ungrudging pen. The Postmaster of Forres wrote to inform him how the Rebels in the north had laid violent hands on the mail, rifled all the bags, and carried off everything of value or importance. Anderson writes encouragingly : "Your account is very much to my satisfaction and answers the good character I had of you. Be assured that When he can lessen

your care and fidelity is very acceptable to me."

the work or anxiety of a deserving deputy, he willingly does so. The Postmaster of Dundee writes that he was worked night and day in attending to his duties. Anderson takes the case into consideration, and "is pleased to inform" his subordinate that his bag (after 1716) shall be sent by the Aberdeen post-runners; and the Postmaster is delighted thereat: "I am very glad of it," says he, "it having been a great trouble to me, being obliged to sitt up three nights in the week, the post having come to this place so untimeously."

Mr. Anderson was not above taking advice from residents near some contemplated post stage, and, at this rude period, such advice would not be without a certain value. He is directed, by the English PostmastersGeneral, to go to Portpatrick and Portnessock, to examine which of these places would be most convenient for a packet-boat between that part of Scotland and Ireland; upon which, he writes identical letters to the Lairds of Logan and Dunsky, telling them, that as he is desirous of being fully informed about those matters, as to what will be best for His Majesty's service and the convenience of His lieges," he would be very glad to meet them on his arrival in their country, and take counsel with them. The former place was chosen, and it remains to this day a small packet station.

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The following application, from a Mr. Walker, a gentlemen of Galashiels, is curious and illustrates well the straits which some districts were then, and long afterwards, put to, for want of any kind of postal accommodation. In this, and several other respects the lines of the present generation have certainly fallen in pleasant places, and, in social comforts, have come into a goodly heritage. "Being informed by Mr. Walker," runs a petition subscribed by several noblemen and gentlemen of the neighbourhood of Galashiels, "that he has a desire to procure your order for keeping the letter-box at his house, for the accommodation of the country about, we are of opinion that this will be a thing very convenient for the neighbourhood and will be very satisfied if you order it to be done." The memorialists seem to have agreed to set up and keep up the letter-box by subscription.

The Post-office official, from the earliest period, even up to the present time, seems never to have been burdened with too much pay. Hard work and slender remuneration is the refrain of many a complaint; but seeing, that in our own day, we may find the exact counterparts of some of the dolorous petitions here set down, I cannot think of troubling my readers with even a specimen. Mr. Anderson's own case, however, will bear telling, inasmuch as it gives the sequel to the foregoing, and

will be found to be not without a little historical interest. Despite the ready ability and very good services of the Scotch Postmaster-General, he was somewhat unceremoniously dismissed from office, in 1718, to make way for Sir John Inglis. Like all other officers in any responsible situation, and especially in such a place as that held by Anderson, he left in debt. No doubt, the whole of the arrears were owing to the Postmaster-General by distant deputies, notwithstanding which, however, he was still held accountable for them. In 1726 he had not only not satisfied the Government, but the Lords of the Treasury had ordered an execution upon his effects, and we now find him petitioning them to stop it, and to remit the amount of his debt. This petition, which thanks to Mr. Frank Scudamore, the able and estimable Assistant-Secretary of the British Post-office, I have been enabled to find among the PostOffice old records, enters at great length into the services which Anderson rendered, while at the head of affairs, he, "having done more in two years than had ever been done in twenty years previously"—a fact almost beyond question. Notwithstanding, he had been most inadequately paid for these services, "which was proved by his successor starting at £100 a year more salary than he had ever had." Not only had he had to struggle with an insufficient salary, but impaired health; indeed the troubles of the office during the Rebellion was enough to break down any constitution, for he then "contracted a rheumatism which to this day affects him."

