contrary, the possibility of such profanation, within the precincts to which its authority extends, the Order in question expressly and peremptorily precludes. {29b} There remains, however, on the minds of many, an impression, scarcely affected by the most conclusive reply to individual objections, that the result, if not the object, of the late alteration will be a delivery of letters on the Sunday in London. Hitherto, it is said, the merchants of London have enjoyed, and have thought themselves entitled to enjoy, an advantage in this respect over the merchants of Bristol or of Liverpool. Letters arriving in London on the Sunday were in their possession at a far earlier hour on the Monday than that at which they could reach the hands of their provincial rivals. Can it be expected that the loss of this advantage will be borne with patience? Will not an irresistible clamour demand some compensation? And what can this compensation be, but a Sunday delivery of letters in London? Now let it be remembered, in the first place, that the advantage lost by London is not given to the country. No one pretends to say that by means of the Sunday transmission through London the provincial merchant will receive his letters _earlier_ than the metropolitan. The injury complained of is at last but equality. The complaint rests only on the supposition that the London merchant has a right to an _advantage_ over his provincial competitor. And, if this advantage has been once lost; if the claim to superiority has once been set aside; if the interests of every country merchant throughout England are now concerned in preventing its restoration; may it not be expected that the clamours of London for the reestablishment of inequality will be balanced by the clamours of the provinces for the maintenance of equality? But, again, from what quarter shall we expect the demand for a Sunday delivery in London? The merchants of London have pledged themselves, by the terms of their late remonstrances, to the principle of Sunday observance. They have availed themselves of the _religious_ argument in their recent agitation. They have urged the sacred right of every Englishman to his seventh day of rest. Is it to be supposed, that they who have resisted, on religious grounds, the slightest possible interference with the completeness of the Sabbatical rest, are prepared now to revenge their disappointment by clamouring for a wide and sweeping desecration? If any examples of so lamentable an inconsistency should unhappily be presented, nothing more can be required, as an exposure of the _new_ agitation, than a reference to the recorded principles of the old. * * * * *