Of incoming mails letters stand inevitably first. They put a man at home for a couple of hours. But so does his local newspaper. Perusing that, he is back at the old matutinal habit of picking at the news over his eggs-and-coffee, racing against the suburban business-train. Intimate associations hang about the reading of the local sheet--domestic and parochial associations almost as powerful as are brought to him by letters. Relatives at home, did they know this fully, would despatch newspapers with a stricter regularity. And what shall be said of parcels from home? The boarding-school home-hamper is at last superseded. No son away at grammar-school ever pursued his voyage of discovery through tarts, cakes and preserves, sweets, pies and fruit, with the intensity of gloating expectation in which a man on Gallipoli discloses the contents of his "parcel": "'Struth! a noo pipe, Bill!--an' some er the ole terbaccer. Blimey! cigars, too! 'Ave one, before the crowd smells 'em. D----d if there ain't choclut! look 'ere! An' 'ere's some er the dinkum coc'nut ice the tart uster make. Hullo! more socks! Never mind: winter's comin'.--'Ere! 'ow er yer orf fer socks, cobber? Take these--bonzer 'and-knitted. Sling them issue-things inter the sea.... I'm b----d!--soap fer the voy'ge 'ome.... 'Angkerch'fs!--orl right when the ---- blizzerds come, an' a chap's snifflin' fer a ----in' week on end.... Writin' paper!--well, that's the straight ---- tip! The ----s er bin puttin' it in me letters lately, too. Well, I'll write ter night, on the stren'th of it.... Gawd! 'ere's a shavin'-stick!--'andy, that; I wuz clean run out--usin' carbolic soap, ---- it!... Aw, that's a dinkum ---- parcel, that is!" "Bonzer tarts" (and others) may infer that a parcel is as a gift from the gods, and carries more than "its intrinsic worth." Such treasures as the 'and-knitted socks and coc'nut ice bring home rather more near than it ever comes to the man who has no part in the parcel mail. Mails deserve all the organised care the War-Office can bestow; they make for efficiency.