I called at the Department of Information, and when I was introduced I realized that I was in the presence of one of the world's greatest teachers. She gave me a warm handshake and said, "I have been expecting you, and now that you are here, I will take pleasure in showing you the workings of the department over which I have the honor to preside. There are no Government or private detective agencies in our country, but a constant watch is kept on all public officials as well as private violators of the law, by the Government placing for sale in every postoffice and every military station and every prison Government envelopes with fifty-cent stamps on them, and any person interfering in the sending or tampering with said letters is punished by imprisonment for five years at hard labor. Steel boxes with a slit in the lid to receive the letters were placed in every postoffice, military station and prison, and could not be opened except by a commissioner from the Department of Information. Any person could buy one, for there was a printed address on them, and send it to the President, who has at the present time three hundred secretaries (young ladies chosen from the orphan home) to read the letters, answer them and send a copy to the Minister of Justice who has them Classified, and acting on the information sends orders out to bring the guilty parties to justice, and as punishment is meted out only to the bribetakers, for it is only acting according to the mandates of human nature for a relative or friend to try to get a person out of trouble to offer a bribe, carried with it no penalty, but it left the bribetaker at the mercy of the other party, and in consequence of adopting this system very few public officials proved untrue, and crime has greatly diminished. Our department has charge of all mail matter and telegraph, telepost and telephone lines and wireless stations and all newspaper books and magazine publications, and we edit the National Gazette; besides we have charge of all Government scientific research parties, and if you will call again to-morrow I think I will be able to introduce you to the Chief Engineer who stands very high in his profession, and who has, by placing an Astronomical Observatory on the summit of Mount Everest, attracted the attention of the civilized world." CHAPTER VI. DEPARTMENT OF MINES. I called at the appointed time and was introduced to the Chief Engineer, who invited me to accompany him on an inspection tour, to which I gladly assented, and, after a week's pleasant travel by rail, we arrived at the station on the southwestern slope of Mount Everest at an elevation of twelve thousand feet above the sea. We had arrived in the evening and enjoyed a good night's rest, and, eating a hearty breakfast, we walked out to take observations of the locality, before taking our trip to the summit, and the Chief told me of the way by which they finally erected an observatory on the highest mountain of the earth.