testator's genuine signature, both attested by the same witnesses, and both dated-or shortly to be dated on the same day; the only difference between them being the trifling one, that the will which was between the leaves of the old Prayerbook was in favour of Lucy Wedlake, while that which remained in Mr Blackford's possession constituted him the sole legatee. The witnesses, having merely signed their names to two documents of very similar appearance on two different occasions, would be quite unable to say which they had last attested, for they knew nothing of the contents of either. So far, so good. What was to be the next step? That, as Mr Blackford perceived, was a matter requiring very careful consideration. BIG UNDERTAKINGS. Nothing seems too big for the present age, for we are continually being startled with something new and something immense, which has either been just completed, or is about to be carried out, or, at anyrate, is projected or proposed. Within the last few weeks three new schemes have been either commenced or suggested in Switzerland, Greece, and Canada. The first-named scheme in Switzerland is proposed by an Italian engineer named Agudio, of Milan, for making a way through the Simplon, which he declares he can do by a tunnel of only six thousand and fifty metres, the traction and haulage being done by hydraulic power. He says that by this means from three to four thousand tons of goods could be safely transported without any breaking-up or trans-shipment of trains; while the cost of the whole proceeding would be only twenty-eight millions of francs. Number Two project consists of the bold but practical scheme of draining the Lake of Copaïs, near Thebes, in Boeotia, by which an area of a hundred square miles will be added to the territory of Greece. The acquiring of so very large a piece of land, which may be put to useful purposes, though undoubtedly one of vast importance, is not the only object intended to be effected by the proposal-the other being the destruction of one of the greatest fever-producing places in the country by reason of the pestilential malaria always arising from the waters of this lake. This alone would be an unspeakable blessing to the country round, and money should be readily forthcoming for the carrying out of so beneficial an undertaking. The rivers now flowing into the lake would be employed for irrigation and other purposes of practical utility. under which the railway will be carried, presents no very apparent difficulties. The depth of water is on the island side thirty-six feet; and ten feet six inches on the New Brunswick side; and about eighty feet in the middle. The tunnel will be eighteen feet in diameter, and will be made of chilled white cast-iron,' in sections, these latter being bolted together with inside flanges, exactly in the same way in which the little tunnel for foot-passengers under the Thames, and known as the Tower Subway,' was constructed some years ago. The cost of this undertaking is estimated at about one million sterling. It has been well considered and highly commended, and will be brought before the Canadian parliament very speedily, when the scheme will no doubt be fully sanctioned, as it has many warm supporters in the Legislative Assembly. Canada will therefore have her 'submarine railway' long before her illustrious 'mother' on this side the Atlantic. AUTUMN DAYS. A WEALTH of beauty meets my eye- My happy sight. The rich-robed trees, the ripening corn, And year's desire. Sweet in the air are joyous sounds Of bird and bee and running brook; The mellow splendour softly falls On morning mists and evening dews, O dreaming clouds, with silver fringed! I love the woods, the changing woods, The soul of Beauty haunts the heavens, To life gives birth. But Death rides past upon the gale, And blows the rustling golden leaves; Number Three project proposes to connect Prince Edward Island with the Canadian mainland by means of a submarine railway tunnel, by which all communication can be kept open with the inhabitants of the island during the winter, a circumstance at present almost impossible, from the terribly rigorous nature of the winter climate of Canada; but Canada is bound legally to do everything that is possible to keep open a communication with this island at all times and by all means, for the accommodation and assistance of the hundred and twenty-five thousand persons who constitute the present population. The distance of the island is only six miles and a Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paterhalf, and the bed of the Northumberland Straits, noster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH Farewell! O Autumn days-farewell! All Rights Reserved. WILLIAM COWAN. CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART Fifth Series ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832 No. 143.-VOL. III. