their own.

The first General Post Office was originated in the days of the Stuarts, when a post for England and Scotland was established. The rates of postage were fixed by Royal authority in the reign of Charles I. In the days of the Commonwealth the Puritan Parliament, squeamish about many things, were by no means so, in the matter of the inviolability of private correspondence, for in the preamble to an ordinance, dated 1657, it was held to be a most valuable recommendation in favour of the establishment of posts that "they will be the best means to discover and prevent many dangerous and wicked designs against the Commonwealth."

The power of opening letters is still possessed by the Government, and can be exercised under a warrant from one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. Without such a warrant such a breach of public trust is highly penal. Sir James Graham obtained for himself much odium by a violation of the correspondence of Mazzini, the Italian patriot. For State purposes it is perhaps right that this law should remain on the statute book, and be at one with some of the rarely used prerogatives of the Crown. It is interesting to read Carlyle on the matter. He says, "It is a question vital to us that sealed letters in an English post office be, as we all fancied they were, respected as things sacred; that opening of men's letters, a practice near of kin to picking men's pockets, and to other still viler and fataler forms of scoundrelism be not resorted to in England, except in cases of the very last extremity. When some new gunpowder plot may be in the wind, some double-dyed high treason, or imminent national wreck, not avoidable otherwise, then let us open letters: not till then. To all Austrian Kaisers and such like, in their time of trouble, let us answer as our fathers of old have answered-not by such means is help here for you."

For some time the posts were confined to a few of the main high roads of the kingdom. Off these roads there was no certain means of conveyance, and the residents in such districts received their letters when and how they could. Such was the General Post Office when the first of three great reformers of the postal service appeared in the person of Ralph Allen, then postmaster of Bath. He noticed the defects in the existing system, and thought out a remedy, which he ultimately succeeded in persuading the Treasury to adopt. By the introduction of "cross or by-posts" the delivery of letters was greatly facilitated. Allen undertook the carrying out of this plan, and so certain was he of its success that he paid a fixed rental of £6,000 a year for his so-called privilege, his profits arising from the surplus

fund, which he retained for himself. At his death, in 1764, it was calculated that he had made profits amounting to half-a-million. Allen appears to have been a good sort of fellow. He was the friend of Fielding and of Pope, and is pourtrayed as "Squire Allworthy" in "Tom Jones," and referred to in the

couplet

"Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." In 1783 John Palmer, of the Bath and Bristol theatres, propounded to Mr. Pitt his scheme for the transmission of the mails by stage coach, which was approved, and the first mail coach left London for Bristol on the evening of the 8th August, 1784. Scarce thirty years of the present century had passed ere the gay and lightsome mail coach disappeared, and was superseded by the locomotive, and the great reforms which will ever be associated with the name of Rowland Hill were commenced. The fossils of the Post Office were slow in the adoption of reforms, and were very happily hit off by Rowland Hill, in one of his tricks to escape payment of the heavy rates of postage prevailing at that period. "In the year 1823," he wrote, "taking a holiday excursion through the lake district to Scotland, and wishing to keep my family informed of my movements and health (then in a depressed state) I carried with me a number of old newspapers, and in franking these according to the useless form then required, while I left the postmark with its date to show the place. I indicated my health by selecting names according to previous arrangements, the more Liberal members being taken to indicate that I was better, while Tories were to show that I was falling back; Sir Francis Burdett was to show that I was enjoying vigorous health, while probably Lord Eldon would almost have brought one of my brothers after me in anxiety and alarm." The zeal and energy of Rowland Hill overcame the dogged opposition of the heads of the postal department, and on the 10th January, 1840, his system of the penny post came into general operation. The net revenue of the post office for 1878-79 was £2,434,000.

Since the Great Reform many desirable improvements have been effected, and thousands of receptacles for posting letters have been established. Last year, the number of offices was nearly 14,000; the number of road and railway letter-boxes nearly 12,000; in all some 26,000 receptacles, as compared with 4,028 on the establishment of penny postage. In London alone there are half as many as there existed in the whole of the United Kingdom. The revision of the scale of postage, the establishment of the book-post, and of the circular rate of postage, met a great want, as is

shown by the calculated number passing through the Office, which is roughly stated at 198,000,000.

