While the average number of letters to each person in the United Kingdom in 1875 was thirty-one, it was as high as thirty-five in England and Wales, and as low as thirteen in Ireland. Scotland occupies the happy medium between the two, shewing an average exactly double that of Ireland, and about twenty-five per cent. below that of England and Wales. It may be doubted, however, whether purely social and domestic correspondence by letter is less frequently indulged in by the Scotch people than by the English; and probably if London, where there is quite an abnormal amount of correspondence, were excluded from the calculation, Scotland would be found to be very nearly on a level with England. It is a striking and gratifying fact that only a mere fraction of the total number of letters posted fail to reach their destination. People often grumble at the bore of letter-writing, but seldom think of the boon they enjoy in the penny post. To write, address, and post a letter--and this is all the sender is required to do--is a mere trifle, compared with the labour of the Post-office in earning the 'nimble penny,' which is affixed to the letter in the shape of the 'Queen's Head.' Think of what has to be done for a letter posted, say, in the suburbs of London, and addressed to some remote village in the north of England or in Scotland. Perhaps it has been posted over-night, in which case the letter-carrier will be busy collecting and conveying it to the sub-district office some hours before moderately early people are thinking of getting up. From the Sub, it will be conveyed to the Head District Office, there to be stamped, sorted, and despatched to St Martin's-le-Grand. Here, in company with many thousands of others which have arrived in the same way, it will probably be manipulated as many as half-a-dozen times, in the different processes of facing, dividing, sorting, and so on, before it reaches the stage of being tied up in a bundle with a hundred or more of its fellows addressed to the same town or district, and despatched on what may probably be only the initial stage of its journey. If a night letter, Fate may decree that it should pass under the scrutinising glance of that sleepless official, the travelling sorter; in which case the bag, with its seal hardly 'set' as yet, will be ruthlessly torn open, and the bundles dispersed to the four corners of the railway sorting tender. Here is a miniature post-office, with pigeon-holes, bags, and bundles innumerable; whose officials, in a desperate effort to keep ahead of the train, wait not for the shrill whistle of the guard or the first puff of the engine to commence their hard night's work. There are letters, letters everywhere, and not a moment to lose. There may be a bag to sort and drop before the train has accomplished the first dozen miles of its journey. Our letter is amongst the heap lying ready to be operated upon; it will be got ready by-and-by, and towards the gray of