on them in detail. He tells us a story of one
Mr. Grimes who invited him to his plantation
on the Potowmac, made him a present of
some veal, cabbages, and two bushels of
oysters, and then threatened to shoot him
because he did not approve of some Saintfoin
plants he had in his garden. He grumbles
about strangers walking into his parlour and
lighting their pipes, or rambling, uninvited, in
his orchards, pulling his peaches and nectarines,
and denouncing him as an enemy of the
human race, and an infringer of the rights of
man. He tells of waggoners pulling up by
his fields and roasting the ears of his Indian
corn for themselves and their horses; of
strange men borrowing (without asking) his
horses, and returning them at a week's end,
blown, out of condition, and often seriously
injured. He describes the land as irretrievably
barren, and requiring enormous
expenditure to produce even a moderate crop. He
speaks of the cattle as meagre, half-starved
horses, never getting any hay, but fed on
blades and slops, eaten up by a dreadful
disease called the hollow-horn, and stung to
madness by a horrible insect, a compound of
mosquito, locust, and vampire, called the
Hessian fly. The American oysters are bad,
the poultry is execrable, the venison carrion,
the horses under-sized, the government rotten.
The people are vain, boasting, mendacious,
drunken, artful, unprincipled, and unable to
manufacture even a gun-flint. And when
completely disgusted with the farming
business, and the brewery business, upon which
he entered as a subsequent speculation, our
Genuine Britisher sells his stock at a loss and
re-embarks for England with his family; he
takes leave of the Americans by flinging in
their teeth the powerful, though somewhat
worn-out, sarcasm, that their fathers and
grandfathers had been sent out as colonists,
not of their own free-will, as he, Richard
Parkinson, had been, but by the verdict of
twelve honest men, and the warrant of their
king. Oh! fifty years since! Oh!
Grunpeck in mahogany tops!

I dare say Richard Parkinson was as
honest, well-meaning, sincere a man as ever
the sun shone upon. But his strong
Grunpeckian prejudice forbade him to discern those
coming events which fifty years ago were
casting their shadows before, in America.
He saw only coarse food, rough living, clumsy
cultivation, and unpolished manners. It was
not within his prejudiced ken to know that
this ungainly Transatlantic baby, sprawling
in a cradle of half-cleared forests, was a young
giant, destined to grow up above the pines
and the cedars, and the mountains, some day,
and overshadow half the western world with
his stature.

But Mr. Parkinson is gone, and his place
knows him no more. I bear (as I have said)
not the least animosity towards Grunpeck,
yet I think that the sooner Grunpeck follows
Parkinson, the better it will be for both sides
of the Atlantic. Perhaps Grunpeck and
Parkinson may come to be of one mind, after
all, in the Shades— who knows?

THE CHINESE POSTMAN.

How things will be done in the Celestial
Empire when the end is made, of the
Tartar dynasty of Brothers of the Sun, we
cannot tell. Probably we shall not live to
hear of the Pekin and Canton Railway, nor
the Chinese penny-post. But, how things are
now done on the "first form" of civilisation
among the three hundred millions of people,
so far as postal business is concerned, we
proceed to tell.

We must begin with the Government
Post. Its movements are all under the
direction of the Board of War at Pekin.
Sixteen postmasters are appointed by this
Board, and distributed throughout the empire.
From the capital to the different provinces,
at intervals of twenty miles, are military
stations which supply post couriers and horses.
Fifty miles a day appears to be the celestial
notion of post haste. No deviation from the
ordinary route is allowed, although deviation
might, in some instances, save both time
and money. The times of departure from
the capital are not fixed with precision;
but it is generally on every sixth day that
despatches are made up, all expenses of course
being borne by the imperial exchequer.

This branch of government service is
specially appropriated to the conveyance of
the Imperial Gazettes, official notices of
promotion, suspension, furlough, the formal
announcements of the names of candidates
who have succeeded in gaining literary
honours at Pekin, and likewise the conveyance
of special favours and marks of honour
granted by the Emperor to his subjects in
the shape of cash, buttons, or peacocks'
feathers. Such government papers as are
included under the category of "Special
Replies," "All-important Edicts," "Positive
Commands," "Private summonses to the
Court," &c. are entrusted to express messengers
— there are twenty-one of them
connected with the Military Board — travelling
on horseback at the rate of sixty, a hundred
and twenty, or a hundred and eighty miles a
day, according to the necessity of the case.
Horses and mules are always in readiness,
as well as couriers, at the various postal
branches on the Emperor's high way. Sedan
chairs too are at the service of these extra-
ordinary couriers. The Government Post is,
as we said, not open to the public; but, through
the special favour got by help of friends at
Court, plebeians may be so far privileged as
to have one or two private notes transmitted
under a stamped government cover, on the
inflexible condition that the envelope
contains no metal.

The postmen for the people form in China
quite another class. They belong to co-operative