inferiority, and become altogether silent; while he seems to triumph in their defeat by redoubling his exertions.

This excessive fondness for variety, however, in the opinion of some injures his song. His elevated imitations of the brown thrush are frequently interrupted by the crowing of cocks; and the warblings of the bluebird, which he exquisitely manages, are mingled with the screaming of swallows or the cackling of hens; amidst the simple melody of the robin we are suddenly surprised by the shrill reiterations of the whip-poor-will; while the notes of the killdeer, blue jay, martin, baltimore, and twenty others, succeed with such imposing reality, that we look round for the originals, and discover with astonishment that the sole performer in this singular concert is the admirable bird now before us. During this exhibition of his powers he spreads his wings, expands his tail, and throws himself around the cage in all the ecstacy of enthusiasm, seeming not only to sing, but to dance, keeping time to the measure of his own music. Both in his native and domesticated state, during the solemn stillness of night, as soon as the moon rises in silent majesty he begins his delightful solo, and serenades us the livelong night with a full display of his vocal powers, making the whole neighbourhood ring with his inimitable medley. ALEX. WILSON

THE POST OFFICE.

As the first stroke of six sounds from the clock of St. Martin'sle-Grand, there is a wild rush to the various letter-boxes: bags and bundles of newspapers are sent flying at the clerks; newsboys stumble over each other in their hot haste; all is bustle and confusion. When the last stroke has resounded, there is an instantaneous lull, and the spectators disperse. They have seen the hurry and the crowd, and undoubtedly it is a sight well worth seeing in its way; they have not seen one which is far more interesting. A problem has to be solved which is not the less wonderful because its solution occurs every evening. Hundreds of thousands of letters, addressed to all parts of the globe, and in all languages, flung hastily into certain boxes, have to be sorted, arranged, and sent forward towards their destinations in the course of about two hours. The time is short, the labour enormous; let us see how it is done.

The letters, as they swarm into the office, are first of all received by clerks, who face them, so that all the directions may

be in the same way. They next go to clerks who have a more complicated duty, that of stamping them with a double stamp, that indicating the office where they are posted, and thus obliterating the postage label; and at the same time the letters are counted. It is astonishing to see with how much rapidity-the result of constant practice-this somewhat complex task is performed. Keeping an account of their numbers, an account which is afterwards checked and verified, the clerks next pass the bundles on to other officials, whose duty it is to examine the letters as to weight, and to surcharge for any deficiency in postage. Generally the mere touch of a letter suffices for these experienced hands; and it is seldom, indeed, that they single out a missive for examination which does not prove, when tested by the scales, to be of excessive weight. All these weighings, however, necessarily cause some slight delay, the fault of which assuredly does not lie with the Post Office authorities, but with the public.

Next comes the sorting. Discarding all the old divisions of counties, letters are now sorted with reference entirely to our railways North-Western, Midland Counties, Great Eastern, South-Eastern, South-Western, and Great Western. Each of these lines forms, so to speak, a connecting thread of the arrange. ment that runs through the whole process of sorting. Let us take, for example, the Great Western. The first two letters upon which we happen to glance are directed, one to Uxbridge and the other to Truro; but both the Middlesex and the Cornish letter will have to go to Paddington. Not yet, however. The process is far from being completed. Every railway trunk line has its divisions; every division its subdivisions. Under the head of Oxford, for instance, we find eleven considerable towns; and here we may mention the fact, upon which hasty assailants of the Post Office wili do well to reflect, that not above one letter in four is addressed to the right postal town. As fast as the sorters get on with their work, which they do with a speed that seems astonishing to the stranger, collectors come round the rooms ready to carry the letters elsewhere for further "sorting."

In the next room, accordingly, we find them distributed to the various postal towns; and here again we notice not only how frequent are the errors of the public, but how swift and intelligent are the clerks in correcting them. When the sorting is completed here, the letters are placed in bags, and sent swiftly off to the various stations by the mail-carts, which, with the horses ready harnessed, are waiting outside. On arriving at the station,

a fresh sorting takes place in carriages expressly fitted up for the purpose; but, as regards the officials of St. Martin's-le-Grand, their task of despatching the letters is generally completed about eight o'clock; that is to say, within half an hour of the time up to which letters may be posted on payment of an extra charge. The task thus accomplished is one the magnitude of which cannot be accurately estimated from a mere table of figures. These will give, at best, a dry outline of the result; the activity, the energy, the intelligence, by which alone it is achieved cannot be gauged by so slight a test.

