A century ago, and indeed down to a period only fifty years ago, the world, looked at from the present vantage-ground, must appear to have been in a dull, lethargic state, with hardly any pulse and a low circulation. As for nerve system it had none. The changes which the Post Office has wrought in the world, but more particularly in our own country, are only to be fully perceived and appreciated by the thoughtful. Now the heart of the nation throbs strongly at the centre, while the current of activity flows quickly and freely to the remotest corners of the state. The telegraph provides a nervous system unknown before. By its means every portion of the country is placed in immediate contact with every other part; the thrill of joy and the moan of desolation are no longer things of locality; they are shared fully and immediately by the whole; and the interest of brotherhood, extending to parts of the country which, under other conditions, must have remained unknown and uncared for, makes us realise that all men are but members of one and the same family. The freedom and independence now enjoyed by the individual, as a result of the vast influence exercised by society through the rapid exchange of thought, is certainly a thing of which the people of our own country may well be proud. Right can now assert itself in a way which was entirely beyond the reach of our predecessors of a hundred years ago; and wrong receives summary judgment at the hands of a whole people. Yet there is a growing danger that this great liberty of the individual may become, in one direction, a spurious liberty, and that the elements of physical force, exerting themselves under the aegis of uncurbed freedom, may enter into conspiracy against intellect, individual effort, and thrift in such a way as to produce a tyranny worse than that existing in the most despotic states.