At one time the business of post-offices became served almost entirely by women. This was due not to any Governmental delusions upon the score of their merits, but was owing entirely to a cheeseparing economy which employed inferior wits at a lower wage than would have been acceptable to men. Even such extremely busy offices as those of Ludgate Circus and Lombard Street were filled with women, who elbowed men from their stools, and became so ‘flurried’ in the press of business that they frequently gave either too much change or too little over the counter, or committed such vagaries as giving ten shillings’ worth of stamps for half-a-crown; or were incapable of weighing letters and parcels properly, so that the Post-office revenues were increased by packages being more than sufficiently stamped, or else were augmented by the fines levied upon addressees in cases where their inherent inability to juggle with figures had caused inadequate prepayment. Indeed, the woman who can reason from cause to effect, or can employ the multiplication-table accurately (except under circumstances in which time is no object) is as much a ‘sport’--as Professor Huxley might say--as a white raven or a cat born with six legs. The storm of indignation was so great over these unbusinesslike doings, that even that elephantine creature--the Postmaster-General--was moved,[4] and the chiefest of the City post-offices are served now by men. But the pert miss of the suburban post-office, and the establishments just beyond the City, is still very much in evidence. It is she who, with a crass stupidity almost beyond belief, misreads the telegrams handed in, and despatches the most extraordinary and extravagant messages that bear no sort of resemblance to their original draughts, and it is her sister at the other end of the wire who cannot interpret the dot and dash of the Morse system aright, and so further complicates affairs. The marvels and conveniency of telegraphy have been praised, and not beyond their due, but the other side of the medal has to be shown in the extraordinary and disquieting ‘blunders,’ perpetrated chiefly by female telegraphists, which spread dismay and consternation through such vital substitutions as ‘father is dead,’ for the original message of ‘father is bad’; ‘all going well: a little fire at 7 o’clock this morning,’ in which ‘fire’ is transmitted instead of ‘girl’; and the appalling error ‘Come at once: mother much _diseased_,’ in which the word ‘diseased’ usurps the place of ‘distressed.’