The errors made in delivery are comparatively few, and those that do occur are generally the fault of the public themselves. Some of the addresses are illegible; others are imperfect, or indicate no place at all; and a few are entirely blank. Of those which are most singular we subjoin a few-premising that whilst many of them are evidently written by the uneducated classes, those classes owe it to Sir Rowland Hill's exertions that they are able to avail themselves of postal facilities at a moderate rate. Take the following:-" Ash Bedles in the Coles for John Horsell the grinder in the county of lstershire." Who would guess that this was intended for Ashby-de-la-Zouch? The next letter was assuredly a puzzler "Uncle John, Hopposite the Church, London, Hingland." Another, intended for her Majesty, is addressed as follows-"For keen vic tins at wincr casel, London." Another example "Mr., Fine Hart Department, greson cort, cristol palis, Sidnom." Another-"To the king of Rusheya, Feoren, with speed." Another-Oileywhite, amshire;" i. e., Isle of Wight, Hampshire. Another-Coneyach lunemtick A siliam;" for the Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch. Another missive is directed to an old lady who "on lonnon bridge sells froot," and, the last we shall quote, "Obern yenen," was intended for Holborn Union. The greater part even of the letters bearing such directions as these are delivered.

No one, we are persuaded, ever went away from such an inspection as that of which we have given a necessarily imperfect sketch without a feeling of wonder, not that mistakes occur, but that so enormous a work is done so well.-Daily Telegraph.

TRANSPORT OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS.

THE first transport of wounded arrived at Bonn this day week. I just happened to be in the hospital when the poor fellows were carried or led in from the station. The ladies helped to make up the beds, to undress the patients, &c., in order to get them to bed after the hardships and fatigues of the last four days. They all came from Saarbruck. After they had all been bathed and their wounds been attended to, they looked quite comfortable in their tidy and clean beds. The following day, however, began the dreadful operations and amputations. Among the wounded are also Frenchmen, who are treated with equal kindness and sympathy. I heard a Frenchman say, "If my comrades are as well treated in France as we are here, they have no cause to complain." The articles which have been sent from England are most welcome, especially the splendid macintosh sheets. Our doctors were in raptures about the surgical instruments. We have sent most of the things we received from England to the town hall, whence the different hospitals fetch what they want. The interior of the town hall presents a very cheerful aspect. All the provisions are sorted out there and arranged by the ladies, and the linen put in order and cut up ready to be used. Here in the private hospital the attendance and the food of the invalids is excellent. The patients who are on the ground-floor of the hospitals are carried out every morning into the garden, where they are placed on the lawn under shady trees. I write this letter in the garden by the side of my patient, who has just fallen into a doze. He is a young man from Berlin, not more than twenty-four years old, very badly wounded. God grant that I may bring him through! The doctor has more hope to-day, but he is much prostrated and shattered in nerves, and it is very distressing to see a man weep. A fit and just punishment for those who have provoked this unjust war would be if they were condemned day and night to look at the sufferings of the wounded, and to listen to their pitiful groanings.-Times.

DICTATION LESSONS.

N.B.-Whenever there are two or more paragraphs in a Lesson, they may be used for separate Dictation Lessons if preferred.

LESSON 1.

ABOUT four years after these events, a new railroad was opened in the north of France; and as the French were not very skilful in that kind of work, there was a great demand for English or Irish labourers. Mark Connel, who had long been struggling with poverty, determined to save enough money to pay for a passage, and go with his whole family to France, to procure employment on the railway. What was Lisette's joy on hearing of this plan! She could not contain her delight. To revisit her native country, in company with the kind friends who had adopted her, was a pleasure so great that she had never dared to think of it, except in her dreams.

There was also a chance of her finding her own relations, for the part of France to which they were now going was her native province ;-but it was only a chance,-for her uncle had been on the point of changing his residence when he and her father left them, and she did not know where he had settled. Lisette assisted, as far as she could, to earn the money requisite to pay for the passage; for she was now a strong active girl of fifteen, and had learned to work neatly (as well as to read and write) at the school which she had attended with Mark's elder children.

LESSON 2.

At the end of a long quarter of an hour I heard some one on the stairs, and through the crack of the door I saw the father, his lamp in one hand, and in the other one of his large knives. He came up, his wife after him-I was behind the door; he opened it, but before he came in he put down the lamp, which his wife took. He then entered, barefoot, and from outside, the woman said to him, in a low voice, "Softly, go softly." When he got to the ladder he mounted it, his knife between his teeth, and getting up as high as the bed-the poor young man lying with his throat bare-with one hand he took his knife, and with the other-Oh! cousin-he seized a ham which hung from the ceiling, cut a slice from it, and retired as he had come. The door was closed again, the lamp disappeared, and I was left alone with my reflections.