The post-card is a decided success, something like 112,000,000 being distributed annually. Great advances have also been made in international communication through that admirable organisation, the General Postal Union, by which the dream of Elihu Burrit, of an ocean penny postage, has been in some respects more than realised. For one penny a post-card can be sent to all parts of the continent of Europe, to Persia, the confines of Siberia, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, in Africa; to the Azores, Madeira, and Newfoundland, in the Atlantic; to the vast dominions of Canada, or the far-stretching Republic of the United States, or even to the distant Pacific. A closed letter over the same district only costs 24d. per half-ounce, while printed matter may be sent for d. per two ounces. These and other rates show a strikingly favourable contrast with the rates formerly existing. Then there are other departments, not strictly postal, such as the Money Order system, the Savings Bank; facilities for investment in the Government Stock, and the Telegraphic system.

HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD. BY MRS. GEORGE CORBETT.

FRUIT

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The

AND SPONGE CAKES, &c. following recipes will probably be found useful at this season of parties and entertainments. Good plain currant bread may be made by adding to 6 lb. of flour, 4lb. of currants, 2 lb. of sugar, 8 oz. of lard, 6 oz. of baking powder, a little essence of lemon, and three eggs. Mix with butter-milk or milk that has become sour. If there does not happen to be any sour milk at hand, a little tartaric acid stirred into new milk will turn it sour instantly. The next recipe is for a much richer cake. The portion of ingredients is as follows:

pro

FRUIT LOAF.-Three pounds of flour, 2 lb. of rice flour, 2 lb. of lard or butter, 3 lb. of currants, 2 lb. of Sultana raisins, 3 lb. of sugar, 6 eggs, 8 oz. of baking powder, candied lemon and essence of lemon according to taste. Use very little salt. Mix with sour milk, and bake in a moderate oven, in tins well greased and lined with paper.

Icing for the above cakes, or for any other rich cake, is made in the following manner :Beat the whites of two small eggs to a high froth, then add to them lb. of white ground or powdered sugar, beat it well until it will lie in a heap-flavour with essence of lemon; this will frost a small cake. Heap what you sup

pose to be sufficient in the centre of the cake, then dip a broad bladed knife in cold water, and spread the ice evenly over the whole surface. Put it in a nearly cold oven again to dry.

SEED BREAD is made like the plain currant bread, seeds being substituted for the currants. BUNS are made of 4 lb. of flour, † lb. of lard, lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of currants, a little baking powder, and candied peel. After making up, they should be washed over with the yolk of an egg, and allowed to rise a little on the tin in front of the fire before baking.

For QUEEN CAKES take lb. of butter beaten to a cream, lb. of lump sugar, 5 eggs, lb. of currants, lb. of flour, essence of lemon, and The sugar should be a little sal volatile. powdered, and the ingredients beaten into the Melt a little butter, one after the other. butter, and grease the tiny queen cake tins with it, using a small brush for the purpose.

For BATH or PLUM DROPS take 1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. sugar, 10 eggs, 1 lb. of currants, 1 oz. candied peel cut very fine, a little essence of lemon and sal volatile, 1 lb. 6 oz. of flour.

SAVOY BISCUITS are made of 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of flour, 9 eggs, a little volatile and lemon. Bake in a hot oven. Both the Savoy biscuits and the plum drops must be dropped upon cap paper, previously laid upon a tin, and baked upon the paper.

FOR SUGAR CAKES use 6 lb. of flour, 3 lb. of lard or butter, 3 lb. of sugar, 12 eggs, essence of lemon and carbonate of soda; moderate oven.

SPONGE CAKES.-Take the whites of 12 eggs and whisk to a froth, by degrees adding the yolks of 14 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of flour, and a little sal volatile and essence of lemon. Take care to keep whisking in one direction until all the ingredients are added, and bake immediately in a well buttered mould.

It will be found much more economical to make the baking powder at home than to buy it ready mixed, and the subjoined recipe is -4 oz. tartaric acid, 5 oz. a very good one: carbonate of soda, 5 oz. ground rice. thoroughly, and keep in a dry place. It is best to put it in wide-necked bottles, until ready to use it, as then it cannot very well get damp.