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1886. A YEAR'S POSTAL WORK. GOVERNMENT Blue-books, to an ordinary reader, are tedious and uninteresting enough; but even to the most ordinary of readers, the annual Report of the Postmaster-general is at once curious and interesting. Baron von Liebig once affirmed that the commercial prosperity of a country was to be gauged by the sale of chemicals. This may or may not be true; but we think the growth of the postal system in all its multifarious branches-the amount of the deposits in the savings-banks; the purchase of annuities and life policies; the amount of money transmitted by means of postal orders; the correspondence, growing by leaps and bounds, with all parts of the globe; the countless telegramsthose flashing messengers of joy and despair, good and ill-and last, but by no means least, the thousands of millions of letters annually delivered in the United Kingdom alone-all these are a sure index, not only of the commercial growth and prosperity of the nation, but also of the spread of education. A brief résumé of the Postmaster-general's Report for the year ending March 31, 1886, may prove interesting to our readers. The number of letters delivered in the United Kingdom alone reaches the astounding total of 1,403,547,900, this being an increase of 3-2 per cent., and giving an average to each person of 38.6. If we add to this the post-cards, bookpackets, circulars, newspapers, and parcels transmitted by the postal authorities, we have a grand total of 2,091,183,822, an increase of 4.2 per cent.; and an average to each person of 57.5. Of this total, 84 per cent. were delivered in England and Wales (27.4 per cent. being delivered in the London postal district alone), 96 per cent. in Scotland, and 64 per cent. in Ireland. It will be at once seen that the necessary staff for the successful carrying out of such a colossal undertaking must be on a like scale; and this is the case, the total number of officers on the permanent staff being about 51,500, showing an increase PRICE 1d. during the past year of 3310. Of this small army 3456 are women. In addition to these there are, it is estimated, about 45,000 persons of private occupations, who are employed to assist in carrying on the operations of the department during a portion of the day. An increase of business brings a decrease in charge, this again inducing a fresh increase; thus, it has become possible to reduce the rate of postage on letters exceeding twelve ounces in weight, from one penny per ounce to a halfpenny per two ounces; a letter thus weighing fifteen ounces formerly cost 1s. 3d., whereas it can now be sent for 5d. The natural result is a large increase in the number of such letters. We now come to the latest branch from the parent stem-the parcel post. It is highly satisfactory to learn that there has been an increase in the parcels carried of about three and a half millions, giving an increase in money of £84,000. In England and Wales, 22,198,000 parcels were despatched; in Scotland, 2,690,000 ; and in Ireland, 1,527,000. The list of provinces and countries to which parcels can be sent has also been enlarged. We learn that the first despatch of foreign and colonial parcels took place on the 1st of July 1885; and by the 1st of January 1886, arrangements had been completed for the interchange of parcels with twenty-seven different countries. The total number despatched up to the 31st of March was 71,900, and the number received, 40,800. The largest business was transacted with Germany, with which country in six months 46,000 parcels were exchanged. shows a business at the rate of 36,000 parcels in the six months; and the smallest business recorded is one parcel in three months for the island of Tortola. India An amusing article might very well be written on postal curiosities, and the authorities might make a most interesting museum of the various articles committed to their care. This museum, we venture to suggest to the Postmaster-general, might be thrown open to the inspection of the public at a small fee, and might help to swell the notice it one Monday, it lay till the following Monday. Another charge was more serious. A letter containing a cheque for a considerable sum of money and duly posted was missing; the postal authorities were accused of the theft. The carrier's honesty vindicated in so strange a manner, that we quote the Report itself for authority. It was ultimately found amongst the straw of a kennel, torn into fragments, but no pieces missing. The postman had duly delivered the letter, having, at the request of the addressee, pushed it with others under the frontdoor; and some puppies had carried it to the kennel and torn it.' Moral-Do not be quick to accuse, lest thereby you condemn the innocent; and be careful to have a proper letter-box. receipts of the department. We read that at the commencement of the parcel post with Belgium, several cages of live birds were received; but the despatch of live birds being contraband, a veto was put upon the practice. On other occasions, a live pigeon, a live fowl, and no fewer than a hun-charge was, however, cleared up, and the letterdred and fifty live frogs, passed through the postal hands; while such unpleasant, not to say aggressive, passengers as wild bees and snakes were transmitted in numbers apparently 'too numerous to mention.' In all these cases the contents of the parcels were detected and retained; but it is fair to assume that many other packages containing other curiosities passed through unchallenged. Among the contents of parcels received in the Returned Letter Office in Dublin, having been stopped as contraband, were two hens, eight mice, and two