dent, they say, that as the colours appear different at the same time, they do not belong to the moon herself, but are occasioned by an atmosphere around her, variously disposed in this and that place, for refracting these or those coloured rays. Lord Rosse's telescope has stripped the moon of her atmosphere, leaving us still enveloped in ours; and we have only to observe what is daily passing before our eyes to understand the changes which the atmosphere has produced on the solid crust of our globe. The hollows are filled up and smoothed over by sedimentary deposits brought down by rains; the relief of our surface is gradually worn down. The moon is as a medal fresh from the mint; the earth is as a shilling which has sustained the effects of passing for years and years from pocket to pocket. SOMETHING LEFT. open a central telegraphic office at each of the ten district post-offices in London. To open subordinate telegraph offices at the sorting offices and receiving offices in each district. To connect the subordinate telegraphic offices of each district with the central telegraphic office of that district. To establish direct communication between each central telegraphic office, and each other central telegraphic office in London. To establish central telegraphic offices at the post-offices of the principal towns in the kingdom, and to establish direct communication between all such central telegraphic offices and the central telegraphic office in the east central district of London. To establish direct communication between the more important of the central telegraphic offices in the provinces, and the central telegraphic offices in the west central, western, and south-western, districts of London. To establish a direct communication between each central telegra "GONE, gone, the freshness of my youthful prime;phic office in the provinces, and such of the Gone my illusions, tender or sublime; Gone is the thought that wealth is worth its cost, Oh, coward to repine! TELEGRAPHS UNDER GOVERNMENT. other central telegraphic offices in the provinces as it may be desirable to connect with it. To open subordinate telegraphic offices at the district offices, sorting offices, and certain of the receiving offices in Liverpool, and to connect them with the central office in Liverpool; in like manner to open subordinate telegraphic offices at the principal receiving offices in such towns as Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, Bradford, and to connect each group of such subordinate offices with its central telegraphic office. To open in the first instance subordinate offices, connected in like manner with central offices, at the money-order offices of all places having a population of two thousand persons and upwards. To open deposit offices, that is, offices at which messages may be deposited, and the charge thereon paid, at every postTHAT there is at the present moment a pro- office in the United Kingdom at which no teleposal before the House of Commons for the graphic office is established. To permit the pillartransference of the telegraphs in the United boxes throughout the kingdom to be places of Kingdom from private control to the control of deposit for messages, provided such messages the State-that is to say, for the purchase be written on stamped paper. To require payby Government of the existing telegraphic ment for messages to be made in stamps, or by lines and appliances, and the placing of them writing them on stamped paper, and to issue under the direction of the Post-office-is gene-special stamps for that purpose. To make the rally well known. But, although the question charge for transmission from any one part to any is one of great national importance, and one other part of the United Kingdom, uniformly directly affecting private convenience, the bulk and without regard to distance, one shilling for of the public know nothing of the details of this the first twenty words, with an addition of sixscheme, nothing of the advantages proposed pence for every addition of ten words or part to be placed at the public disposal, nothing of of ten words: such charge to include free delithe comparatively degraded position, telegra- very by special messenger at any place within phically speaking, which the British public holds the town delivery of the terminal office, when in regard to other European publics, and from that office is a head post-office; and within one which it will should the proposal become law mile of the terminal office when that office is -be emancipated. We, therefore, purpose not a head post-office; and to include free transbriefly to recount the details of a scheme mission by post from a deposit office to the which, in future times, may rank next to the nearest telegraphic office, when the message is penny postage. so left for transmission, or free delivery by post when the addressee resides out of the limits of the terminal office, and the sender does not desire to pay for a special messenger. To fix the rate for conveyance by special mes In the first place, let us see what the Post-office proposes to do for the public if the telegraphic system of the United Kingdom be placed under its control. It proposes: To senger beyond the limits of the free delivery, at sixpence per double mile. To make arrangements, on the plan of those prevailing in Belgium and Switzerland, for the registration and redirection of telegrams, and for the delivery of copies. To give facilities for the transmission of money orders by telegraph, on payment of the charge for the message, and of a commission which shall not be less than two ordinary commissions, and under certain restrictions as to the amount to be remitted by any one person. portion of addressees resident