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man resigns the higher pleasures of reflection | whose names are inscribed on the libro d'oro

and solitude at the command of woman, is the greatest tribute that can be paid to feminine power. It is a melancholy thought that his unselfishness in this as in all other respects is but too little appreciated; and that those who preside over and direct the proceedings during the English Matronalia, are hardly conscious of the effort a really great mind must make in order to appear happy in the middle of punchinelloes, fishing-smacks, and shrimps.

of great financial companies. More recently it has provided for the humblest depositors a safer and more convenient mode of investing and depositing their little hoards than is afforded by the ordinary savings'-banks. And its statistics thus indicate in a variety of ways the condition of the people, their tendency towards increased prudence or the reverse, and their greater or less power to avail themselves of advantages which can only be appropriated by those who are above the lowest level of poverty or ignorance.

Some idea may be formed of the work From The London Review. which the post-office has to do, when we menPOST-OFFICE BUSINESS. tion that the distance over which mails are AMONGST the annual reports presented to now conveyed within the United Kingdom, Parliament none is more interesting than that was last year nearly 160,000 miles a day, of the postmaster-general. Our satisfaction being upwards of 7,000 miles more than at in reading of the increased revenue, improved the end of 1861. But besides this there is organization, and greater efficiency of the the foreign and colonial packet service, which department under his charge, has no draw- employs ninety-six steamships exclusive of backs. In the post-office these things are not tenders, and distributes our letters all over accompanied by a greater stringency in the the world, from the neighboring port of Calagencies of taxation; nor do they suggest the ais, to Auckland in New Zealand, about 15,reflection, that after all they are but indica- 000 statute miles from Southampton. The tion of the smoother and more regular work-voyages performed by these vessels during ing of some part of the elaborate machinery the year were equal, in the aggregate, to by which we control the social evils that we more than three millions of miles. We have cannot uproot. When we find that the rev-no account of the number of letters sent enue of the post-office is growing we know abroad; but during the last year there were that the accommodation which it is affording delivered in the United Kingdom six hundred to the public is also growing in a far larger and five millions of letters, seventy-three milproportion. When we hear of treaties, con-lions of newspapers, and fourteen millions of ventions, and arrangements, by which it is *placed in correspondence with similar institutions in other countries, or is enabled to bring within the range of its operations distant colonies and the remoter parts of our own kingdom, we know that these official triumphs are equivalent to some new breaches in the barriers of time or space, which have heretofore obstructed that freedom and facility of intercommunication which contributes so much both to general civilization and to individual comfort and happiness. Besides, the post-office in England is now much more than a mere letter-carrying establishment. It has become in a great degree, and is every year becoming more and more, the people's banker. For some time its money-order office has done for the masses what banks and exchange agencies do for capitalists; and has become the principal medium for small remittances even when they are made by people

book packets. The average annual increase in the number of letters is about 3 3-4 per cent.; but last year, from some unexplained cause, it fell as low as 2 per cent. The enormous benefit conferred upon the country by penny postage, may be gathered from the fact that in the London district alone the number of letters is now nearly double that which, before the adoption of the present system, was delivered in the whole of the United Kingdom, London included. While dealing with this part of the subject, the postmaster-general gallantly condescends to give us a piece of information which will, no doubt, give great pleasure to ladies. The practice of sending valentines shows no sign of falling off. Last year 430,000 of thes amatory effusions passed through the London office, being an increase of more than 20,000 upon the previous year; and in the present year, there was a further and still larger in

crease. Let us hope that the postmen bore | credit for the energy and intelligence with this addition to their ordinary burdens with which they have lately conducted the purely more complacency than they must have done postal part of their business. the weight of the 40,000 circulars in relation to a late Lambeth election, which were posted in a single day.

Let us now see what they have been doing as bankers. The humblest branch of this department is that which affords to the public the means of exchanging stamps for money at a charge of 2 1-2 per cent. Under this arrangement, which practically amounts to a cheap, money-order system for small sums, a person may send stamps to the value of 3s. 4d. for one penny, and to the value of 18. 8d. for a halfpenny. How extensively the public have availed themselves of the accommodation thus provided, may be seen from the fact that the sum paid in exchange for postage stamps · amounted last year, in London alone, to nearly £60,000. During the last year, the number of money-order offices in Great Britain and Ireland was increased to 2,879. They issued during the twelvemonth 7,587,045 orders for sums amounting in the whole to £15,761,