hedgehogs. One of the hens was an invalid, and in a bad state of health; and was addressed to a veterinary surgeon in London, whom, doubtless, she wished to consult. Every possible care was taken of the interesting invalid, but all efforts were unavailing ;-she died in the office! Let us turn to the brighter side of the picture-the remaining hen, as also the mice and hedgehogs, were delivered to their owners 'safe and sound in wind and limb.' Possibly the moribund fowl was sent to the 'Dead Letter' Office. A few amusing incidents which have occurred in the Returned Letter Office are given in the Report. They are so curious and few, that they but serve to whet our appetite. The number of returned letters, &c., received in the office was 12,822,067, an increase of 47 per cent. over the previous year. Of this number, 441,765 were hopelessly unreturnable, as many as 26,928 being posted without any address, and of the latter number, 1620 contained in cash and cheques the astonishing amount of £3733, 178. 5d. This reveals a carelessness which is as extraordinary as it is culpable. Should any letter or package go astray, the department is invariably blamed, and the honesty of the lettercarriers impugned; but the following instance shows where the blame should sometimes be laid. 'Complaint was made last year at Liverpool that a packet containing a bottle of wine and a box of figs had been duly posted, but not delivered. Upon further inquiry, the sender ascertained that the person to whom the packet was intrusted to post, had eaten the figs and drunk the wine.' Again, the department was blamed because a certain letter addressed to 'Mrs Jones, Newmarket, near Blyth,' did not reach its destination. It appeared, however, that no less than twenty-nine ladies residing at that place, owned that interesting but by no means uncommon name, and the postal authorities were unable to decide which was the Mrs Jones. Another letter was received in Glasgow addressed as follows: 'Mrs miles from where the cattle is sold on the Duke of Buccleugh's ground.' 3 Two letters were alleged to be missing in Scotland. Inquiry was made at the address of the first letter, which, being registered, was undoubtedly delivered; when, after half an hour's search, it was discovered amongst an accumulation of twelve months' letters heaped upon a desk. The second letter was put into the box at the correct address; this box was cleared by a charwoman every Monday. Having failed to Perhaps, to the political economist, the most interesting portion of the Report is that which deals with the Post-office Savings-bank. It is highly satisfactory to learn that the business of this department shows a considerable increase during the year. The total amount due to depositors on the 31st of December was £47,697,838, an increase of £2,924,065 over the previous year. In addition to this, the balance of government stock held by depositors at the close of the year was £2,452,252; making the total amount due to depositors £50,150,090, this being distributed over 3,535,650 separate accounts. The greatest number of deposits made in one day was 48,568, on the 31st of January, amounting to £99,913; but the largest amount deposited in one day was on the 1st of January, and amounted to £124,843. The greatest number of withdrawals in one day, 20,835, amounting to £60,643, was on the 224 of December; but the largest amount, £66,981, was withdrawn on the 16th of December. The average amount of each deposit was £2, 6s. 5d.; of each withdrawal, £5, 15s. 10d. The number of accounts remaining open at the end of the year is thus divided : Av. balance Number. Prop. to Pop. due to each depositor. £ s. d. The life-insurance business shows an increase during the year of 109 in number, and of £13,003 in amount. The inland money-order business continues to diminish; this is owing to the introduction of postal orders, which took place in 1880, since which date the annual number issued has been decreased by about six millions. On the other hand, with the colonies, and in both directions with foreign countries, there has been a 'satisfactory increase.' The Report recommends the use of money orders in preference to postal orders, in spite of their involving more trouble, on the ground of the greater security. It appears there is a frequent or almost universal omission on the part of the public to take so ordinary a precaution as to fill in the name of the person to whom the order is payable, and the office at which it should be cashed.' It goes on to add that a proposal to reduce the rates will shortly be under consideration. The orders issued in India and the colonies show an increase of 29,000 in number, amounting to £18,000; Journal while the increase in the orders issued on board Her Majesty's ships is as many as 67,900, or, in cash, £43,400. The telegraph department's figures do not so readily lend themselves to comparison, as during the last six months the sixpenny rate has been in force. Comparing the last six months with the corresponding period in the year 1884-85, we have an increase of 48 per cent., and a decrease of £40,233 in the revenue; but against this loss must be placed the sum of £18,214 received on account of the large additional number of abbreviated telegraph addresses; this reduces the loss caused by