*

Office functionaries to be well founded in that department. It is certain to cause an increase in the consumption of, and consequently in the revenue derived from, paper. Mr Charles Knight says that the increased sale obtained by additional publicity in his business alone, which pays 40007. a year of duty on paper, would give the revenue a quarter more, or 10007.

It has been surmised that another part of Mr Hill's plan, the compulsory payment in advance, would be such a check to correspondence as would much impede the realization of the whole anticipated increase. No doubt, if the present immense rates of postage continued to be exacted, the necessity of payment in advance would be a very serious check to correspondence: not so, however, if the payment required were so small a sum as ld. There is ample experience on the point. Payment in advance is not found to check the correspondence of soldiers and sailors. Those two classes are already in the enjoyment of both parts of Mr Hill's Post Office system; a uniform and low penny postage, contingent upon payment in advance. And what is

the result?

I conceive, says Capt. J. Bentham,+ that the soldiers on an average (how unlike other persons of their rank in life) "send seven letters and a half yearly each." He observes that soldiers appear to appreciate this privilege most highly, and believes that many of them learn to write (expressly for the purpose of writing their own letters) after they have joined their regiments, and zealously attend the regimental schools. The habit of correspondence, he says, makes them much more valuable members of the regiment-it conduces to their respectability—and though they have very few conveniences, and the barrack is not well adapted for writing in, they anxiously avail themselves of the opportunity. He thinks, if their correspondence were subjected to the present rates of postage, not one letter in thirty would be written, certainly not one in twenty.

Uniform payment of postage in advance is the established plan in the presidencies of Bengal and Madras; and although the rate of postage is only one-third less than ours, the advance is not complained of by the residents, nor thought materially restrictive of correspondence.

One of the chief reasons for payment in advance is, that it would expedite the delivery of letters. Every letter now takes, on an average, five minutes in delivery; but as slits in doors + Ev. 4787. + Ev. 4790.

* Ev. 3238.

would be likely to become general when the postman had no motive to wait, the knock would be given, the letter left, and he would pass on. When what was called the "early delivery' existed, 570 letters on which the postage was not collected at the time of delivery, were delivered in half an hour; whilst 67 on which the postage was collected, occupied an hour and a half. So that the one delivery was 25 times more expeditious than the other.*

As to the mode of payment in advance, Mr Hill suggests the issue of stamped sheets of paper, or stamped envelopes, or small pieces of paper which may be fastened by a solution of glue to any sheet of paper whatever: and these to be sold by all stationers and post offices. An ingenious mode of preventing the forgery of these stamps has been invented by Mr Dickenson, the papermanufacturer-specimens of which were circulated with the last edition of Mr Hill's pamphlet. It consists of inserting in the wool of the paper itself parallel fibres of silk, which are discernible whenever the paper is torn: and the expense of preparing it takes it out of the reach of a forger's capital, even should the penny, which is not likely, hold out a sufficient inducement to him. This mode of payment would obviously effect a large reduction in the expenses of the Post Office. "There would be no letters to be taxed; no examination of those taxed by others; no accounts to be made out against the deputy postmasters for letters transmitted to them, nor against the letter-carriers."

We conclude with one word to Mr Spring Rice and the Ministry on their conduct in this matter. This is not a party question, it is not even a political one unless they make it so; and while we can easily imagine the difficulties which stand in their way when a reform proposed in a department of fiscal administration, is opposed by the man they have themselves put at the head of it, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that if they continue ill-affected, or indifferent, or inactive, on Post Office Reform, they will afford the Conservatives an opportunity of acquiring a popularity pervading all ranks, and intensest among the poorest, and they will give Mr Croker one grain of truth to be put into his next catalogue of good deeds done by the Tories and left undone by the Whigs. We beg them to remember that no reduction short of what Mr Hill proposes can effect the desired end; a twopenny postage will not try the principle of his plan, because it will not defeat the smuggler, and a union of payment in advance with any rate of

* Eighteenth Report of Com. of Rev. Inquiry, p. 621, 622.

postage higher than a penny would probably not call forth the increase of correspondence necessary to compensate the revenue. Any such half measure, if it failed, would be considered as the failure of Mr Hill's plan, and the imperfect experiment would disgust and outrage the views of the whole of the men most active and energetic in pursuing this reform, because they would consider it, though professedly a trial, really a betrayal of the principle they support. Even if Ministers regard merely the revenue itself (and no supposition could on a question like this be more degrading to them, nor further from the real feelings of some of their number), they will look at the revenue after a very narrow and contracted fashion indeed, they will consider a small part, and not the whole, if they do not see that the reductions in the expenses of the Post Office, the increase of correspondence, the additional consumption of paper, and the stimulus imparted to trade of all kinds, will amply enable them to meet the dreaded defalcation. But this is not a matter to be argued solely on such grounds,-Ministers profess themselves, and have represented the Queen, as having much at heart the education of the people,-a uniform penny postage will give motives, strong as the best affections of the human breast, to the poor for the acquisition of elementary instruction: it will waft to the ears of tempted youth the persuasive whispers of parental love and goodness; it will circulate thought, knowledge, friendship, virtue, and by bringing thinkers and friends nearer to each other, promote very greatly the formation of a noble and beautiful civilization among all the people.

