Wonderful building, the new General Post Office, opened last year, nearly opposite. They say the Government has got something very like a white elephant in that vast pile. A great deal too big for present needs, or, indeed, for any possible extension of Post Office business. Here’s the “Lord Wellington.” What’s that the yard-porter says?--He says “they don’t call it nothin’ but the ‘Vellington’ now.”--Smart, turn-out, is it not, with its yellow wheels and body to match? You can tell Sherman’s coaches anywhere by that colouring. What a d----d nuisance those boys are, pestering one to buy things one doesn’t want! No; be off with you, we don’t want any braces or pocket looking-glasses, nor the “Life and Portrait of His Late Majesty,” nor any “Sure Cure for Fleas”--use it on yourselves, you dirty-looking devils! [Illustration: THE “QUEEN’S HOTEL” AND GENERAL POST OFFICE. _After T. Allom._ ] Thank goodness! we’re off, and the sooner we’re out of this traffic and off the stones at Kingsland Turnpike the better. These paved streets are so noisy, one can scarcely hear oneself talk, and the rattling sends a jar up one’s spine. How London grows! we shall soon see the houses stretching past Kingsland and swallowing up the country lanes of Dalston and Stoke Newington. Hal-lo! That was a near shave. Confound those brewers’ drays; Shoreditch is always full of ’em; might have sent us slap over. Why don’t you keep your eyes open, fool? The drayman offers to fight us all, one after the other, with one hand tied behind his back, for sixpence a head, money down; but though we have some of “the Fancy” aboard, the “Wellington” can’t stop for a mill in the middle of Shoreditch High Street. Now at last we’re fairly in the country. If you look back you’ll be able to see St. Paul’s. This is Stamford Hill, where the rich City indigo and East and West India merchants live. Warm men, all of them. There, ahead of us, on the right, goes the river Lea: as pretty fishing there as you’d find even in the famous trout streams of Hampshire. What a quaint, quiet rural place this is at Tottenham! And Edmonton, with its tea-gardens; why, London might be fifty miles away!