ible, misspelt, misdirected, or insufficient- | sand of these clerks are employed in the ly addressed letters. Here experienced chief office in London. The number of clerks guess at what Mr. Lewins calls "in-persons employed in the post-office of soluble riddles." Large numbers of let- France amounts to twenty-six thousand ters are posted daily in the superscriptions and seventy-one, but then it should be rewhich the sorters can not decipher, and membered that the extent and population which the great majority of people would of France are greater than the extent and not be able to read. Numberless are the population of Great Britain. letters bearing such addresses as "John Smith, gardener, Flowerdale," or the still more "stone blind" (to use the office term) superscriptions:

"Uncle John

Hopposite the Church
London. Hingland."

Here are other specimens:

"John Thomas

Coneyach lunentick
a-siliam."

"Ash Bedles in such

for John Horsel, Grinder

in the County of Lestysheer."

The dead-letter office is not less curious than the blind-letter office. A century ago two clerks were employed in this office; it now occupies nearly fifty. Last year considerably over two millions of letters were returned to their writers through this office from failures in the attempts to deliver them.

There is no postal service in the world so well managed as that of Great Britain. It is now not merely a self-supporting but a productive institution, whereas there was a deficiency of half a million in the post-office of America before the rupture between North and South. Though America for ninety years has been, next to England, the most commercial country in the world, yet, compared with the population, five times as many letters pass through the English post as through the American. London and its suburbs alone, with its less than three millions of inhabitants, sends forth a greater number of letters than the whole of America.

The next best-managed post-office to our own is that of France; but in France, by the law of 1856, there are five different tariffs of postages. Judged by the revenue produced, the English post-office, notwithstanding its low rate of charges, stands first.

The Austrian post-office produces a revenue of 3,714,200 florins, or £378,000; the Belgian, 2,960,000 francs; the French, 66,452,000 francs; and the English, £3,800,000-being more than a quarter of a million beyond the proceeds of 1862.

Mr. Lewins's account of the railway post-offices, in which letters are sorted on the road, is most interesting, but far too long to extract. We must refer the reader to the volume itself. We may, A comparison of the year of 1839-the however, remark, that while the train is year immediately preceding the penny making progress at its usual speed, ex-postage-with the year 1861, gives these changes of letters are effected by means of machinery. A net is spread to catch each pouch from the extended arm of the post-office carriage, and pouches are hung from iron standards in the ground of sufficient height for the net in the train.

results: An increase nearly eight-fold in the chargeable letters; a three-fold increase in the receptacles for letters; a forty-fold increase in the number of moneyorders; a fifty-fold increase in the amount of money-orders; and an increase of the Into the history of postage-stamps, and gross revenue in round numbers from £2,those useful institutions, post-office savings 390,000 to £3,402,000. The amount of banks, we have not space to enter. Suf- the correspondence of a country will fice it to say, that postage-stamps are now measure, with some approach toward acused in every European country-even in curacy, as Mr. Matthew Hill says, the Turkey, whether in Europe or in Asia. height which a people has reached in true The number of individuals employed in civilization. The town of Manchester the English post-office is very considerable. equals in its number of letters the empire On the 31st of December, 1857, it gave of all the Russias both in Europe and employment to twenty-three thousand Asia; and this fact we owe, as many of seven hundred and thirty-one persons, the marvels we have stated, to Sir Rowwhile the number has been since consid-land Hill. The poor and the lowly, the erably increased. More than two thou- domestic servant and the humble artisan,

can now correspond with each other from one end of the kingdom to the other at the trifling expense of 1d., and for this civilizing, Christianizing, and eminently social good we are indebted to a late postoffice secretary, whose merits have been recognized, but who can not be over-paid in money or money's worth. As Lord Palmerston said on the tenth of June, Sir R. Hill showed, in relation to the post-office, great genius, sagacity, preseverance, and industry, and he was the first to prove

that the department was a public institution for the performance of services, rather than for the collection of revenue. If, as the first minister of the crown stated, and as we believe, the cultivation of the affections raises men in their own estimation, improves their morals, and develops their social qualities, Sir R. Hill has been amongst the greatest benefactors of the human race, and he well deserves the vote that was agreed to on the tenth of June without a dissentient voice.

From the Saturday Review.

HISTORY OF
OF THE CONFERENCE ON DANISH AFFAIRS.