Mix

was found in the grass, and it smelt strongly of prussic acid.

A crowd soon gathered, the police arrived, and, after examination, lifted a human body, all rigid, cadaverous, and cold, from the ground. It was the corpse of John Sadlier, the late, reputed, millionaire, Ex-member of the Cabinet, and, not long before, supposed to be destined to a coronet in the English Peerage. “O, fatal lure of ill-got wealth,' -a mocking fiend that, with promises of good never fulfilled, tempts men so often to their infinite ruin.

On Monday the news, flashed through the kingdom, reached Clonmel. "What can be the matter?" said his father to Garrett Rowan. "Do you hear those sounds? The whole town is strangely astir. I wish you would take your bat, my son, and make enquiry."

Garrett found that, assuredly, there was a stir. Old men, some of them, moved about as though demented, and gasped, unable to breathe, in the extremity of their emotion; others with heads uncovered and their snowy locks waving in the air, worked continually with their fingers and, mute in despair, gazed into vacancy; widows, their bereaved condition known from their dress, knelt in the streets and, wringing their hands, asked aloud of God, whether it could be true that all their means of support were gone, and that they were beggars; strong men, their brows knitted, their cheeks ashy pale, and their dark eyes flashing fury, and gripping in their hands great blackthorn sticks, vociferously shouted that they would have vengeance upon those whom they had trusted to their undoing. "To the bank, to the bank!" yelled out a multitude. "We'll tear it down to its very foundations, and learn for ourselves whether these closed doors are not an infernal cheat, and that under a pretence of insolvency our hard-earned silver and gold is not, after all, artfully hidden away, buried in safes and lockers. It cannot be; Holy Vargin, Mother o' God, it cannot be; it's too dreadful to believe that any man could be fiend enough to rob us of our hard-earned savings and fling us, without a penny, on the world.'

Garrett pressed on with the crowd, to see what bank it was the intention of the mob to assail, for there were two or three of those establishments in the town, and it was not long before he came to know that the defaulting bank was the very one to whose supposed safe keeping his father had entrusted the fifteen hundred pounds which remained over and above the sale of Carberry Grange, and which was now the Rowans' only capital. The discovery sent a pang through his heart, as though he had been wounded with a dagger.

Forcing his way from out the crowd, he turned his steps to bear home in haste the dreadful intelligence-intelligence which would

be altogether unlooked for, for no one in the whole neighbourhood had, even for a moment, suspected the worse than bankrupt state of the affairs of John Sadlier.

But, as he hurried along, it came to his thoughts that if he were to bear the news too suddenly it would in all probability be a sentence of sudden death to his father.

Oh! the pain of being the bearer of tidings which must be told, but which you know will be a crushing heart-break to those you dearly love, and who, you feel, have already been called upon to experience trials almost beyond the limits of endurance.

Garrett found his father in the sitting room, impatiently waiting to hear from him the cause of the great commotion in the town. Mr. Rowan was in a disposition to chide him for what he deemed the tardy fulfilment of the commission he had given him, for every new burst of indignation and fury from the mob, heard from a distance, added, naturally, fresh flame to the old man's curiosity.

"Well, Garrett," said his father, "what's up, my boy? The signs are of some tremendous Irish row, I think. Has there been a faction fight in the street? It's a shame for the authorities to allow it. My patience has been quite worn out waiting to hear from you the particulars; you shouldn't have been such a poor messenger, my son."

"Would to God that it were a faction fight, father," said Garrett, and at the words Mr. Rowan gave him a surprised and puzzled look— for he knew that his son was intolerant of these "Irish irregularities," as he called them.

Father, there is dismay and grief and despairing madness in the town, and, woe be the day that I have to add, it is because of a calamity which, bringing ruin to thousands, also involves our stricken house. Alas! along with many a widow and orphan in Clonmel, we are robbed of all we had, and, I fear, are penniless."

"What! has the bank been broken into and plundered?" enquired the eager and blanchcheeked Mr. Rowan. "Oh, what depraved and disastrous times we have fallen upon."