the reduced rate to £22,019. The increase in the number of local messages in London alone was no less than 74 per cent. The twenty-seven telephone exchanges have now 1255 subscribers; and since the 1st of April 1883 we are told that some 1400 miles of line have been laid, for which some 29,000 miles of wire and £64,000 worth of red fir poles from Norway have been used. The pneumatic-tube system, too, is coming still more into use, and a rate of speed has been attained varying between seventeen and thirty-four miles an hour according to circumstance. The gross revenue for the year was £10,278,865; while the gross expenditure was £7,569,983; the net revenue, therefore, was £2,708,882, being an increase of £62,584 on the previous year. New post-offices have been opened in 371 places in the United Kingdom, and about 860 letter-boxes been added. Not only have Her Majesty's lieges had their letters carried and their parcels delivered with speed and almost unfailing accuracy, but, after all expenses have been deducted, the postal arrangements have been so satisfactorily carried out, that the public purse has been swelled by a profit of over £2,700,000. IN ALL SHADES. CHAPTER XLVII. WHEN Mr Dupuy heard from his daughter's own lips the news of her engagement to Harry Noel, his wrath at first was absolutely unbounded; he stormed about the house, and raved and gesticulated. He refused ever to see Harry Noel again, or to admit of any proffered explanation, or to suffer Nora to attempt the defence of her own conduct. He was sure no defence was possible, and he wasn't going to listen to one either, whether or not. He even proposed to kick Harry out of doors forthwith for having thus taken advantage in the most abominable manner of his very peculiar and unusual circumstances. Whatever came, he would never dream of allowing Nora to marry such an extremely ungentlemanly and mean-spirited fellow. But Mr Dupuy didn't sufficiently calculate upon the fact that in this matter he had another Dupuy to deal with, and that that other Dupuy had the indomitable family will quite as strongly developed within her as he himself had. Nora stuck bravely to her point with the utmost resolution. As long as she was not yet of age, she said, she would obey her father in all reasonable matters; but as soon as she was twenty-one, Orange Grove or no Orange Grove, she would marry Harry Noel outright, so that was the end of it; and having delivered herself squarely of this profound determination, she said not a word more upon the subject, but left events to work out their own course in their own proper and natural fashion. Now, Mr Dupuy was an obstinate man; but his obstinacy was of that vehement and demonstrative kind which grows fiercer and fiercer the more you say to it, but wears itself out, of pure inanition, when resolutely met by a firm and passive silent opposition. Though she was no psychologist, Nora had hit quite unconsciously and spontaneously upon this best possible line of action. She never attempted to contradict or gainsay her father, whenever he spoke to her angrily, in one of his passionate outbursts, against Harry Noel; but she went her own way, quietly and unobtrusively, taking it for granted always, in a thousand little undemonstrative ways, that it was her obvious future rôle in life to marry at last her chosen lover. And as water by continual dropping wears a hole finally in the hardest stone, so Nora by constant quiet side-hints made her father gradually understand that she would really have Harry Noel for a husband, and no other. Bit by bit, Mr Dupuy gave way, sullenly and grudgingly, convinced in his own mind that the world was being rapidly turned topsy-turvy, and that it was no use for a plain, solid, straightforward old gentleman any longer to presume single-handed upon stemming the ever-increasing flood of revolutionary levelling sentiment. was some solace to his soul, as he yielded slowly inch by inch, to think that if for once in his life he had had to yield, it was at least to a born Dupuy, and not to any pulpy, weak-minded outsider whatever. It So in the end, before the steamer was ready to sail, he had been brought, not indeed to give his consent to Nora's marriage-for that was more than any one could reasonably have expected from a man of his character-but to recognise it somehow in an unofficial dogged fashion as quite inevitable. After all, the fellow was heir to a baronetcy, which is always an eminently respectable position; and his daughter in the end would be Lady Noel; and everybody said the of the riot; and over in England-well, over young man had behaved admirably on the night in England it's positively incredible how little right and proper feeling people have got upon these important racial matters. I will 'But one thing I will not permit,' Mr Dupuy "Whether you marry said with decisive curtness. this person Noel, Nora, or whether you don't a question on which it seems, in this new-fangled father's feelings are not to be consulted-you order of things that's coming up nowadays, a shall not marry him here in Trinidad. not allow the grand old name and fame of the fighting Dupuys of Orange Grove to be dragged through the mud with any young man whatsoever, in this island. If you want to marry the man Noel, miss, you shall marry him in England, where nobody on earth will know anything at all about it.' Certainly, papa,' Nora answered most demurely. Mr Noel would naturally prefer the wedding to take place in London, where his own family and friends could all be present; and besides, of course there wouldn't be time to get one's things ready either, before we leave the West Indies.' 