It is strange that Mr Sydney Herbert, Mrs Chisholm, and the rest of those honourable men and women who have taken so much pains to promote emigration, should not have seen the importance of obtaining colonial postage reform.  Mr Gibbon Wakefield, in his England and America, published nearly twenty years ago, lays much stress upon the impulse which healthy emigration to our colonies would derive from any measure which should enable the poorer class of emigrants to write home more frequently.  As a proof of this, he remarks, that the great emigration from England which had recently taken place—­an increase of about 200 per cent. over former years—­had been mainly caused by the publication of letters from poor emigrants to their friends at home.  With a view to encourage such correspondence, he suggests that, for some years after their arrival in a colony, poor emigrants should be allowed the privilege of sending their letters free of postage.  Thanks to Rowland Hill, we have learned that letters can be carried at so very small a cost, that even the poor can afford to pay the sum charged by the post-office authorities in this country; and it requires little more than a stroke of the colonial secretary’s pen to extend the same invaluable privilege to the thousands of emigrants who leave this country every month for some one or other of our numerous colonies.  What Mr Gibbon Wakefield says of the free-postage plan of that time, would apply with nearly equal force to the proposed Colonial Penny-Postage:—­’In this way, not only would the necessary evil of going to a colony be diminished—­that is, the emigrants would depart with the pleasant assurance of being able to communicate with their friends at home—­but the poorer classes in the mother-country would always hear the truth as to the prospects of emigrants; and not only the truth, but truth in which they would not suspect any falsehood.’  He goes on to say, that the statements published about that time, by an emigration-board sitting in Downing Street, shewing what high wages were obtainable in the colonies, ’though perfectly true, have not been received with implicit faith by the harassed, and therefore suspicious class to whom they were addressed; nor would any statements made by the government ever obtain so much credit as letters from the emigrants themselves.’  All who have ever paid any attention to the subject of emigration, and who have mixed familiarly among the poorer classes, will agree with Mr Wakefield.  All the government returns that ever were made, backed by ever so many extracts from colonial newspapers, about the high rate of wages, and the cheapness of provisions, will not make half the impression upon a poor man which a single letter from an emigrant brother, a son, or a trustworthy friend, will produce.

We should be glad to see the country rouse itself on this important question, regarding which numerous meetings have already been held.

SURVEYING VOYAGE OF THE RATTLESNAKE.