To make good his claims, Anderson appends a "memorial," in which is given a list of the services he had rendered to the State, and it is this memorial which presents a vivid picture of the state of Scotland, and the official usage of the period. He attributed all his "extraordinary pains and penalties" to the "unnatural Rebellion," for, on its account, he was "almost hourly receiving and sending expresses from and to London, from and to his Majesty's camp, from and to the Commanderin-Chief and the different Lieutenants of all the counties in Scotland." After reciting how he organized horse posts to Stirling, to Glasgow, and to Portpatrick from the office at Edinburgh, he tells how he sent "special packet-boats by sea, and expresses by private trusty hands when the ordinary post-roads were not safe by the Rebels having sent scouts and spies to intercept packets and letters." He then tells how he did work which nothing but the exigencies of war or treason could excuse, namely, "by direction, to open all letters that came from or went to the places which the Rebels were in possession of, and to make what discoveries he could of persons and things of concern at that time;" and how he "did intercept letters of great consequence" which saved much blood and treasure--"all which is known, and can be well vouched." Nor was this all in that direction, inasmuch as he " was ordered by the Commander-in-Chief, and by the governors of the Postoffice in London, to pick up and get what intelligence he could, wherein he bestowed not only much pains, but also was at expense not proper to be brought into his office accounts"-somewhat disreputable work we are

afraid, yet "very acceptable" to the men in power as is well-known, and for which he received "many letters of thanks." For did not the governors of the Post-office take his letters to the Court and read them to the King; some of which, moreover, "were so satisfying as to be printed by authority," while he was thanked by the Secretary of State? This was, of course, special service into which he was impressed, but the care and despatch with which he managed his more proper business "is sufficiently known to all his Majesty's officers who were employed in Scotland to suppress that unnatural Rebellion." Finally, he urged that the close attention and secrecy, so absolutely necessary," had broken his health, inasmuch "as he can with great truth affirm that for months he never had two hours of uninterrupted rest or quiet by day or night." Whether the authorities pressed the case is not shown by the records of the period. Surely they would not, seeing that no one deserved worse of his Majesty's Rebels, and none better of the Government he served.

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After Anderson's deposition, and far into last century, correspondence in Scotland was anything but secure. In 1838 the Earl of Ilay (afterwards Duke of Argyle), writing to Sir Robert Walpole, who was no better than he should have been in this very respect while English Secretary of State, says: "I am forced to send this letter by a servant twenty miles out of the way, where the Duke of Argyle's attorney cannot handle it; and I enclose it to William Stewart." Ten years afterwards, the Earl succeeded his brother as Duke of Argyle, and with the dukedom acquired supreme control in Scotland, when he seems to have done just as his brother did before him. The Commander of the Forces writes to the Secretary of State in 1748: "My letters are opened at the Edinburgh Post-office, and this is done by order of the noble Duke (Argyle) in order to know the secret sentiments of the people of his grace; if this practice is not stopped, the ministers cannot hope for any real information." Mr. Robert Chambers writing his "Domestic Annals of Scotland," in 1856, and referring to this latter circumstance, says with great truth: " Considering the present sound administration of the entire national institution by the now living inheritor of that peerage, one cannot without a smile hear Chalmers in his 'Caledonia,' tell how the Edinburgh Post-office, in the reign of the Second George, 'was infested by two Dukes of Argyle.""

Of the change which a hundred years has wrought in this great institution there is no need to speak; correspondence has been long held inviolable by the authorities, though the law in certain cases, allows a surveillance over it; letters are now carried not only safely but expeditiously, and to this the humblest individual up to the Premier Peer in Scotland could testify. I conclude with two facts which in themselves speak volumes. In 1862, not a single person was convicted of letter-stealing in Scotland. The Registrar-General, writing the Scotch Report last year, tells us that there is not an instance on record of a deed intrusted to the Post-office since 1840 "having been lost or even delayed for an hour."

