_Illustration_--TONTINE READING-ROOMS GLASGOW, _facing_ 126 VALUE OF EARLY NEWS BY POST, 130 DIFFUSION OF PARLIAMENTARY NEWS BY THE TELEGRAPH AND PRESS, 136 RESULTS OF RAPID COMMUNICATIONS, 139 [Illustration: _Frontispiece._ MAIL-COACH IN THUNDERSTORM. (_From a print, 1827._)] A HUNDRED YEARS BY POST. Were a former inhabitant of this country who had quitted the stage of life towards the close of last century to reappear in our midst, he could not fail to be struck with the wonderful changes which have taken place in the aspect of things; in the methods of performing the tasks of daily life; and in the character of our social system generally. Nor is it too much to say that he would see himself surrounded by a world full of enchantment, and that his senses of wonder and admiration would rival the feelings excited in youthful minds under the spell of books like Jules Verne's _Journey to the Moon_, or the ever-entertaining stories of the _Arabian Nights_. It is true that he would find the operations of nature going on as before. The dewdrop and the blade of grass, sunshine and shower, the movements of the tides, and the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; these would still appear to be the same. But almost everything to which man had been wont to put his hand would appear to bear the impress of some other hand; and a hundred avenues of thought opening to his bewildered sense would consign his inward man to the education of a second childhood. So fruitful has been the nineteenth century in discovery and invention, and so astounding the advancement made, that it is only by stopping in our madding haste and looking back that we can realise how different the present is from the past. Yet to our imaginary friend's astonished perception, nothing, we venture to think, would come with greater force than the contrast between the means available for keeping up communications in his day and in our own. We are used to see trains coursing on the iron way at a speed of fifty or sixty miles an hour; steamships moving on every sea, defiant of tide and wind, at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles an hour; and the electric telegraph outstripping all else, and practically annihilating time and space. But how different was the state of things at the close of the eighteenth century! The only means then available for home communications--that is for letters, etc.--were the Foot Messenger, the Horse Express, and the Mail Coach; and for communication with places beyond the sea, sailing-ships.