Major Byng Hall, just named, has published a pleasant work under the title of the _Queen’s Messenger_, recounting some of his own journeys and those of his colleagues. Amongst others was a sledge-journey to St Petersburg in midwinter; when his driver got intoxicated, drove into some sledges coming in the opposite direction, and nearly brought about a perilous scene of scuffle and bloodshed‒all in a dark night amid enormous accumulations of snow. He draws attention to the varied qualifications necessary to any one who fills this office: ‘No man, be he who he may, who holds the post of one of Her Majesty’s foreign Messengers, and who must, for the due performance of the constant and arduous duties intrusted to him, be acquainted with foreign languages, but must obtain much knowledge by the wayside, impracticable if not impossible to the holiday traveller’‒which all becomes essentially serviceable to him in subsequent journeys. A writer in _Blackwood_ pleasantly spoke a few years ago of these ‘foreign Mercuries, who travel throughout Europe at a pace only short of the telegraph. They are wonderful fellows, and must be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, and yet so easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be equal to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad dinners, bad roads, bad servants, and bad smells! How patient must they be here, how peremptory there! How they must train their stomachs to long fastings, and their skin to little soap!’ And now for a brief account of the organisation of this small but remarkable body of men. The Queen’s Messengers of the present day are virtually _employés_ of the Foreign Office; seeing that the conveyance of despatches to and from British ambassadors and representatives at foreign courts is the chief duty intrusted to them. Many a declaration of war has been thus conveyed. About thirty years ago the House of Commons requested and obtained from the Foreign Office an account of the expense connected with the system of Queen’s Messengers. The payments to these gentlemen were found to be made up in an odd way, such as no commercial firm would dream of adopting. There was a small annual salary, whether the Messenger were travelling or not. There were board wages, so much per day when in actual service. There was an allowance for his trouble, anxiety, and fatigue in riding and driving along‒so much a mile if on horseback, so much in a vehicle, so much in a steam-boat. There was a reimbursement for actual outlay for railways, vehicles, horses, postillions, hostlers, road and bridge tolls, passports, loss on exchange of moneys, &c. This reimbursement was in nearly all cases more than he actually paid, owing to the liberal scale on which it was calculated.