In order to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Universal Postal Union a monument was unveiled at Berne in October 1910. The sculptor is M. René de Saint Marceaux of Paris. On a ledge of a rock whose broad base is solidly embedded in the earth, and from the foot of which flows a small spring, is seated a woman whose delicate hand rests on the escutcheon of the town of Berne. On the summit of the rock a bank of clouds, which seems to glide in space, bears up a sphere round which float five female figures, symbols of the five continents of the world. The figures are passing a letter from hand to hand, illustrating the activity of the universal post. Always moving, regardless of obstruction or frontiers, it carries to the utmost limits of the world the messages of joy or mourning which are entrusted to its care. The monument is an additional ornament to the beautiful city of Berne: it is also an abiding memory of the success of the greatest of modern efforts to bring under one banner all the nations of the earth. CHAPTER XVII CONCERNING FOREIGN POST OFFICES The whole tendency of the postal system in Europe and America is towards uniformity. The Postal Union is largely responsible for this, while the necessities of trade and foreign travel have brought about a simplification of methods and rates everywhere. Still, wherever there are differences of race and nationality even identical systems will be worked differently, and anybody who has travelled in Europe and America is forced at every turn to compare, favourably or unfavourably as the case may be, the foreign Post Office with the one which he is accustomed to at home. Perhaps the chief differences that an Englishman notes in several European countries are the more leisurely ways of the official: this individual does not understand the necessity for speeding up, and he looks upon the man who is in a hurry as simply a mad Englishman. The leading features of our own postal system are to be found in most countries: the postal service, the telegraph, and the telephone are usually linked together, and the difference is the human factor. The experiences of all travellers differ for this very reason. Some return home with really heartrending accounts of their experiences with the foreign Post Offices, with tales of red tape and “the insolence of office” which are not to be matched with the complaints of our people against their own Post Office. Many of these complaints of travellers arise obviously out of difficulties with the language, and the absurd irritation of the average Britisher at ways and methods of doing things which do not correspond with his idea of good business. Other travellers return with glowing accounts of the superiority of foreign methods, of the courtesy which has been shown to them by officials, and of the many conveniences they have found abroad to which this country is still a stranger.