It is almost unnecessary to say that this great increase of business has not been obtained simply by sitting still and waiting for it. The postmaster-general has been actively engaged in spreading more widely his nets for customers, and in tempting them by increased facilities to augmented correspondence. The number of public receptacles for letters is now 14,776, as compared with 14,354 last year. At nearly seven hundred places free deliveries were last year established for the first time. Rural posts have been established in many parts of Wales and the south of Ireland, which may have heard the sound of the " church-going bell," but were previously Solitude itself in regard to that welcome double-knock whose absence 259. The increase on the amount was 8 per Alexander Selkirk so unaccountably omitted cent. as compared with the previous year. to mention amongst the deprivations of his No doubt this large increase was partly due unhappy lot. Day mail communications be- to the circumstance that the sum for which tween London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, and an order can be drawn was raised on the 1st the provincial towns of each kingdom, have of January, 1862, from £5 to £10; but, been greatly extended. The rate of transit nevertheless, the result is eminently satisfachas been considerably accelerated in many tory, considering the distress which has preparts of the empire. The mechanical ar- vailed in the cotton districts during the past rangements for collection and distribution year. The rate of this increase has, with the have been improved by an increased use of exception of a year now and then, been steadtravelling post-offices, which now run on most ily rising ever since the establishment of the of the railways by which mails are conveyed to system. Taking only the last few years it and from London; and by the adoption of the was in 1862 5 1-2 per cent., in 1860 4 1-4 ingenious mail-bag-exchanging apparatus at per cent., in 1859 2 per cent., and in 1858 3 more than one hundred stations. We did not 1-4 per cent. The proportion of the moneyadd during last year any new lines of foreign orders issued to the population varies consid or colonial packets, but we have shared with erably in the three kingdoms: for while in the rest of the world the advantages resulting England (speaking roughly), one order is isfrom the French mail-vessels which now run sued to every three persons, in Ireland the rate once a month between St. Nazaire and Vera is one to eleven, and in Scotland one to five. Cruz; and the postmaster-general states that Since 1856 a colonial money-order system has arrangements have been made with the au- been in action; and its scope and usefulness thorities in Paris, under which their line to have been steadily extending. We now exCeylon, with one branch to Calcutta (touch- change money-orders with Canada, Victoria, ing at Pondicherry and Madras), and another Western Australia, South Australia, Queensto Shanghae (calling at Singapore, Saïgon, land, New Zealand, the Cape of Good Hope, and Hong-Kong), will soon be available for Gibraltar, and Malta; and it is anticipated British letters. With the German postal that we shall soon do so with New South union a convention has been concluded, un- Wales and several other colonies. der which a book post has been established. Upon the whole, therefore, we think his lordship and Sir Rowland Hill are entitled to

Perhaps, however, the most interesting part of the report is that which relates to the post-office savings'-banks. These banks be

One of the miscellaneous topics touched upon in the report, is the effect of railway travelling upon health. Judging from his observation of the officers in the travelling branch of the mail office, Dr. Lewis, the medical officer of the department, comes to the conclusion that, " on the strong and healthy, railway travelling, if the amount be not excessive, and if the travellers take proper care of themselves, produces little or no injurious effect." After so much grave statement, and so many dull statistics, it is quite refreshing to find Lord Stanley of Alderley relapsing into a gossiping mood towards the conclusion of his labors. As his lordship has unbent so far as to give the two Houses of Parliament an account of a curious accident which befell one of the pillar letter-boxes at Montrose, we need offer no apology for transferring the story to our less dignified and official pages:

"The street gas-pipes having been opened for the purpose of examination and repair, an escape took place, and some of the gas found its way into the letter-box. The night watch man, to light his pipe, struck a match on the top of the box, when a violent explosion took place, forcing out the door, and doing other either to the watchman or the letters." damage, but fortunately causing no injury

