The transition from travelling facilities to the telegraphic and postal services is natural.  The telegraphs of the United States are not in the hands of the government, but are controlled by private companies, of which the Western Union, with its headquarters in New York, is facile princeps.  This company possesses the largest telegraph system in the world, having 21,000 offices and 750,000 miles of wire.  It also leases or uses seven Atlantic cables.  In this, however, as in many other cases, size does not necessarily connote quality.  My experiences may (like the weather) have been exceptional, and the attempt to judge of this Hercules by the foot I saw may be wide of the mark; but here are three instances which are at any rate suspicious: 

I was living at Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia, and left one day about 2 P.M. for the city, intending to return for dinner.  On the way, however, I made up my mind to dine in town and go to the theatre, and immediately on my arrival at Broad-street station (about 2.15 P.M.) telegraphed back to this effect.  When I reached the house again near midnight, I found the messenger with my telegram ringing the bell!  Again, a friend of mine in Philadelphia sent a telegram to me one afternoon about a meeting in the evening; it reached me in Germantown, at a distance of about five miles, at 8 o’clock the following morning.  Again, I left Salisbury (N.C.) one morning about 9 A.M. for Asheville, having previously telegraphed to the baggage-master at the latter place about a trunk of mine in his care.  My train reached Asheville about 5 or 6 P.M.  I went to the baggage-master, but found he had not received my wire.  While I was talking to him, one of the train-men entered and handed it to him. It had, apparently, been sent by hand on the train by which I had travelled! This telegraphic giant may, of course, have accidentally and exceptionally put his wrong foot foremost on those occasions; but such are the facts.

The postal service also struck me as on the whole less prompt and accurate than that of Great Britain.  The comparative infrequency of fully equipped post-offices is certainly an inconvenience.  There are letter-boxes enough, and the commonest stamps may be procured in every drug-store (and of these there is no lack!) or even from the postmen; but to have a parcel weighed, to register a letter, to procure a money-order, or sometimes even to buy a foreign stamp or post-card, the New Yorker or Philadelphian has to go a distance which a Londoner or Glasgowegian would think distinctly excessive.  It appears from an official table prepared in 1898 that about half the population of the United States live outside the free delivery service, and have to call at the post-office for their letters.  On the other hand, the arrangements at the chief post-offices are very complete, and the subdivisions are numerous enough to prevent the tedious delays of the offices on the continent of Europe.  The registration fee