diplomacy; and no one but an arrant idiot would hesitate to contribute his humble quota towards the exaltation of his race. What right has a Frenchman or any other foreigner to inquire what is going on in the heart of Great Britain? What business is it of his how we cultivate our fields, work our machinery, or clear out the recesses of our mines? Ten to one the fellow is no better than a spy; and if so, it is our bounden duty to mislead him. But patriotism does not belong to one nation only. When the Frenchman or other foreigner beholds an unmistakable Briton, clad, perhaps, in the drab uniform of Manchester, making curious investigations into the value of his crops, and the other sources of his wealth, he most naturally concludes that the child of perfidious Albion is actuated by some sinister motive. The result may be conceived. Figures, more mendacious than any that were ever promulgated by the League, are supplied with amazing liberality to the believing statist. He calculates the product of a province, after the inspection of a single farmyard; commits his observations to the press, and is henceforward quoted as an oracle! It is not from tourists that we can hope to gather accurate information of the state of other countries. A very great amount of mischief and misconception has arisen from an absurd reliance in the accuracy of men who were absolute strangers to the country in which they sojourned, and necessarily exposed to every sort of imposition; and really, with all deference to our brethren of the daily press, we must be allowed to express our conviction that the system of “Commissionership” has, of late years, been carried a great deal too far. Of the talents of the gentlemen so employed we would wish to speak with the utmost respect. They are, almost all of them, clever fellows, sharp, shrewd, and observing; but it is too much to expect that, at a moment’s notice, they can forget the whole previous antecedents of their lives, and discourse dogmatically and with perfect precision upon subjects of which they knew nothing until they were gazetted for the special service.