within the limits of the receiving telegraphic offices, would be greater than it is at present; and consequently the extra charge for the conveyance of a message beyond those limits would be imposed less frequently then than now. The period during which telegraphic offices are open daily for trans mission of messages, would in many cases be considerably extended. But perhaps the greatest boon of all, especially for persons resident in the rural districts, would be the combination of postal and telegraphic facilities-at present impossible, but a leading feature of the new scheme. The telegraphic offices under the control of the Post-office would be much closer to the bulk of the population than the existing telegraphic offices; but the residents in rural districts would still in many cases be at a considerable though a diminished distance from the nearest telegraphic office. If these residents in rural districts were desirous of transmitting their messages to the nearest telegraphic office with the greatest possible speed, they might either despatch them by their own messenger or procure an official messenger, by payment of an extra charge, at the nearest deposit office. But if they were not very much pressed for time, and were content to accept service by lettercarrier, in lieu of service by special messenger, they might, by posting their messages in the nearest pillar-box or deposit office, ensure their transmission, free of extra charge, to the nearest telegraphic office at the usual time of clearing that pillar-box or deposit office. Thus, for instance; residents in Lampeter desiring to send telegrams to London through Carmarthen (which, though twenty-four miles distant from them, is their nearest telegraphic station), would know that if they wrote their messages on stamped paper and deposited them at the Lampeter post-office by 1.15 P.M., the messages would go forward at that hour free of extra charge, and would reach Carmarthen for immediate despatch by telegraph at 4.25 P.M. Thus, also; messages might be posted at Fort Augustus up to 11.40 P.M. for transmission over a distance of thirty-five miles to Inverness, the nearest telegraph office, where they would arrive for immediate despatch by telegraph, at 9.20 A.M. That these proposals offer enormous advantages to the public, as they appear on paper, is at once evident. The remaining question is, can they be carried out? The proposers answer at once in the affirmative, adding that there is nothing novel in the scheme thus described, and that each one of its parts has been tried successfully. The amalgamation of the telegraphic and postal administration has been tried with perfect success in Belgium and in Switzerland, and also in the British colonies of Victoria and New South Wales. The proposed distribution of the system is analogous to that which prevails in France. Uniformity of charge, irrespective of distance, and with a lower tariff than that which is recommended in the first instance for the United Kingdom, has been tried with the best results in Belgium and in Switzerland. The institution of places of deposit for messages, in addition to the offices of transmission, and the gratuitous grant of postal facilities under certain conditions to the senders of telegraphic messages, is borrowed from Belgium. Telegraph stamps are in use in Belgium and in France. The exclusion of the addresses from the number of words to be paid for, is borrowed from Victoria and New South Wales. A telegraphic money-order office has for some years existed in Switzerland and in Prussia. The result is, not merely that the business is more cheaply conducted, but that greater advantages are given to the public on the Continent, than in the United Kingdom. Not only are the telegraph offices more numerous in proportion to the population, but they are brought closer to the population, and carried more freely into the little towns and sparsely populated districts. After making due deduction for those cases in which a place is served by two or three tele- It will be obvious to all who study these graph companies, where the service of one illustrations, that in an immense number of company would suffice, it appears that in the cases a service partly postal and partly teleUnited Kingdom there is one telegraph office graphic would meet all the requirements of the to every eighteen thousand persons: whilst in senders, while it would be much cheaper (the France there is one to every fourteen thousand whole cost being covered by the charge for the persons, in Belgium one to every twelve thou-telegram) than a service partly by special messand persons, and in Switzerland one to every seven thousand persons. There are many other advantages. Under the arrangements proposed, the senders and the addressees of telegraphic messages would respectively be nearer than they now are to the despatching and receiving telegraphic offices: so that the difficulty of sending a message would be reduced, while the rapidity of its transmission would be increased. The pro senger and partly by telegraph. And it will be equally obvious that this partly postal and partly telegraphic service would in a vast number of cases serve as well for the reply to the message as for the message itself. For the transmission of a letter and the reply thereto between Lampeter and London, forty-four hours are required; but for the transmission of a message and the reply thereto between the same places, on the partly postal and partly telegraphic system, only twenty hours would be required. So again; the course of communication between Fort Augustus and London would be shortened by a period of from two days to two days and a half. vantage over the United Kingdom in this respect. They