1793. 1851. Population 3,939,325 24,267,488 Imports £6,739,130 £38,723,545 Exports £5,675,869 £32,367,000 Tonnage 520,704 3,535,451 Lighthouses, beacons, and lightships 7 373 Cost of their maintenance £2,600 £115,000 Revenue £1,230,000 £9,516,000 National expenditure £1,637,000 £8,555,000 Post offices 209 21,551 Post roads (miles) 5,642 178,670 Revenue of Post-office £22,800 £1,207,000 Expenses of Post-office £15,650 £1,130,000 Mileage of mails ---- 46,541,423 Canals (miles) 0 5,000 Railways (miles) 0 10,287 Electric telegraph (miles) 0 15,000 Public libraries (volumes) 75,000 2,201,623 School libraries (volumes) 0 2,000,000 If they were not founded on the most incontestable statistical data, the results assigned to the above table would appear to belong to fable rather than history. In an interval of little more than half a century it appears that this extraordinary people have increased above 500 per cent. in numbers; their national revenue has augmented nearly 700 per cent., while their public expenditure has increased little more than 400 per cent. The prodigious extension of their commerce is indicated by an increase of nearly 500 per cent. in their imports and exports and 600 per cent. in their shipping. The increased activity of their internal communications is expounded by the number of their post offices, which has been increased more than a hundred-fold, the extent of their post roads, which has been increased thirty-six-fold, and the cost of their post-office, which has been augmented in a seventy-two-fold ratio. The augmentation of their machinery of public instruction is indicated by the extent of their public libraries, which have increased in a thirty-two-fold ratio, and by the creation of school libraries, amounting to 2,000,000 volumes. They have completed a system of canal navigation, which, placed in a continuous line, would extend from London to Calcutta, and a system of railways which, continuously extended, would stretch from London to Van Diemen's Land, and have provided locomotive machinery by which that distance would be travelled over in three weeks, at the cost of 1-1/2d. per mile. They have