has sharpened speed in transit, as well as despatch in collection and delivery; and not only is more business than ever done on the canals, but there is much more money made for distribution among shareholders. In order to show the present state and estimation of canal property in England, we have extracted from the _Investor’s Manual_ for August last, a publication issued monthly in connection with the _Economist_ newspaper, a statement of the dividends that canals now pay to their shareholders. Commencing with the least profitable, and gradually ascending, we find that the Gloucester and Berkeley pays 2 per cent. in addition to paying 5 per cent. on its preferential stock; the Sheffield 2½; the Warwick and Birmingham 3; the Lancaster is leased to the London and North-Western Railway, at 3⅝; the Barnsley Canal pays 4; the Macclesfield Canal is leased by the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company, at 4¼; the North Staffordshire Railway Company leases 116 miles of canal, which under the terms of the lease have recently paid 4¼ per cent., it has been as high as 4½. By comparing the canal receipts of the first half of 1865 with those for the corresponding period of 1866, it will be seen that the former were £45,414, the latter £52,488. The Grand Junction pays 4½, in addition to a 6 per cent. preferential capital, on exactly the same amount as the ordinary capital; the Rochdale pays 4¾; the Stratford and Avon is guaranteed 5 per cent. by the Great Western Railway Company; the Peak Forest pays 5; the Regents Canal, with its very large capital, pays 5¼; the Kennet and Avon, 6; the Forth and Clyde, 6½; the Oxford, 8¼; the London and North-Western guarantees the Birmingham Canal 10; the Coventry pays 13; the Stourbridge paid 14½ in 1864, but since then its profits have diminished, nevertheless it pays 11½; the Staffordshire and Worcestershire’s dividend was 21½ per cent. in 1864, but it has now fallen to 15½,—strange to say, the only canal in the whole list of canals that does not pay any dividend is close at hand, the Worcester and Birmingham; its capital is £450,000, the sum per share paid up is £78. 8s., yet the shares must have intrinsic value, as their price is quoted 12 in share lists. The last and the highest is the Liverpool and Leeds, notwithstanding that for about a third of its length it runs parallel to three railways, and for about two-thirds to two; its goods traffic is leased to the London and North-Western, the Lancashire, and the Midland, until 1871 at the rate of 28 per cent. per annum. Of course the profits of the Bridgewater and Elsemere Canals, being private property, cannot be stated, but they are known to be very large.