can afford to impose low charges for the transmission of messages, because they need not do more than make the telegraphs self-supporting. Because the telegraphic system of each State is under a single management, thereby avoiding loss of revenue and increase of cost caused by competition. And because they for the most part save expense, by combining the telegraphic administration with the administration of several other state departments. The foregoing illustrations (which might be varied and multiplied indefinitely), will serve to show how constantly, if the scheme proposed were in operation, the public would be enabled, by a combination of postal and telegraphic facilities, to obtain a most important acceleration of their correspondence, at a cheap rate. The occasions would be numberless in which, though Of course this scheme, beneficial as we bethey might not be willing to undertake the lieve it to be, has not been received with unilabour or expense of going or sending to a versal satisfaction. So the establishment of railtelegraphic office, or to incur the cost of ways and the introduction of the cheap postage transmission at the existing rates and per- were both derided by The Quarterly Review haps, the cost of delivery beyond the limits of and other authorities. The objections raised the terminal office-they would be very willing against the proposed plan are of various kinds, to expend a shilling, if, by so doing, and by and come from various quarters. One of the chief depositing a message in a pillar-box within an of them, is, that the adoption of the proposed easy distance, they could ensure the delivery scheme would place too much power in the of the message free of further charge, within hands of the Government, which, on emergency from three to five hours after the date of-as, for instance, at a general election-might despatch. be tempted to use the information they could To those, however, who desire, not merely a obtain through it, to the detriment of their partial use of telegraphic facilities for the pur-political adversaries. The answer to this is, pose of a partial acceleration of their corres- plainly, that public opinion would declare itself pondence, but the enjoyment of the fullest so strongly, both in the press and in parliafacilities which the telegraph can afford, the ment, against any such conduct, if it ever system would unquestionably afford advantages occurred, as effectually to prevent its recurmuch greater than any in the power of telegraph rence. This point is touched upon by Mr. companies to give. Without great outlay, the John Lewis Ricardo, M.P., then both a memexisting companies could not bring the tele- ber of the legislature and the chairman of the graphic offices, as a rule, closer to the population largest telegraph company in the kingdom, in than they are at present; nor, without great a pamphlet published in 1861. The following outlay, could they extend the hours during which quotation will show that he had no apprethe majority of those offices are open for busi-hension: ness. The Post-office has already the means of bringing the telegraphic offices closer to the population and of extending their hours of busi ness. We are a prudent people, and we like full value for our money. There is little doubt that first among the circumstances which have retarded the growth of telegraphic correspondence in the United Kingdom, is the fact that the charges for the transmission of messages are, and have been for some time, higher with us than on the Continent. France, Prussia, Belgium, Switzerland, has each a tariff, the two former less, the two latter very much less, than ours. The following Table will illustrate this part of the subject: Country. Greatest Distance] over which a Message can be Transmitted. Charge for a Words over Corresponding a like Distance. France Prussia Belgium About 600 miles s. d. Switzerland 200 10100 s. d. To secure the honour and reputation of the British Government as a guarantee for the privacy of communications, necessarily more confidential than those conveyed under sealed envelope through the post; to establish a conviction that the public are dependent, not upon the discretion of individuals, but upon the faith of a ministry responsible at any moment to a vigilant parliament, that there shall be no undue preference or precedence given even to the highest financial or most powerful influence in the land; in fine to substitute the safeguard of states men chosen by the nation for their talent and intetheir character, elected by a body of shareholders, grity, for that of men of business, however high simply to pay them the highest amount of interest obtainable from the tolls levied upon the public; to retain the telegraphic despatches of the various departments charged with the maintenance of the honour, and interests, and tranquillity of the country inviolate and inviolable, instead of being passed through the hands of a joint-stock company, are advantages which no man can deny, and which parliament and the people will not fail to appreciate. Of course, it has been said that the scheme is an interference with private enterprise. The reply is, that the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce in 1865 appointed a Committee to enquire into the subject, and that the report of that committee-adopted at a meeting held under The States of the Continent have great ad- the presidency of Mr. McLaren, M.P.