Every Messenger, it was found, received about four hundred a year for himself, and six hundred for travel-outlay. Some of the journeys, we learn from the parliamentary paper, were enormously expensive; railways on the continent were at that time comparatively few, and the old system of posting and horse-riding had still to be kept up over very long distances. One single journey from London to Frankfurt was set down at L.46; to Berlin, L.70; to Turin, L.83; to Vienna, L.86; to Madrid, L.123; to Rome, L.143; to Naples, L.162. The giant items were: London to St Petersburg _viâ_ Berlin (1964 miles), L.166; and London to Constantinople _viâ_ Vienna (2192 miles), L.269. It is probable that at that time there was scarcely any rail beyond Vienna, whatever may have been the case on this side; and that the Messenger to Constantinople had to travel by relays of horses or of post vehicles more than eleven hundred miles of his journey. The outward journey alone is mentioned in each instance; the homeward was probably about equal to it in cost. One Messenger, Mr Crotch, went from Calais to Paris (carrying despatches which had come from London _viâ_ Dover) sixteen times in the year, and sixteen times in the reverse direction; receiving about L.25 per journey for expenses and emoluments. In 1868 the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs resolved that the time had come for remodelling the system. In a circular addressed to all British representatives abroad, he pointed out numerous ways in which the number of despatches sent might be reduced, and the expense lessened still more considerably. The post and the electric telegraph might safely be intrusted, under the improved modern arrangements, with many of the questions, answers, and instructions hitherto conveyed by Queen’s Messengers. It was also pointed out that, when telegrams were sent, an unnecessary verbiage was indulged in, tending to increase the cost without in any way conducing to the intelligibility of the message. The employment of cipher-writing[A] would be available by post and by telegraph as well as by Messenger, so long as the key to the cipher is known only to the Foreign Office.