As to our own local interests, we may reasonably regret that, after so much money being invested in the Horncastle Canal, and the serious losses incurred by so many investors, no further effort should be made to utilize it. The trade of Horncastle is not so satisfactory but that we might welcome every adjunct, which could in any way contribute to its furtherance; while, even from an æsthetic point of view, it were desirable that, with the present dilapidated locks, and the banks in some places broken, the channel, which is in parts little more than a shallow bed of mud, befouled by garbage and carrion, or choked by a matted growth of weeds, should be superceded by a flow of water, pure and emitting no pestiferous exhalations. THE RAILWAY. In few things has there been more remarkable evolution, or we might even say, revolution, than in our methods of locomotion. In these days of historic pageants we might well conceive of a series of scenes passing before us, shewing the means adopted at different periods, or under different conditions, in this respect. The war-chariot of Queen Boadicea, charging the legions of Cæsar, or (in our own neighbourhood) that of the British warrior Raengeires, routing his Saxon foes, at Tetford, with their wheels of solid wood and other massive carpentry, would form a, then inconceivable, contrast to the future taximeter cab, to be evolved in this 20th century. The lumbering “wain” of the Saxon churl, though still surviving in the name of a constellation, befitted only an age little advanced beyond barbarism. The primitive “shout” (Dutch “schuyt”), or “dug-out” boat, hollowed by Celtic flint-axe from the bole of a mighty oak, and slowly propelled by the almost wild Girvian, through the tangle of fen morass, had but a remote connection with the steam packet which, within living memory, plied on the neighbouring Witham, between Boston and Lincoln. Although the speed of the latter was so slow, that (as a friend of the writer has done) a pedestrian, travelling by road, could reach either of those places, from our town of Horncastle, in less time than it took to go by carrier’s van to Kirkstead wharf, and thence by the said steamer. While, again, both these would provoke only a smile of contempt in the voyager who now crosses the atlantic, at a rate of 20 knots or more in the hour. Then, again, compare with these the cyclist, who now flashes past us with the speed of lightning; or the motorist, who vanishes from our sight, almost before the dust he has raised is blown away.