If the walls of London—the bill-stickers’ chosen haunt—could suddenly find a voice to tell their own history, we might have a few curious illustrations of the manners and customs—the fashions, fancies, and popular idols—of the English during the last half century,—from the days when a three feet blue bill was thought large enough to tell where Bonaparte’s victories might be read about, to the advent acres of flaring paper and print which announce a Bal Masque or a new Haymarket Comedy. One of the most startling contrasts of such a confession would refer to the announcements about means of locomotion. It is not very long ago that “The Highflyer,” “The Tally-ho,” the Brighton “Age,” and the Shrewsbury “Wonder” boasted, in all the glory of red letters, their wonder-feat speed of ten miles an hour,—“York in one day;” “Manchester in twenty-four hours;” and so on. The same wall now tells the passer-by a different tale, for we have Excursion Trains to all sorts of pleasant places at all sorts of low fares. “Twelve Hours to Paris” is the burden of one placard, whilst another shows how “Cologne on the Rhine” may be reached in twenty-four. Nor is this marvellous change in speed—this real economy of life—the only variation from old modes; for the cost in money of a journey has diminished with its cost of time. The cash which a few years ago was required to go to York, will now take the tourist to Cologne. The Minster of the one city is now, therefore, rivalled as a point for sight-seers by the Dom-Kirche of the other. When the South Eastern Railway Company offers to take the traveller, who will pay them about three pounds at London Bridge one night, and place him by the next evening on the banks of the Rhine,—the excellent tendency is, that the summer holiday folks will extend their notions of an excursion beyond the Channel.