Many of us, for instance, have revelled in the privileges offered to the tourist in Switzerland. There is scarcely anything you cannot send by post in Switzerland, from a piece of card to a well-filled travelling trunk or a sack of potatoes. But then we must remember that the chief industry of Switzerland is tourists, and she certainly caters for these in a most exemplary manner. There is, perhaps, more rigidity in applying postal regulations on the Continent than in this country. Especially is this the case in Germany, where the whole nation understands discipline. What we sneer at as red tape the German regards as a necessary part of the organisation of his empire. But, broadly speaking, the Continental Post Office is closely allied to our own in its methods, and where it differs is in its adaptation to local habits and peculiarities. There is a type of English traveller who habitually regards the foreigner as a person incapable of the higher civilisation to be found in the British Isles. We can have no sympathy with him, and the British Post Office has learnt much and is learning much from the Post Offices of other countries. The German Post Office is, for instance, one of the best-organised systems in the world. The German people owe this state of things largely to the ability and energy of Dr. Von Stephan, who was mainly instrumental in establishing the Postal Union. The post offices of the German Empire are among the finest modern buildings in Europe. Many were built under the direction of Dr. Von Stephan, and they are an example to the British Post Office of how such buildings should be erected. It was a fixed principle with Dr. Von Stephan, that when any special type of architecture distinguished any particular town the architecture of the post office should faithfully reflect it. As a consequence the offices which have been erected since 1870 reveal great diversities of style, and are in striking contrast to the monotony characteristic of our English post offices. We may be quite sure that the German Postmaster-General would never have sanctioned the erection in a quaint old English town, full of Tudor and Jacobean architecture, of a “standard post office.” Yet this enormity is constantly being perpetrated in some of our old English towns and villages, and the consequence is that the beauty and picturesqueness of the place are seriously damaged. The post office swears at the rest of the buildings, and if the buildings had only a voice I am quite sure they would swear at the post office. Then Germany was for years in advance of Great Britain in the provision of underground cables for telegraphic purposes. Before even a start in this direction had been made by the British Post Office over 220 cities and towns of the German Empire had secured telegraphic communications in spite of storms, and above all in spite of the accidents of war.