than the floor of the room. They were learning the first hard lesson of this world-namely, to sit still; and certainly the occupation seemed to be particularly well adapted to their outlines; indeed their pinafores were so round, and their cheeks so red, that altogether they resembled three rows of white dumplings, with a rosy-faced apple on each. The picture was most interesting; and we studied their cheerful features until we almost fancied that we could analyze and distinguish which were little fire-flies-which small stokers-tiny pokers-infant artifi

cers, &c.

On leaving the three rooms full of children, to whom, whatever may be the religion of their parents, the Perpetual Curate, the Rev. G. Weight, is apparently devoting very praiseworthy attention, we proceeded eastward about 100 yards to the church, the property of the Radcliffe Trustees, the interior of which is appropriately fitted up with plain oak-coloured open seats, all alike. In the churchyard, which is of very considerable area, there are, under the north wall, a row of fraternal mounds side by side, with a solitary shrub or a few flowers at the foot of each, showing that those who had there reached their earthly terminus were kindly recollected by a few still travelling on the rails of life. With the exception, however, of the grave of one poor fellow, whose death under amputation, rendered necessary from severe fractures, has been commemorated on a tombstone by his comrades, there exists no interesting epitaph. Besides this church, a room in the library is used, when required, as a Wesleyan Chapel; at which on Sundays there are regular preachers both morning and night-and on Tuesdays and Fridays about 100 of the Company's servants attend extempore prayers by one of their brother artificers.

CHAPTER X.

LETTERS AND NEWSPAPERS,

AMONG the manifold arrangements which characterise the interior of the British hive there is, we believe, no one which offers to an intelligent observer a more important moral than the respect which is everywhere paid by us to the correspondence of the nation. Prior to the introduction of railways our post-office establishment was the admiration of every foreigner who visited us. But although our light mail-coaches, high-bred horses, glittering harness, skilful coachmen, resolute guards, and macadamised roads were undeniably of the very best description, yet the moral basis on which the whole fabric rested, or rather the power which gave vitality to its movements, evidently was a patriotic desire indigenous in the minds of people of all classes to protect, as their common wealth, the correspondence of the country; and accordingly it mattered not whether on our public thoroughfares were to be seen a butcher's cart, a brewer's dray, a bishop's coach, a nobleman's landau, the squire's chariot or his tenant's waggon;—it mattered not what quantity of vehicles were assembled for purposes good, bad, or indifferent, for church, for race-course, or for theatre;—it mattered not for what party of pleasure or for what political purpose a crowd or a mob might have assembled; for at a single blast through a long tin horn people of all ranks and conditions, however they might be disposed to dispute on all other subjects, were ready from all quarters to join together in exclaiming, " MAKE WAY FOR THE MAIL!"

At the magic whistle of the locomotive engine the whole of the extremely slow, dull, little-bag system we have just referred to suddenly fell to pieces. Nevertheless, the spirit that had animated it flew from the road to the rails, and although our

penny-postal arrangements, notwithstanding their rapid growth, are less conspicuous, there exists throughout the country the same honest anxiety that our letter-bags should be circulated over the surface of the United Kingdom with the utmost possible care and despatch. In order. however, to fulfil this general desire the duties which our Postmaster-General is now required to perform are most extraordinary.

The difficulty of transmitting from London to every part of the United Kingdom, and vice versâ, the innumerable quantity of letters which, like mushrooms springing up from a bed of spawn, have arisen from our sudden adoption of a penny-postage, would alone require minute calculations, involving an infinity of details; but when it is considered that besides this circulation from and to the heart of the metropolis-(the average weight of letters and newspapers carried daily by the London and North-Western Railway is seventeen tons)—there exists simultaneously a cross circulation, not only from and to every great city and town, but from every little post-office to every part of the United Kingdom and vice versâ, and moreover to every region on the globe, the eccentric zigzag courses of all these letters to their respective destinations may justly be compared to the fiery tracks and sparks created by the sudden ignition of a sackful of fireworks of all descriptions; of rockets, Catherine wheels, Roman candles, squibs, stars, crackers, flower-pots, some flying straight away, while others are revolving, twisting, radiating, bouncing, exploding in every possible direction and in all ways at once.