M. C.

Printed by C. REYNELL, Little Pulteney street.

THE

LONDON AND WESTMINSTER

REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. A new Translation of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. By Edward William Lane. Illustrated with many hundred Wood-cuts. Parts I, II, and III. Royal 8vo. London, 1838.

2. Paul et Virginie et La Chaumiere Indienne. Par Bernardin de St Pierre. Ouvrage orné de magnifiques Vignettes. Royal 8vo. London and Paris, 1838.

3. Greece; Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical. Royal 8vo. (unpublished.)

4. Euvres Completes de Molière, avec 600 gravures sur bois par Tony Johannot. 2 vols. royal 8vo. Paris, 1838. 5. Scripture Illustrations on Steel and Wood. 4to. VIII. London, 1838.

Parts I to

Par Le Sage. Vig-
Paris, 1836.

6. Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane. nettes par Jean Gigoux. Royal 8vo. 7. Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. Illustrated with Wood-cuts. 8vo. London, 1836.

8. Solace of Song. 8vo. London, 1836.

9. Pictorial Book of Common Prayer. Illustrated with many hundred Wood-cuts. Royal 8vo. Parts I to X. London,

1838.

THOUGH the word engraving' is applied alike to impres

sions from plates of copper and blocks of wood, the means by which the impressions are obtained in the two arts of copper and wood engraving, are directly opposite to each other. The engraver on copper hollows out of the plate the lines of the impression he wishes to produce, while the engraver in wood leaves them standing on the block. The engraver in copper leaves the surface of the plate higher than the lines; the engraver on wood cuts it down below the lines. The black lines in a copperplate engraving are produced by incisions or grooves; the black

VOL. XXXI. No. II.

T

lines in a wood-cut are produced by prominences. The wood engraver cuts away the part in the block which is to remain white or colourless; but the part in the copper-plate which is to be white in the engraving is left untouched by the engraver on copper. If an impression of a plain block of wood were taken as blocks are printed, it would present one uniform surface of black, but if an impression were taken from a plate of copper as copper-plates are printed, it would be colourless, or no impression at all. The wood engraver starts from black, the copper-plate engraver from white, the one toils to get white, the other to get black. If the reader refers to any of our illustrations in which black is conspicuous (the "Don Pedre" is a special instance of this) he will see effects of black or the deepest shadow produced by absolutely no labour whatever. The production of shadows exactly equal in colour, and similar in character, is impossible in copper, and when he sees anything approaching them in a copper-plate, they are the result, he may be assured, of great labour.

The manner of using the ink in the two arts is also opposite; it is put into the hollow lines of the copper-plate, but on the upstanding lines of the wooden block. The block is like the type which prints the words the reader is now reading, because it produces its black lines in the same way in which the forms of the letters are made, by ink put upon projecting lines. The copper or steelplate is placed above a charcoal fire, and warmed before the ink is rubbed into the hollowed lines by a woollen ball. When enough of ink is thus put into the lines, the surface of the plate is wiped with a rag, and cleaned and polished with the palm of the hand lightly touched with whiting. The paper is then laid on the plate, and the engraving is obtained by pressing the paper into the inked lines. The wooden block is generally inked like type, by beating with a ball or a roller. Another difference between engraving on wood and on copper is that in the latter the lines are not merely cut, they are also corroded into the copper by aquafortis.*

* The Chinese, in the production of all their books, use wood engraving. The method they pursue, says Du Halde, is as follows:-The work intended to be printed is transcribed by a careful writer upon thin, transparent paper. The engraver glues each of the written sheets, with its face downwards, upon a smooth tablet of pear or apple-tree, or some other hard wood; and then, with gravers and other instruments, he cuts the wood away in all those parts upon which he finds nothing traced; thus leaving the transcribed characters ready for printing. In this manner he prepares as many blocks as there are written pages. He then prints the number of copies immediately wanted; for he can always print more, if they are required, without the labour of re-composition necessary in typography: nor is any time lost in correcting the proof sheets, for, as he is guided in his engraving by the strokes of the written copy, or perhaps the original of the author