And all this hurry and intellectual activity is going on while the nation at large is wrapped in sleep, and probably not one person in a hundred ever thinks or concerns himself to know how it is done. The frequency and rapidity of communication between different parts of the world seems to have brought the whole globe into a very small focus, for obscure places, which would be unknown, one would think, beyond their own immediate neighbourhoods, are frequently well within the cognisance of persons living in far-distant quarters. An instance of this is given by the postmaster of Epworth, a village near to Doncaster. "We have," says the postmaster, "an odd place in this parish known as Nineveh Farm. Some years ago a letter was received here which had been posted somewhere in the United States of America, and was addressed merely Mr. ---- NINEVEH. I have always regarded its delivery to the proper person as little less than a miracle, but it happened." It is impossible to say how far the influence of this great revolution in the mail service on land and sea may extend. That the change has been, on the whole, to the advantage of mankind goes without saying. One contrast is here given, and the reader can draw his own conclusions in other directions. The peace of 1782, which followed the American War of Independence, was only arrived at after negotiations extending over more than two years. Prussia and Austria were at war in 1866. The campaign occupied seven days; and from the declaration of war to the formal conclusion of peace only seven weeks elapsed. Is it to be doubted that the difference in the two cases was, in large measure, due to the fact that news travelled slowly in the one case and fast in the other? We may look back on the past with very mixed feelings,--dreaming of the easy-going methods of our forefathers, which gave them leisure for study and reflection, or esteeming their age as an age of lethargy, of lumbering and slumbering. We are proud of our own era, as one full of life and activity, full of hurry and bustle, and as existing under the spell of high electrical tension. But too many of us know to our cost that this present whirl of daily life has one most serious drawback, summed up in the commonplace, but not the less true, saying,-- "It's the pace that kills." Yet one more thought remains. Will the pace be kept up in the next hundred years? There is no reason to suppose it will not, and the world is hardly likely to go to sleep. Our successors who live a hundred years hence will doubtless learn much that man has not yet dreamt of. Time will produce many changes and reveal deep secrets; but as to what these shall be, let him prophesy who knows. FOOTNOTES: [1] See Note A in Appendix. [2] See Note D in Appendix. [3] See Note B in Appendix. [4] See Note C in Appendix. [5] Exclusive of franked letters.