financial as well as in a progressive point of view. The revenue derived from foreign correspondence in France, for example, which did not amount to fourteen millions of francs in 1860, attained to fifteen millions in 1865. The countries with which the greatest amount of interchange takes place are England, Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy. The correspondence between France and the United States is the only one which has fallen off, attributable mainly to the long civil war by which that country has been afflicted. In some countries, where the local government does nothing itself, post-offices are, it is well known, founded by foreign states. France has offices of this description in the Levant, at Alexandria, at Smyrna, at Constantinople, at Vera Cruz, and at Shanghai. The origin of these international offices is attributed to Rome, where in olden times different countries had their especial postal offices.

The system of franking letters still obtains in France to a very great and, we should imagine, a very prejudicial extent. Now that postages are so much reduced, it would be much wiser to do away with a system so liable to abuse altogether. But in France all correspondence which is entitled "de service" goes free. All the functionaries of the empire correspond with their superiors and with their subordinates by franks, and so numerous are they that there exists a "Manuel des Franchises,' an enormous volume, which contains the names of some 120,000 functionaries who enjoy postal immunities. Nor is this all; the postmastergeneral is besieged with demands for immunity. Learned societies, charitable institutions, agricultural societies, all claim the same privileges, and this fallacious movement goes on increasing every day, not only in the number of letters, but in the size of the packets, circulars, plans, drawings, pamphlets, and books. It was ascertained that in 1862 the post-office delivered 46,590,936 franked letters and 25,461,991 franked parcels-altogether, over 72 millions. In 1865 the franks exceeded 100 millions, equal in money to 56 millions of francs. attempt was once made to do away with the abuse altogether, as in England, but the project met with so decided an opposition on the part of those in authority, that it had to be abandoned. In Prussia-the land of despotism-where the system of franks also obtains, every functionary availing himself of his privilege has to appear personally at the post-office, and make a declaration, when posting his letter, that it contains nothing but matters having reference to the public service. Imagine some thousands of persons rushing, at the busiest moment of St. Martin'sle-Grand, to make their declarations of immunity to save a penny or twopence!

An

The missing-letter office in France is called the "Bureau des Rebuts," and amusing stories are told of letters and even moneys recovered there, after being missing for years. One, for example, of a soldier serving in

Algeria, who, hearing that his mother and brother were in distress at his native village, obtained fifteen hundred francs by re-enlisting for seven years in order to help them. But they never received the money; a soldier friend had put on it an illegible address, and it was not till the seven years' additional service imposed to obtain the money had expired that it was recovered. What between errors, thoughtlessness, carelessness, and ignorance, change of residences, deaths, refusals, and other causes, the number of letters sent to the "bureau des rebuts" amounted, in 1849, to 4,351,000; but this number diminished in 1862 to 2,175,206. Of this latter number, 100,176 had imperfect addresses, 638,257 were addressed to persons not discoverable, 1086 had been posted hurriedly without any superscription, and 1,435,687 had been refused! It has been proposed, to remedy this state of things, that pupil teachers should be obliged to teach children to write the address of letters clearly and distinctly. We are all creatures of habit, and what is enforced upon us in early life is seldom forgotten afterwards. The "rebuts," as the French call them, are at times provokingly amusing. Thus a letter was posted at Paris: "A M. Bernard, Sultan Crète-Mediterranée." Decidedly the revolution in Crete had ended in raising M. Bernard to the throne. But the letter was delivered "à M. Bernard, sur le Tancrède, en station sur la Mediterranée." Another addressed a letter to "M. M., living in the house near which there is a heap of snow." The "bureau des rebuts" is designated, in the picturesque language of the Parisians, as the "catacombs of the post" and the "grave of secrets." We should fancy it was the reverse-the place where secrets are most liable to be exposed, if not properly addressed. It is not an uncommon thing for persons to send a letter to a postmaster, enclosing another, which, for reasons, it is desirable to post in some distant town. The postmaster is under orders to send such enclosed letter to the "bureau des rebuts," and thus the deceit is exploded. Commercial travellers have, for example, thus endeavoured to forward their letters from the town where they ought to have been; but sending them to the missing office has betrayed them to their masters. A special agent is employed at the "bureau des rebuts" in charge of letters and packages, and this is neither more nor less than a cat. Rats and mice sometimes contribute seriously to the already too numerous difficulties presented in deciphering illegible superscriptions.