THE English public is already familiar | northern part remaining with Denmark. with the main facts in the history of the This proposal was coupled with certain Conference. As the German powers were conditions, the most important of which seeking to set aside the treaty of 1852, was that the Germans should not build they were invited, in the first instance, to fortresses on the part ceded to them; but state what they proposed as their aim in on the German plenipotentiaries remarkthe war, and as the best solution of existing that any such condition was wholly ing difficulties. They replied that what inadmissible, all mention of it ceased imthey wanted was the complete independ- mediately. The German plenipotentiaence of the duchies, and their close con- ries accepted the principle of Lord Rusnection by means of common institutions; sell's plan, and the Danish plenipotentiaand that the diet should decide who should ries, after communicating with their court, be duke of the United Duchies, the King accepted the plan with a slight alteration. of Denmark only to succeed if the diet But by this plan the mixed districts of found that his pretensions were preferable Schleswig were assigned to Denmark, and to those of all other claimants. Baron to this the German powers would not asBeust, however, on the part of the Ger- sent. They were willing to let Denmark man confederation, would not go even so have the purely Danish district in the far as this, and said that the diet would north of the duchy, but they were deternot agree that, in any case, there should mined that, where Germans were mixed be a union between the duchies and Den- up with Danes, the government should mark. The Danish plenipotentiaries neg. be German. Consequently no line of deatived the proposal at once, and then the markation could be agreed on-the Danes German powers brought forward their wanting the mixed districts for Denmark, second project, which was the same as the and the Germans wanting them for Gerfirst except that the sovereignty of the many. Finally, as no other way of setduchies was expressly assigned to the tling the matter suggested itself, Lord Duke of Augustenburg. This was equally Russell proposed that the line of demarkunacceptable to Denmark, and then the ation should be drawn by an arbitrator Germans had nothing more to propose. chosen from among the powers not repreLord Russell on this came forward, and, sented at the conference. But this suited as the spokesman of the neutral powers, neither party, for it involved the conseproposed that Schleswig should be cut in quence that some Danes should be put two, and the southern part given, with under Germany, and some Germans unHolstein and Lauenberg, to Germany, the der Denmark; and no other basis was

suggested on which the arbitrator could | tion added, which we should have thought [September, proceed than that of taking the opinion of every little village, which would make any frontier impossible that would be acceptable to both belligerents. This ended the conference, and the war has been resumed because neither belligerent will allow his compatriots to be under the rule of the other. There were also many subsidiary points which it took a long time to discuss, but which did not affect the main result. There was the question whether the treaty of London was at an end or not, and whether it involved its signataries in any engagement toward each other, or only toward Denmark. The argument appeared to be on the side of those who contended that the treaty still existed, and bound all who signed it; but the facts were against the arguments, for the German powers gave it to be understood that, if it existed, they should disregard it. There was also a question as to the conduct of the allies in Jutland since the suspension of hostilities, and the Danish plenipotentiaries told many moving tales of hardships which good Danes had undergone; but as these, however true, were, so far as the conference went, mere unsupported allegations, no notice could be taken of them. There was also a fierce controversy raised by the announcement of Prussia that, if the blockade established by the Danes was not more effective, she would disregard the provisions of international law sanctioned by the treaty of Paris. This meant that she would send out privateers; but the universal indignation of the neutral powers at this announcement had its effect, and, though the Prussian plenipotentiaries did not withdraw their announcement, they ceased to insist on it.

no one could have deemed a proper addition to a summary drawn up by a professedly neutral power. When are we to have men of tact and manners at the head of our foreign office? It is easy, when we read the protocols themselves, to see how the belligerents respectively looked upon the points at issue. The Germans, holding that the war had put an end to the treaty of London, considered that the time was come to consult the interests of the Germans in the duchies, that a German prince would necessarily succeed in Holstein, and that as Schleswig must, in the interest of the Germans, go with Holstein, the Duke of Holstein would be Duke of Schleswig also. The only question was, who was to be duke of Holstein, and this the diet was to determine. It was objected that, if it was the diet which had to decide, it might go on procrastinating and deferring all decision to the end of time, and that there might never be any duke at all. But Baron Beust candidly replied that the diet got on very fast when the two great German powers were agreed, and that, as they were now agreeed in favor of the Duke of Augustenburg, the diet would decide with unexampled rapidity. This allowed that they were at liberty to diswas the German position, and if it was regard the treaty of London, and that they might use their actual armed possession to carry out the wishes of their countrymen in Schleswig, their whole case was very coherent. On the other hand, the Danes said that the duchies belonged to them, both by virtue of the old connection of Schleswig with Denmark, and in virtue of the treaty of London reguThe protocols of the conference throw pecially urged that it was because this lating the succession. The king more esmuch valuable light on the views and in- treaty was made, and because he supposed tentions both of the belligerents and of that it would be supported, that he had the neutral powers; but the reader who consented to accept the thorny crown of wishes to profit by them must read the Denmark. If the duchies, and particuprotocols themselves, and not the sum-larly Schleswig, belonged to Denmark, it mary which was annexed to the protocol of the last conference. This summary is drawn up in a manner very unfair and offensive to the German powers-a petty insult which we should have hoped English ministers would have been above of fering to their adversaries. main declaration of the representative of When the the German confederation is recorded, there is even a derisive note of admira

was only a sheer violation of right, and a mere tyrannous use of brutal force, that he should be made to cede an inch of Schleswig. But the south of Schleswig, like Holstein, was so German as to be of no use to him, and therefore he was willpart with. But it was a very different ing to lose what it cost him nothing to thing when he was asked to cede the mixed districts, and to place faithful