"Yes, plundered the bank has been, but not broken into by thieves," replied Garrett, "and the plunderer has been the owner. We have, father, arrived at an age when the courage of the highwayman has been superseded by the mean and dastardly trickery of the fashionable swindler. Father, John Sadlier, himself, has been the spoiler of the funds in his own bank, and the wretched man (whom I pity with all my heart, notwithstanding his crimes) has died by his own hand, recoiling from the execrations of his victims.

Garrett did not temper the manner and form of his communication as he had intended. His

emotions were too great to be repressed, and he found it impossible to make that slow approach to the crisis of his tidings which he had resolved upon before coming into his father's presence, and he had soon reason to grieve over his want of self-mastery.

Mr. Rowan drooped at his son's words; a dizziness seized his brain, his form collapsed, and he sank down into his accustomed arm chair. He could not be roused by all the efforts of his family; his heart had utterly sunk within him, and his spirit was broken; he could not face life with a certain prospect of utter destitution before him and those whom he loved, dependent upon him, and who once had thought it impossible that want should overtake them.

He

The heartbroken man was borne to his bed, weak, passive, benumbed in all his powers, utterly prostrate, and not wishing to live. never rallied; soon the grave closed over the remains of the late owner of Carberry Grange. All the family resources gone, of course the long-cherished purpose of making Garrett a lawyer had to be abandoned. This design had, indeed, been given up from the day that Carberry Grange had been forfeited, or confiscated, as the Rowans described the operations of the Encumbered Estates Court. "No man should think of becoming a barrister," said Rowan's father, "who has not some estate behind him to back up the gains of his profession."

Mrs. Rowan, notwithstanding her family's utter wreck of fortune, could not think, however, of her dear son Garrett betaking himself to a trade. "It would be an insufferable indignity," she said, "and one that had never been stooped to by a Rowan, and she could and would not brook it." Consequently, after long consideration and mutual counsel, it was resolved that Garrett should give up the profession of the law for that of physic, and arrangements were made to article him to a medical gentleman in Dublin. Some house property unexpectedly left her in Dublin which her husband's creditors could not touch, furnished the means for this, and was also a reason for her own removal, thence, from Clonmel. She would thus secure two objects, she could keep a mother's loving eye upon her son and, at the same time, maintain a useful supervision over her property; and besides these two important ends she should also find in the Irish Metropolis a suitable education for her daughter.

he fondly hoped, to repurchase Carberry Grange. "What a splendid thing it would be," he often said within himself, "if I (on account of whom the dear place was lost) should be the one to win it back for the Rowans, and indeed this was the prophecy of our poor dear people on the sad day we left it. 'Mr. Garrett,' they cried, (I remember the words well), 'Mr. Garret, Howld up yer head, Alannah. It's a long night that brings no dawn, we don't give up the idaya of seein' ye wan o' these days back again safe and sound in Carberry Grange.' Blessings on the dear fellows," ejaculated Garrett. "Their words inspire me with a confidence of hope that nerves me with a solemn determination to stop at no effort and to faint at no failure, till I win the wished-for goal." The School of Medicine and Surgery with which Garrett connected himself was the one attached to M- Hospital. The various Professors were men, the first of their class, at that time in Dublin, and Garrett soon became a noted and favourite pupil, for he added a rare capacity for work to a high order of intelligence, and each closing session found him the winner of no end of gold and silver medals.

A few of his comrades may have been jealous of his success, but the great majority of his competitors gave him unstinted applause, for they felt he had been justly given the guerdon of honour,

The applause, however, which Garrett most prized was that of his mother. How the young man's heart leaped as he saw in his mother's face the proud gladness of his triumphs. Notwithstanding all that had passed, it was an hour worth living for.

Perhaps the young man did not value much less the joyful congratulations of his sister, his only sister, "his little pet Katie," as he called her. Mother and sister were both inexpressibly dear to him, and few were the " jolly meetings" of his student friends that had power to tempt him from their society. "An hour with anyone else," he used to say, "too often sends me back with a jaded and dissatisfied spirit to my books, but an hour's chat with darling mother and pet Katie sends me fresh as a daisy to my studies."