-strongly recommended the assumption by Government in pamphlet form. Very recently, however, a of the control of telegraphic communication, pamphlet has been put forth, with the sig and declared that the obstacles in the way were nature, affixed "by order of the Board," of comparatively few and unimportant." And "Robert Grimston," chairman of the Electric the result of the action taken by the Edinburgh and International Telegraph Company. Mr. Chamber of Commerce was, that all the Cham- Grimston will be remembered by middle-aged bers of Commerce in the kingdom petitioned cricketers, as one of the ornaments of "Lord's" parliament in favour of the proposal; a deputa-in bygone years, and is justly esteemed by all tion from them waited on the chancellor of Harrovians for the admirable manner in which the exchequer and the postmaster-general; to the present day he "coaches" the Harrow and the Chambers have repeatedly, at their eleven for the school-matches; but the patience public meetings, renewed their request for and discrimination which distinguish Mr. Grimthe introduction of the measure. Nor are the ston in the playing-field, seem to desert him Chambers of Commerce alone in this matter. in the study; while, in his literary style, Petitions in favour of the scheme have been ad- he inclines to a system of "swiping" which dressed to parliament by the medical profes- is now obsolete alike in cricket and pamsion, which is largely interested in the exten- phleteering. It is, perhaps, rather hard on sion of telegraphic intercourse, and by the Mr. Grimston to judge him as a business man, press, to which promptitude and excellence in inasmuch as on page 8 of his own pamphlet he telegraphy is of the utmost importance, and represents himself as replying to a question from which, as a rule, complains bitterly of the the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to whether, manner in which this service is now performed. since the proposal of Government to acquire the Again, it has been objected that the passing telegraphs, the shares had not risen considerably of the proposed bill will enable the Government in the market, "I never take any notice of the to go through that terrific process known as price of shares"-to say the least of it, a 'putting on the screw" in regard to the exist- charmingly frank declaration on the part of ing companies and their shareholders. This is the chairman of a great company. But there not the case. The bill is only a permissive are two or three points in Mr. Grimston's one. It only gives power to sell, and forces no pamphlet which it is desirable to answer. one to sell, though it gives the shareholders Taking the Government proposition to establish power to force the Government to buy. If telegraphic stations at every money-order office, the Government should not offer acceptable he says: "Now let us test the argument by terms, the bargain can be referred to arbitration. this very case. In the last report laid before It is said, with apparent truth, that the Govern- parliament by the Postmaster General, an acment might buy up a poor company whose count was given of the number of money-order shares are at a discount, and by working offices established in certain large towns, and of that company at the uniform one shilling rate, the amount of the money orders issued in the might unfairly compete with the other com- years 1864 and 1865. What do we find? panies, and so force them to sell against Liverpool, in 1864, had twenty-six money-order their will; but in answer to this, it must be offices, and issued money orders to the extent borne in mind that there is nothing in the of five hundred and fifty-one thousand nine hunworld but public opinion to prevent the Govern-dred and forty pounds. In 1865, the number ment from doing this now. It has now a perfect of money-order offices in Liverpool was inright to offer to the public to transmit its letters by telegraph, and it will do no more when it has bought up all the companies. The postal system, must and will, in the march of events, inevitably adopt the telegraph, or the postal system will itself be left behind, and a vast telegraph post will be forced (by the wants of the community) into existence, to compete with the Post-office itself. The growth of telegraphic business proves this; greater growth will, as heretofore, involve further reductions in cost, until, in course of progress and expansion, the price will become so low as to take away half the business of the Post-office. It being inevitable, therefore, that the Post-office, to exist, must engraft the telegraph on its system, it follows that if the shareholders should be strong enough to refuse altogether to give it the option of buying now by agreement, they might hereafter either get Government as a competitor, or be forced to sell whether or no, and possibly at a reduced price. The objections we have endeavoured to answer, have been made anonymously, chiefly creased no less than fifty per cent, namely, from twenty-six to thirty-nine, but the increase of the money-order business was less than two per cent!" Mr. Grimston apparently does not see that the obvious answer to this, is, that the Post-office gave an enormous amount of accommodation, and lost nothing by it! In reference to a proposal for a new clause "to enable the Postmaster General to enter into contracts with the proprietors of newspapers for the transmission of intelligence sent by telegraph," Mr. Grimston says: The proprietors of newspapers are not easily to be caught by chaff, and they might probably prefer a clause which would limit the Post-office to the existing 'unquestionably low rates,' and preclude its entering into contracts more advantageous to one newspaper than to another." Mr. Grimston will probably learn with surprise that this clause was drawn up by certain "proprietors of newspapers," and was presented by them in deputation. One more point, and we have done with Mr. Grimston. He says: "The Post-office sets up 'Money-order Offices' in connexion with this