To explain the mode in which all our postal arrangements are conducted would not only exceed our limits, but be foreign to our subject; we will therefore only attempt to supply our readers with a slight sketch of a very small portion of this business, namely, the transmission of letters from the metropolis by the London and North-Western Railway's night mail.

While the passengers by the Lancashire mail-train are taking their seats and making other preparations for their departure, two or three Post-office, vans are seen to enter the main carriage gate of the Euston Station, and then to drive close to their tenders on the railway, which form the last carriages of the train. The

servants of the Post-office, rapidly unloading their vans, remove a portion of the bags they contained into the travelling-office and the remainder into two large tenders, which, as soon as they are filled, are locked up by the guard, who then takes his place in the flying office, in which we propose to leave him to his flight for 132 miles-only observing, however, that no sooner has he started than another flying post-office, which had been lying in ambush, advances (with its tender), and, after being loaded in a similar manner, in a quarter of an hour they are despatched to Yorkshire and the East of Scotland.

It had been raining for upwards of twenty-four hours, and it was still pouring when, at about half-past one o'clock of a dark winter's night, we reached the railway platform at Stafford, to await there the arrival from Euston Station of the night-mail, whose loading and departure we have just described. At that lonely hour, excepting a scarlet-coated guard, who, watching over a pile of letter-bags just arrived from Birmingham by a branch-train, was also waiting for the down-mail, there were no other passengers on the platform; and, save the unceasing pattering of the rain, there appeared nothing to attract the attention but the glaring lamps of three or four servants of the Company. One with his lantern in his left hand was writing in a small memorandum-book placed on a desk before him. Two others with lights suspended round their necks were greasing the axles of some carriage whose form could not be distinguished, while the station-man on duty with his lamp in his hand was pacing up and down the boarded platform.

At this moment the signal-man had scarcely announced the approach of an up-train when there rapidly rushed by a very long, low, dark, solid mass protected by some sort of wet blacklooking covering which here and there glistened as it rolled past the four lamps that were turned towards it; in short, it was a

common luggage-train. The whole line of waggons, their various contents, as well as the powerful puffing engine that was dragging them through utter darkness, were all inanimate; and it was almost appalling to reflect that, in case of any accident to the drivers, the great train with two red eyes shining in front as well as in rear would proceed alone on its dark iron path—lifeless— senseless-reckless of human life—unconscious of the agonies it might cause or the mischief it might create. It was the work of man—and yet it was ignorant of his power, or even of his name. Devoid of reason or of instinct, it knew nothing-saw nothingheard nothing-loved nothing-hated nothing-cared for nothing-had no pleasures-no pains-nothing to fear-nothing to hope for; it knew not whence it came,-it rushed forwards it knew not why, to go it knew not where; it had substance, it had motion, it produced loud sounds, and yet it was as lonely and as destitute of life as the heavens and the earth when in chaos they were without form and void, and when darkness was upon the face of the deep! But these reflections were agreeably interrupted by the arrival of a down-train, swarming alive with passengers, whose busy feet were very shortly to be heard trampling in all directions along or across the platform. At the same time the conductor of the train was delivering over to the Postoffice-guard, who had so patiently been awaiting their arrival, a quantity of leather bags of all sizes-white, brown, or black, according to their ages-and which remained in a large heap on the platform until, in about eight minutes, the signal-bell announced first the approach and then the arrival of "the down London mail."

As soon as this train, which we had been awaiting, stopped, the door of the Flying Post-office was opened, and the bags which had been lying on the platform were no sooner packed either into it or into its tender behind, than, the engine-driver's whistle announcing the departure of the train, we without delay presented an order which we had obtained to travel in the postoffice from Stafford to Crewe, and we were scarcely seated in a corner on some letter-bags to witness the operations of its inmates, when the train started and away we went!