as the motes in sunshine. A Spaniard must
have his proverbs just as a Dutchman his
Hollands.

              THE PARCELS–POST.

THROUGH the machinery of the ten thousand
five hundred post–offices of the United
Kingdom, and at a cost little more than
nominal, the inhabitants of our towns and
rural districts have constant opportunities of
mutual intercourse in matters of friendship
and of business. Intimate and beneficial
relationships are thus maintained between
individuals and communities geographically
far separated from each other. By
progressive improvements in this machinery all
classes are constantly becoming more and
more cemented together by a consciousness
of common interests, and by a greater diffusion
of commercial advantages, educational
enlightenment, and social amenities of the
highest order. The boon is equally open to
all—to the peer and the poor man, the city
denizen and the remote rustic. For one
penny, a letter, newspaper, or small book
passes quickly and safely from the hand of
the sender to the receiver, though before it
reach its destination it may have to travel
hundreds of miles, and by various conveyances.
For one penny, or still more frequently
for several pence, the post is constantly
maintaining an extensive interchange of
miscellaneous commodities, as well as of
correspondence, literature, and news. A
desired ribbon, a pair of slippers, a trinket,
or any small object of apparel, curiosity, or
luxury may be sent by post to the remotest
farm–house as to the town mansion of the
affluent. There is no reason why facilities
for this description of postal intercourse
should not be immensely extended.

It was recently stated by Captain Huish,
(till lately the manager of the London
and North–Western Railway), in evidence
before a committee of the House of Commons,
that upon the occasion of his holding a bazaar
in his grounds near London, for a popular
Irish object, he received by post nearly two
thousand pounds' worth of worked slippers,
and other articles such as ladies are in the
habit of sending to fancy fairs for charitable
purposes. "A very large amount of the work,"
he said, "which came from Ireland through the
post was composed of that beautiful work for
which the Irish schools are so celebrated.
By means of the bazaar, it was brought to
the acquaintance of a number of ladies in
London, and the result has been that since
that time, Mrs. Huish has established a
complete system of trade with these schools,
and every day she gets over by post lace and
all sorts of things."

No system of railways, village–carriers,
stage–coaches, and delivery–carts could enable
a beneficent traffic of this description to be
carried on with remote hamlets; and yet the
Post–Office, by means of its ordinary
machinery, accomplishes it with ease and profit to
all parties. Such facts have convinced many
intelligent persons that the present arbitrary
limitation of the parcels traffic of the Post–
Office is unnecessary and impolitic. They
urge that a small parcels post ought to be
forthwith organised for the transmission (at
very moderate rates) of every description of
commodity, not specially objectionable from
its bulk or dangerous properties.

The book–post has proved an immense boon
to publishers, authors, and particularly to
readers. The small–parcels post, in the
extended form explained and advocated by
Mr. Graham and others, would be eminently
beneficial to numerous classes of buyers and
sellers, and would prove an estimable social
luxury to distant friends desirous of sending
presents to each other on birthday, wedding,
or other occasions. Such an extension of the
Post–Office service would afford vast and
undeniable advantages. Some difficulties are
said to be in the way of the proposal being
realised. They are not in themselves very
formidable; but as considerable stress has
been laid upon them in some quarters, they
require to be candidly examined.

The opponents of the proposed small–parcels
post system maintain, that the enormous
increase of business which it would throw
upon the Post–Office would so clog its
machinery, as to disturb the accuracy and
celerity of its action: and they also allege
that it would be unjust to railway companies,
coach proprietors, steam–boat owners, country
carriers, and errand–boys, to establish, as a
government institution, a carrying service,
with which private parties could not compete,
and by which, therefore, they would be
deprived of much of their trade. Neither of
these objections have in reality any force.
The successful launch of the new system
would doubtless require high administrative
sagacity, combined with a determination to
go on to a successful issue in spite of any
temporary risks of shipwreck which might
arise. There is nothing discouraging in this
admission. Mistakes are sometimes
committed in the Post–Office, as in other public
departments. Still, we must allow that for a
long time past neither rash chance nor routine
have had much sway over its administration.
It has, on the contrary, long been the rule in
that department to use every effort to
discover the best means of How to do it; and
this, too, at a time when other state departments
have been not unfairly charged with
wasting their time and energies in mastering
the opposite art. When we recall to mind
the complete success with which the old
system has been revolutionised by the
introduction of postage–stamps, money–orders, the
division of London into districts, and the
book–post, we cannot doubt that the
proposal for a parcels–post only requires to be
sanctioned to secure its triumph over every