SALUTATIONS NEARER HOME.*

Ir must be admitted that the ignorant and semi-barbarous natives of the East exceed in courtliness of manner our own rough-spun countrymen. I say courtliness, not courtesy-they are two different things. The Orientals appear to have retained a traditionary politeness and ceremoniousness of behaviour that has survived the eminent qualities which once made them masters of the world. What reverences, salaams, and prostrations do they offer to one another! Compare the conduct of the roughest-looking Russian peasant, who is more than half an Oriental, when he meets a friend or enters a house, with the demeanour of a native of some of our villages in England. The former takes off his cap to his friend, inquires after his health, and never enters a stranger's house without making the sign of the cross. The undemonstrative Englishman, on the contrary, makes no sign of any kind, keeps his hat on his head in his neighbour's house, seldom speaks till he is spoken to, and then addresses his remark rather to the state of the weather than to the condition of his friend's health. In the worst samples of this gruff characteristic it contracts and intensifies itself to a degree of savage moroseness that has rather unfairly been fastened on us as a national peculiarity. Thackeray, in his lecture on Dean Swift, more than insinuates this when he discusses the Dean's claim to be considered an Irishman: "I think I would rather," he says, "have had a potato and a friendly word from Goldsmith, than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner. He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman,- -no Irishman ever gave but, with a kind word and a kind heart." The implied slur here cast upon our national character Thackeray afterwards well redeemed in presenting to us such noble types of the English gentleman as Colonel Newcome and Major Dobbin.

Many of the forms of salutation existing in various parts of the world exhibit a striking similarity in one respect; they have originally assumed the form of a prayer offered by the saluter on behalf of his friend's safety, health, or prosperity. This idea of prayer in the salutation gives place in the course of time to the expression of a simple wish, even where the precatory form has been preserved. "God be with you!" becomes curtailed to "Good-bye!"—and "Adieu !" is pronounced with about as much sense of its real meaning as "Ta ta !”

This word "adieu," the parting salute of our Gallic neighbours, bears * Continued from the October number.

the stamp of their national religion, which has produced a more durable impression on the manners of the people than on their sentiments. "Comment vous portez vous?"-How do you carry yourself?—is eminently characteristic of the French attention to outward deportment and externals in general, especially when contrasted with the intimate accosting of the Englishman, "How are you?" which seems to dive straight into one's innermost man.

Remark the German "Wie gehts ?"-How goes it ?-not, how do you go? but, how goes it ?-not a personal existence, but a philosophical abstraction, natural in a people given up to speculation and metaphysics. The simple cordiality of German manners is expressed in the "Leben Sie wohl !”—Live well? and in " Guten appetit !"—Good appetite before meat and good digestion after it.

In lively opposition to the stationary housekeeping character of the German salutations, is the "How travel ye?" of the Dutch, which speaks volumes of Indian voyages and maritime discovery. The same contrast is observable where it does not seem so historically just, between the Danes and the Swedes. The former say "Lev-vel!"- —an injunction which, by the bye, their good butter, beef, poultry, etc., enable them faithfully to fulfil. The Swedes say "Far-väl !"-Travel well!-as though we had not heard more of Danish sea-kings than of Swedish navies! A very characteristic salutation of the Swedes is "How can you rise?”—Are you strong and vigorous?

The simple manners of the Norwegians exhibit themselves in their salutations. On rising from table the company shake hands, adding “Tak for med”—Thanks for the meal; or Wel bekomme?"-May it do you good! and even the infant is taught to make its reverence to its mother. "Tak for sidete !"-Thanks for the pleasure I had from your company the last time we met !-is a universal compliment in Norway, and one of such refined allusion that it must puzzle strangers unaccustomed to its use.

The Slavonic race belongs to the yellow branch of the man-tree. It is submissive, governable, and imitative. It exhibits its Oriental origin in the salutation "Mir!"-Peace!-corresponding to the Eastern "Shalum !" In like manner is the fatalism, which forms so strong a feature in the Russian character, apparent in the address, "Kak pojivaste ?" -How do you live on?-bearing a widely different signification from "How are you?" The parting salute is a striking mark of a people subdued and oppressed; it is "Prostchai !"-Pardon! Similar in character are the salutations, "Rab vash!"—your slave! Khalop!"-your serf! Terms of endearment are unusually numerous in the Russian language : My little soul! My little pigeon! My little apple! My bright little emerald! are some of the tender epithets with which a Russian strews his discourse when in good humour. There is something very peculiar in his apologetic response to a beggar when he has nothing to give him, "Ni Prognyaivitis !"-Don't be angry. It must have originated in the