gan operations in September, 1861. They for the proper entry of and check on the dewere at first gradually and cautiously estab- positors' and postmasters' accounts have been lished; but as their success was proved their found to work most satisfactorily." number was increased, until at the close of 1862 they numbered 2,532, of which 1,933 were in England and Wales, 300 in Ireland, and 299 in Scotland. Since the beginning of the present year, 332 additional banks have been opened, bringing the total number up to 2,864. Reckoning from the commencement of the system, 260,320 persons have become depositors; 180,000 accounts having been opened in the year 1862. Up to the date of the postmaster-general's report, the gross amount of deposits (including interest, up to the 1st July, 1863) had been £2,952,296, while, up to the close of last year, the withdrawals had only been £438,378. At that time the average amount to the credit of each depositor was, in England and Wales, £9 14s. 1ld.; in Scotland, £4 18s. 7d.; and in Ireland, £10 15s. 2d. The low average for Scotland is probably due to the facilities afforded by the joint-stock banks in that country for the deposits of small sums at interest. These figures are conclusive as to the general success of the post-office savings'-banks. One great advantage anticipated by their promoters was that from the greater facilities they afford from their being open daily for some hours, and from their being extended freely to small villages and poor districts, they would attract a class of smaller depositors than used to resort to the old banks. That this expectation has been realized to a considerable extent it is impossible to doubt, when we find JUST sixty years ago, the two discoveries that while the average amount of each deposit which are now revolutionizing naval warfare in the old savings'-banks was £4 6s. 5d., it first flashed across the brains of two very is only £3 6s. 2d. in the post-office banks. ferent men. Yet they had in common not It does not, however, seem that the new banks merely the hour of birth, but the natal soil are superseding the old ones so rapidly as was and the purpose for which they were designed. expected to be the case; for although thirty- Both were conceived in Paris, and both had six of the former institutions have been closed, for motive the facilitating of the descent and their deposits transferred, the amount of which Napoleon was then preparing on these them is only £340,000—an insignificant sum islands. The one invention was that of the when compared with the total amount of de- screw propeller, driven by a steam-engine posits in the old banks, which in 1862 was no fitted with a tubular boiler. This conception less than £40,550,557. It is, however, prob- was due to a poor organ-maker of Amiens, & able that transfers on a more extended scale M. Dallery, who had been, driven by the failwill be made, as experience proves the sound ure of his trade, to the capital, there to suband efficient working of the post-office banks. sist on the still worse trade of his wits. Bu Up to the present time, we are glad to learn the time was not propitious to naval novelty. that "the regulations laid down for carrying Fulton's plan of propulsion by the paddleon the business between the postmasters and wheel had just been tried on the Seine, and the depositors, and the arrangements made had failed through the decisive accident of

From The London Review. SHOT AND SHELL.

dif

the engine breaking a hole in the bottom of with the same missile, confining himself to the vessel. So. M. Dallery spent his own ranges of four hundred to six hundred yards. poor 30,000 francs on his project, and when" There are,' " he urges, "no good reasons that sum left it still incomplete he could against their use, and a few shells would make gain no other aid, and sank out of sight in the hull of a ship more destruction than as completely as Fulton's engine. Twenty shot." But experience soon taught him the years afterwards the idea was revived by an propriety of increasing the size of the shells, engineer officer at Boulogne, but it again fell and on September 6th he writes to the Minister into neglect. At length, in nearly twenty of Marine: "I desire that on every ship of the years more, it was again started in this coun-line there should be placed six or even ten try by our own English "Mr. Smith; " and, howitzers of 8-inch diameter, fitted as they as steam navigation was then an established are on the gunboats. I think the result must fact, its importance, especially as applicable to vessels of war, became at once apparent; it was adopted by the French Government; and only a dozen years later it was recognized by our Admiralty and a "reconstruction of our navy" was ordered in all haste to be effected to admit of its adoption. Under very different auspices was the twin discovery of the first years of the century ushered into the world, yet it experienced a fate singularly similar. It was born of an imperial brain, it was nursed with autocratic authority, and fed with all the resources of an empire of which Europe was the limit. Yet it failed to live, it passed away among things forgotten, until in 1823 it was re-invented by General Paixhans, and in 1863 it has become a supreme fact of the day. This discovery was, that shells are more destructive than shot when fired horizontally against wooden vessels. The idea first occurred to Napoleon himself when he was considering the armament proper for the flotilla which was being prepared for the invasion of England. The recent volumes of the Napoleon correspondence, published this year in Paris, contain ample evidence of this singular fact, the existence of which is noticed in an article on the National Defences, in the North British Review for this present month. Let us cull from the frequent allusions in the emperor's letters enough to establish the point.

Like all new ideas, it only slowly took shape in the originating mind. First of all, the first consul desired that all his gun-boats should be armed with howitzers 3, 4, and 6inch calibre. On May 31st, 1804, we find him then newly proclaimed emperor directing that every vessel shall have a proportion of 36-pounder shells, and that the crews shall be instructed in firing them from guns, and only at short ranges. Then, on July 2d, he directed the admiral at Toulon to practice

be advantageous; for these vessels at 2,000 yards would use the howitzers like so many mortars, throwing a shell or bomb of 44 lb. weight; at six hundred yards they could fire them into the timbers, and even use charges of grape; but I expect the principal advantage from firing them with shell—they would be equivalent to 72-pounders. You know how useful this arm has proved in our gunboats. The mast of the English brig at Havre was broken by one of these howitzer shells. Send the model of the carriage to Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon, and let it be tried. It may be fired from the middle of the ship, either to port or larboard, ahead or astern, according to circumstances, and it only weighs 1,100 lbs. I venture to predict good effects from it. Let me know any objections which you and the engineers may have to this idea." Again, on 6th of September, he writes to Admiral Ganteaume at Brest: I have placed on board each gunboat a land howitzer of eight inches. It is mounted on a small marine carriage, which allows it to throw a. 40 lb. shell to a range of more than 2,000 yards; fired at an angle of 45 degs., it gives the effect of a mortar; fired at four hundred yards, the shell explodes in the wood. At 2,000 yards its effect is considerable because it is of eight inches diameter, which is more than a 72-pounder. The gunboats have borne this fire well, and, as usual, after great fault has been found with this system of firing, it is now greatly praised. They must not be confounded with 6-inch howitzers, which, being only 36-pounders, would not fulfil the same object."