The French and the Chinese, as is well known, anticipated long ago all supposed modern discoveries and applications. It appears that the postage-stamp, or "timbre poste" as they call it, was used in 1653, under the name of "billets de port payé." The most curious thing in connexion with the instructions given with these little "billets" was one to the effect that "lequel billet sera attaché à la dite lettre, ou mis autour de la lettre, ou passé dans la lettre❞—that is to say, enclosed in the letter itself! And, further, not only were the letters of those using the "billets" to be diligently carried to their destination, but "ils en auront promptement reponse"-an immediate answer was also promised! It appears that when the adoption of the modern postage-stamp was resolved upon in France, "un ingénieur Anglais, Sir Perkins," was applied to, but he wanted a franc for every sheet of 240 stamps. Under these circumstances the concession was given to M. Hulot, of the French Mint. The gumming on of the French stamps has, we are informed, nothing so

unwholesome or so repulsive in it as that of the English stamps. The number sold in 1850, 21,523,175, increased in 1864 to 382,655,450; and ever since the annual augmentation has been equal to a sum of from three to four millions of francs. About four hundred millions of stamps are issued annually, at the rate of 90 centimes, or 9d. the thousand. Prepayment is not essential in France, as in England; and yet the number of dead letters averages many millions, which are hence so much loss (when not stamped) to the post-office. Nor are stamps available as currency in France, as they are to a certain extent in England, and generally in the United States, where there are stamps of the value of five dollars.

The general adoption of postage-stamps, and of which there are said to be now some two thousand varieties, gave rise to what the French call "timbromanie"-a very unobjectionable mania, for it leads young people to the study of geography and even of modern history. Many amusing tricks have been played in order to procure foreign stamps. One of the most objectionable has been to advertise a lucrative business, to be applied for by franked letters. Many come, but none get an answer. The French, it is to be observed, who adopted postage-stamps nine years after they had been in use in this country, have not yet adopted stamped envelopes-an elegant contrivance, which it appears has long been in vogue in China. The Chinese have long had three orders of envelopes. The first green with red characters, which announce that such envelopes will carry the contents beyond the seas and the loftiest mountains. The second white with rose-coloured characters, which announce that it only goes to the borders of the sea. The third rose-coloured with red characters. This is the official envelope, and on it is inscribed, "May Heaven grant nobility and riches to all generations."

What is called the rural service is more perfect in France and in Belgium than in England, where, in country places, the letters have mostly to be sent for at the nearest office. In France, 16,406 postmen in blouses, with letter-bags on their backs and sticks in their hands, start daily from the 4200 post-offices to carry letters to the most isolated cottages and the most distant hamlets, and that in all weathers and seasons. Nothing surprised the inhabitants of the provinces of Savoy and of the Maritime Alps, as, when annexed to France, their letters were brought to their doors. Corsica alone contains three hundred villages, where the postman only makes his appearance every other day. It has been questioned, with some show of reason, whether the fatigue, wear and tear, and expenses of such a system are compensated for by the delivery of letters in remote mountain fastnesses, difficult of access, and at certain seasons almost impracticable, and where commercial interests are almost nil. But the French are a sentimental nation, and they say that the mother who lives up in the mountains may have a son "sous les drapeaux," and her feelings are as much to be considered as those of the mother who lives in a town. Speaking of sons "sous les drapeaux"-and France numbers them by hundreds of thousands a system of postal service, which was perfected at the time of the Crimean war, is now in vogue, which is deserving of all praise. The post-office in a French camp occupies a central place, the place of honour, close by the staff; it is protected by its own especial gendarmerie, and it follows the regiment wherever it goes.

FULL HEART, FEW WORDS.

A CUE FROM "PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE."

BY FRANCIS JACOX.

PARTING with his beautiful Elena, the hero of Mr. Henry Taylor's finest play-call it either poetical drama or dramatic poem-gets nothing from her, in response to his flow of impassioned leave-taking, but, few and far between, the words, "Farewell, my lord." And is it thus they part? But why complain of her stinted speech? It betokens depth of emotion; and surely he would rather have that, than a shallow facility of copious verbiage. So,

-Enough, enough;

Full heart, few words,*

is the reflection that consoles him; and pauca verba constitute your highest order of eloquence unless mere artificial rhetoric be the order of the day.

When Eurylochus, in the Odyssey, returns from the mission on which Ulysses had despatched him and his "sad companions,"" with pensive steps and slow, aghast returns, the messenger of woe, and bitter fate," we read that

-To speak he made essay,
In vain essay'd, nor would his tongue obey.
His swelling heart denied the words their way:
But speaking tears the want of words supply,
And the full soul bursts copious from his eye.t

So, when Ulysses stands once more within his own halls, but disguised and despised, and discovers himself to two attached adherents,

Tears followed tears; no word was in their power;

In solemn silence fell the kindly shower.

The king too weeps, the king too grasps their hands,
And moveless, as a marble fountain, stands.‡

When sentence of banishment has gone forth against Shakspeare's Bolingbroke, and old John of Gaunt-the time come for parting-asks upbraidingly to what purpose does he hoard his words, that he returns no greeting to his friends,-the exile's answer is:

I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue's office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.§

But out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, not in ornate periods, rather in broken monosyllables, when deeply moved. Cousin Aumerle the king's cousin, and Bolingbroke's, and true to neitherrecognises the doctrine of full heart, few words, when he pretends to be too deeply moved for utterance at parting with the Duke:

* Philip van Artevelde, Act V. Sc. 5. Book xxi.

† Odyssey (Pope's), book x. § King Richard II., Act I. Sc. 3.