scheme. Your grace probably is unaware that an enormous money-order business is carried on by the telegraph offices. Thousands upon thousands of pounds a day are remitted by telegraph -the amounts being received at one end of the line and paid at the other. This business, though it makes no show, is, in the aggregate, far larger than the petty business of the moneyorder offices connected with your grace's department, the practice of which is universally complained of as so cumbrous and costly. Does the Government propose to carry on this business? If so, on what terms? At present the Post-office orders are limited to five pounds. The telegraphic companies place no limits on the amounts they receive and pay." Now, put by the side of this wonderful evidence of the wonderful Chairman of the wonderful Company who are quite satisfied (no doubt) of his never taking any notice of the price of its shares, the following slight facts: The "petty business" of the Money-order Office amounts to seventeen millions sterling per annum. Money-orders for ten pounds can be obtained at all money-order offices, and the Post-office places no limit to the number of these orders issued to one person! To the objections that State control would be injurious to invention, or that the transmission of news by government officials would act injuriously to the public interest, we have not replied, because to us they seem too childish and trivial to need reply. We believe that the condition of things in which the State was regarded as a bugbear, is over for ever, and that as has been justly said by one of the most liberal and thoughtful of our contemporaries:* "The old dread of the State is decaying, as men become convinced that the state is but themselves well organised; and we do not despair yet of seeing the counter theory, that no monopoly can be worked for the national benefit except through the nation,' openly acknowledged by English statesmen; and the further proposition, that the weakness of individuals ought to be supplemented by the strength of all,' receive, what it has never had yet, a fair discussion." Thoroughly agreeing in these views, and believing the proposed scheme to be one of very great national importance, we earnestly commend its adoption to the House of Commons. TOWN AND COUNTRY SPARROWS. WHATEVER the fair Lesbia may have done in the days of Horace and Macanas, nobody in our time makes a household pet or a bosom friend of the sparrow. Nor has he much to recommend him to affection or familiarity. He is not beautifu., like the canary; he cannot sing, like the lark or the nightingale; but only chirp and twitter in a manner that is not particularly agreeable; and, unlike the duck, the goose, the * The Spectator, November 23, 1867. barn-door fowl, or the ortolan, he has no attrac tion for the disciples of Brillat Savarin, and would be scorned as food by the hungriest of human beings, even by the hippophagists. But, notwithstanding all these deficiencies, I like the sparrow. He is brave and lively in his behaviour to the outer world, and very affectionate to his mate and little ones in domestic life. He, moreover, plays his allotted part in the beneficent scheme of nature, as much as man does at one end of the great chain and the animalcule at the other. There are, according to the great French Naturalist, Buffon, who somewhat angrily calls the sparrow an "idle glutton;" no less than sixty-seven varieties of this well-known bird. The best known of the sixty-seven-all of them inhabitants of the old or Eastern hemisphere, and none of them known except by name in the Western world-are the house sparrow, the tree sparrow, and the hedge sparrow; to which I think should be added the London sparrow. Unlike the swallow, the cuckoo, and other migratory birds, the sparrow does not seek a perpetual spring or summer, by travel to the sunny south, but stays with us in all seasons. The severest winter does not drive him away, though it may sometimes kill him or force him to desperate straits for a subsistence. All the year round he twitters in town and country, and picks up a livelihood as best he can; and all the year round he multiplies his kind. The hen produces three broods in the twelvemonth. Next to his fondness for human neighbourhood-for the sparrow is never found in the wilderness or in dense forests, but always within easy flight of the cottager's chimney or the smoke of city houses-his great characteristics are amativeness and combativeness-cause and effect. When he has fixed his affections on the charmer of his heart, and any other sparrow presumes even so much as to look at her, or to utter one loving chirp to distract her attention, woe betide the interloper, unless he be a much stronger and fiercer bird than his antagonist. War is declared immediately, and a combat ensues, in which, as among men, the prize falls to the possession of the victor. "None but the brave deserve the fair," is a maxim apparently as well understood among sparrows as it used to be among the preux chevaliers or knights errant of the olden time, In his domestic life, as far as man can judge of him by external appearances, the sparrow is happy. He and his mate are fond of home, and if any one wickedly destroys their nest they indulge in no vain repining, but immediately set about building another; not like the waggoner in the fable, asking Jupiter to help them in their distress, but helping themselves, as all good birds, and all good people, ought to do. And if a mischievous farm boy steals her eggs, Mrs. Sparrow, instead of weeping disconsolately over her loss, for more than a very brief period of natural disappointment, proceeds forthwith to fill up the void thus created in her domestic circle by the production |