There are, however, things more important to provide, and among them are good guide–books. The rapid growth and extraordinary ramifications of the railway system have created a new branch of literature in the railway time–tables. It is curious to take up an early copy of Bradshaw, consisting only of a few pages, small pocket size, neatly got up, and to contrast it with English Bradshaw of the present time. If such a book be needful in Great Britain, people are even more helpless without it abroad. Bradshaw’s _Continental Guide_, special edition, will always be found to be most useful, both as a preparatory and as an accompanying handbook. It contains a great deal of information, which, however, ought to be taken in a general way, or as the lawyers say, _cum nota_. Perfect reliance cannot always be placed upon the accuracy of its railway and other time–tables and its tariffs. On arriving in a country, it is especially necessary to secure, in addition, one of its latest official railway guides. In France there is published once a week, on the Sundays, _L’Indicateur des Chemins de fer et de la Navigation service officielle_. This costs 60 centimes (6d.), and is a long folio of inconvenient size. As nearly all French travellers purchase a copy when they start on a journey, it doubtless obtains a large sale. The _Livret Chaix Spécial pour France_ (there is another edition for Europe generally) is an official guide of a more convenient size. It is published once a month, book shape duodecimo, costs 1 franc, and has no advertisements, which are scattered through the _Indicateur_ in a tormenting way, though sometimes useful when desired information is thereby discovered, which it might much more readily be if, as in Bradshaw, all the advertisements were thrown systematically to the end of the book. It is, however, troublesome to follow these French guides when divergence from the main lines is desired to be made. The lines are cut up into fragments without the references contained in Bradshaw to other pages where the connecting railways occur, and the neat little well–engraved maps in the _Livret Chaix_ do not bear, as in Bradshaw’s map, the page references where the tables of the railways are to be found. Bradshaw is puzzling enough, but sometimes it is felt that the _Livret Chaix_ is one of those mysteriously–arranged productions ‘which no fella can understand.’ In Italy there is published once a month, costing 1 franc or lira, _L’Indicatore Ufficiale_. This is peculiarly arranged, and requires study; but the Italian lines are so few, compared with those of France, that there is no insuperable difficulty in discovering the time–bills of particular railways. The Italian _Indicatore_ contains various preliminary directions which it is well to read. They are curious, and embrace, _inter alia_, regulations relative to the transport of cats and monkeys.