not paper money; they are much more than,
and superior to, paper money. Paper money
supposes moneyed capital of the precious metals,
and, to have any worth, must be backed by a
bank with bullion in it sufficient to pay them off
whenever required. The bullion may run short,
be spent, or stolen; the bank may fail, and the
paper be good for nothing but to light a cigar
with. Postage-stamps represent not cash to be
paid but a service to be rendered; the only
capital they suppose is the existence of human
limbs and brains and the continuance of civilised
society. So long as European nations endure,
and people have a mutual interest in knowing
what is going on in other places, a postage-
stamp can never fall to the level of a bank-
note issued by  a broken bank. Perhaps even,
one of these days,  we shall have stamps to pre-
pay other services  besides letter-carrying."

"Your imagination is running along, my boy,
faster than I can follow it."

"Not at all, uncle; for the scheme is already
put in practice to a limited extent. Did you
ever hear of a ticket for soup?"

"I think, Harry, I have. But what has that
to do with it?"

"A ticket for soup (about which so many
jokes have been made) is a promise, by charitable
persons, of a gift to be made. The soup
received is the fulfilment of the promise, is it
not? Applying the same principle to business,
there are restaurants in Paris who sell you
packets of tickets for dinners. Instead of paying
for your board by the month (and paying for
nothing whenever you are asked out to dinner),
you keep the tickets in your pocket-book, and,
whenever you want to dine, you present one;
exactly as, when you want to send a letter, you
stick upon it the proper stamp, and put it into
the letter-box. The restaurant's ticket is a
dinner stamp; it prepays the butcher, the cook,
the wine-merchant, the rent of the dining-room,
and the use of the dinner things, all through the
agency of the head of the establishment, who is
always there to supply the meal contracted for
whenever called upon to do so. Subscription to
the opera is something of the same kind. All I
say is that we may carry the stamp system
further, applying it perhaps to medical attendance."

"We will ask the Doctor what he has to
say to it. Meanwhile, I begin to think that
your time and money may not have been spent
on mere unmeaning bits of coloured paper. To
convince me thoroughly, can you stand an
examination in the contents of your own stamp-
book?"

"I believe so, uncle. Please begin wherever
you like."

"How does a native Hanoverian spell the
name of his country?"

"With two ns; H, a, double n."

"What does Sverige mean?"

"Sverige is Sweden."

"What is a Freimarke?"

"A Swedish Freimarke, an Austrian Post-
stempel, a Hanoverian Bestellgeld-frei, a Dutch
Post-zegel, a French Timbre-poste, an Italian
Francobollo, a Hamburg or Lubeck Postmarke,
are all and equally postage stamps."

"What is the shape ol a Cape of Good Hope
stamp?"

"Triangular. The French fellows at our
lycée, when I showed them the beginning of
my collection, were struck most of all with the
number and extent of the British possessions.
I told them they might have the same, if they
only had the perseverance to go and settle in
foreign lands. But they are a too stay-at-home
people for that. Wherever they go, they are
always thinking of their village steeple."

"What are the stamps with a crowned lion
holding a shield, marked nine grazie and six.
grazie?"

"Ah! those are Tuscan, beginning to be
rare and valuable. A collector sets a value on
a postage stamp in inverse proportion to the
stability and prosperity of the state by which it
is issued. Those of the overthrown Italian
Duchies, Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, never
very numerous, are now scarce, and will soon
be priceless. The stamps of transitional governments,
like the last French Republic, are eagerly
sought, for the same reason. I am thinking of
investing a trifle in Roman Pontifical stamps.
When the temporal power has come to an end,
those stamps will command anything in the way
of exchange."

"What are—I can't make them out myself—
those very pretty stamps, with oval medallions,
green, red, and blue, in the midst of drapery of
a different colour?"

"Those are Russian, for thirty, twenty, and
ten copecks each. I cannot read the legend or
inscription, because I have not yet been able to
set myself up with a Russian alphabet, and a
grammar and dictionary to follow."

"Your aunt and myself will manage that
between us. Let us now go and see whether she
has finished her letter."

"You have been a long while up-stairs,"
observed Rebecca, as we entered, returning her
spectacles to their case, and handing me her
Australian epistle to read. "She is quite well
and happy. She has had a little boy, and is
expecting another. She sends her duty and some
Queensland bird-skins by the next mail, hoping
that you and I are the same."

"I am glad of it, though the news is a little
confused. Harry has been showing me his
correspondence. You may give him the envelope,
or he will be content with the stamp alone."

AN ESCAPE FROM SIBERIA.

THERE is now living in Paris a quiet
unassuming literary man, named Rufin Piotrowski,
a professor at the Polish emigrant school at Les
Batignolles, who, sixteen years ago, performed
a feat of hardihood which, for energy, enterprise,
and perseverance, is almost without a parallel.
This worthy gentleman, arrested at Kamauiec,
in Podolia, while on a patriotic mission from
his brother exiles in Paris, and conveyed in