'Pretty, 'Ah!' drawled out the other slowly. is she? Ah, really. And pray, who was she?' Mr Dupuy's bosom swelled with not unnatural paternal pride and pleasure as he anticipated the prompt answer from the wedding guest: 'One of the fighting Dupuys of Trinidad.' When the next steamer was prepared to sail, it carried away a large contingent of well-known But instead of replying in that perfectly reasonresidents from the island of Trinidad. On the able and intelligible fashion, the young man at deck, Edward and Marian Hawthorn stood wav- the club responded slowly: 'Well, upon my word, ing their handkerchiefs energetically to their I don't exactly know who she was, but somebody friends on the wharf, and to the great body of colonial, any way, I'm certain. I fancy from negroes who had assembled in full force to give Hong-kong, or Penang, or Demerara, or somea parting cheer to 'de black man fren', Mr where.-No; Trinidad-I remember now-it was Hawtorn.' Harry Noel, in a folding cane-chair, certainly either St Kitts or Trinidad. Oh, Trinisat beside them, still pale and ill, but bowing, dad, of course, for Mrs Hawthorn, you know— it must be confessed, from time to time a rather Miss Ord that was-wife of that awfully clever ironical bow to his late assailants, at the cheers, Cambridge fellow Hawthorn, who's just been which were really meant, of course, for his more appointed to a permanent something-or-otherpopular friend and travelling companion. Close ship at the Colonial Office-Mrs Hawthorn knew by stood Nora, not sorry in her heart that she her when she was out there during that nigger was to see the last that day of the land of her row they've just been having; and she pointed fathers, where she had suffered so terribly and me out the bride's father, a snuffy-looking old dared so much. And close by, too, on the seat gentleman in the sugar-planting line, over in beside the gunwale, sat Mr and Mrs Hawthorn those parts, as far as I understood her. Old the elder, induced at last, by Edward's earnest gentleman looked horribly out of it among so solicitation, to quit Trinidad for the evening of many smart London people. Horizon apparently their days, and come to live hard by his own quite limited by rum and sugar.-O yes, it was new home in the mother country. As for Mr a great catch for her, of course, I needn't tell Dupuy, he had no patience with the open way you; but I understand this was the whole story in which that man Hawthorn was waving his of it. She angled for him very cleverly; and, adieux so abominably to his fellow-conspirators; by Jove, she hooked him at last, and played so, by way of escaping from the unwelcome him well, and now she's landed him and fairly demonstration, he was quietly ensconced below in a corner of the saloon, enjoying a last parting cigar and a brandy cocktail with some of his old planter cronies, who were going back to shore by-and-by in the pilot boat. As a body, the little party downstairs were all agreed that when a man like our friend Dupuy here was positively driven out of the island by coloured agitators, Trinidad was no longer a place fit for any gentleman with the slightest self-respect to live in. The effect of this solemn declaration was only imperceptibly marred by the well-known fact that it had been announced with equal profundity of conviction, at intervals of about six months each, by ten generations of old Trinidad planters, ever since the earliest foundation of the Spanish colony in that island. Just two months later, Mr Dupuy was seated alone at his solitary lunch in the London club to which Harry Noel had temporarily introduced him as an honorary guest. It was the morning after Nora's wedding, and Mr Dupuy was feeling naturally somewhat dull and lonely in that great unsympathetic world of London. His attention, however, was suddenly attracted by two young men at a neighbouring table, one of whom distinctly mentioned in an audible tone his new son-in-law's name, 'Harry Noel.' The master of Orange Grove drew himself up stiffly and listened with much curiosity to such scraps as he could manage to catch of their flippant conversation. "O yes,' one of them was saying, 'a very smart affair indeed, I can tell you. Old Sir Walter down there from Lincolnshire, and half the smartest people in London at the wedding breakfast. Very fine fellow, Noel, and comes in to one of the finest estates in the whole of England. Pretty little woman, too, the bride-nice little girl, with such winning little baby features.' cooked him. It appears, he went out there came off yesterday over at St Once more the world reeled visibly before Mr Dupuy's eyes, and he rose up from that hospitable club table, leaving his mutton cutlet and tomato sauce almost untasted. In the heat of the moment, he was half inclined to go back again immediately to his native Trinidad, and brave the terrors of vivisection, rather than stop in this atrocious, new-fangled, upsetting England, |