A mere layman, unversed in electrical science and technical terms, finds it extremely difficult to understand, except in the broadest outlines, the engineering work of the Post Office. The technicalities of the telegraph and the telephone are very difficult to explain, without the use of scientific terms. We sympathise with the lady who was being told by a member of the Ordnance Survey how marvellously accurate were the results achieved by his Department. He spoke with enthusiasm, and told her how they started with a measured base several miles in length on Salisbury Plain, how they triangulated over the whole of England and Scotland, and finally had a similar base in Ireland. They then compared the actual length of that base with the length it should have had according to their calculations, and in a most impressive manner the Ordnance Survey man informed his companion that there was found a difference between them of nine inches. The lady had listened with intentness, and with that appearance of understanding which is assumed so much more convincingly by a woman than by a man. “And did they have to do it all over again?” was the question she put to the engineering enthusiast! If we are conducted through the instrument rooms of the General Post Office, we want to ask heaps of questions, probably, but we are like folk who have learnt enough of a foreign language to ask a question but not enough to understand the answer. An engineer's work is not, however, wholly technical. In planning and organising telegraph or telephone routes many varied duties fall to his lot. What is called “wayleave getting” has in the past provided him with abundance of opportunities to show his skill in diplomacy. This particular work is the obtaining permission from owners of property and local authorities for telegraph lines and poles to be erected. When a member of the British public thinks the Government require something from him he may feel flattered, but he certainly hardens his heart and makes an effort to take advantage of the needs of the State. I will give an instance of the sort of reception an engineer experiences when he is wayleave getting. A jobbing carpenter and coffin maker was approached with the idea of permitting a telegraph pole to be erected in his back garden. He did not particularly object to the pole, but he put up his back immediately when hearing of the sum offered by the Post Office. The engineer was eloquent about the matter being for the public good, but the man was inexorable. It was pointed out to him further that the Department paid a guinea for each of its poles, and that to give what the man demanded would be ruinous, especially as the telegraph branch was making no profit. The man replied, “Then all I can say is you look damned well on a concern as don't pay.”