Compare these suggestions of Napoleon with this summary, by General Paixhans, of the invention of which he believed himself the original author :—

"Guns firing shells horizontally have been made principally with the view of placing

"Here are the results obtained from the

There

every vessel, however feeble, every battery, | ical cast-iron shell to fragments, without alalthough only mounting a few pieces, in a lowing the powder time to take fire; and even position to destroy a ship of the line, even the the Armstrong conical cast-iron shell, though colossal three-decker of 120 guns. it will pierce 1 1-2 or even 2 inches of iron, first experiment made at Brest, in 1823. yet breaks, Sir Howard Douglas informs us, The first shell scattered in fragments 150 without exploding in the passage. square feet of timber, and spread an insup- fore, to penetrate iron ships, though not plated portable smoke through the vessel which was with more than an inch of iron, either used as a target. Another broke off a large wrought-iron or steel shells must be adopted. piece of the main-mast, and carried away a But, in thus employing a different and much mass of iron weighing 130 lbs. A third tore less brittle material, it is as yet quite unceroff a knee-timber weighing 2 cwt., and knocked down by its explosion more than tain whether the really formidable effects of forty logs nailed vertically to the deck to repthe missile will be preserved. There have resent gunners in their places. Another made been very few experiments with hollow steel an enormous and irreparable hole in the side bolts; and in those that have been tried, the of the vessel, etc. And yet these were only mere successful attempt to penetrate the opposfired from an 80-pounder. What, then, ing iron plate has been regarded as a triumph would be the effect of 120, 150, and 200--in entire oblivion that solid shot will do pounders?"

General Paixhans avows, like the great emperor, that his design was to overturn by these means the naval preponderance of England. And we are now able to see that at one time he actually had succeeded in doing so, and to thank our stars that the genius of red tape was so strong even in France, that it prevented Napoleon from having his idea carried out at an earlier date. For when this horizontal shell-firing from large shell-guns (now called Paixhans) came to be really adopted, it realized all that the emperor or the general predicted from it. It sank and blew up the Turks at Sinope, it beat the allied fleets off from Sebastopol, it protected Cronstadt by the mere terror of its name from attack, it sent to the bottom the American Cumberland and Congress in Hampton Roads. Thus, the first nation that adopted it held all other navies for a time at its mercy.

So all the nations of the earth are, in this year of 1863, building iron-clads, and counting their naval strength only by their strength of iron-clads. And yet in this rush to iron there are circumstances as strange as the long neglect of the idea of shell firing, for it seems as if we had quite lost sight of the fact that it is shell we have chiefly to provide against. We e try our plates exclusively with solid shot, and are not content unless we can keep out solid shot. Now the real fact is, that shot cannot be kept out, but that when it enters it does comparatively little harm. Moreover, it happens that only a very slight thickness of iron annihilates the power of the Paixhans -shell. Half-inch iron plates shiver the spher

this as effectually, and that unless a shell flies after it has passed through, into a multitude of fragments, it is, in an iron ship, little more formidable than shot. Now if, when made of a tougher material than cast-iron, in order that it may not be shattered on the outside, side, and merely splits up by the explosion it loses this faculty of breaking up in the inof the charge into two or three pieces, it cannot be said to fulfil the place of the cast-iron Paixhans shell. And in this event the great thickness of iron plating on our new ships will be superfluous, and only such thickness would be enough to place our seamen in the same situation as before the Paixhans system was introduced.

as suffices to exclude the cast-iron shell

Whit

It is singular that Government has not thought fit to investigate further a point so all-important. But there is another neglect leading to equal confusion, and possibly costly waste of material. Everybody knows that the Whitworth guns have proved more successful against iron-plates than the Armstrongs. But this result, usually attributed to the guns, is really due to the shot. worth uses flat-headed shot, and, by his patent rights, prevents Armstrong from using if other things are equal, and the Armstrong it. Now penetration depends on the velocity, Whitworth. Hence it is far from certain gun gives a velocity fully as great as the that if Government were to buy up the patent fro flat headed shot, and use that form in the Armstrong guns, it would not find a result surpassing any yet achieved. It certainly ought to secure the best form of shot in any case, and it ought not to allow the question of the best description of gun to be confused by the employment of different kinds of ammunition, when the ascertained best ammunition might be equally used in each.

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