Her Majesty's Mails

+----------------------------------------------+ | | | To my sister Bridget, or else to | | | | my brother Tim Burke, in care | | | | of the Praste, who lives in the parish | | | | of Balcumbury in Cork, or if not to | | | | some dacent neighbour in Ireland. | | | +----------------------------------------------+ The English poor oftener, as we have already seen, show their unbounded confidence in the sagacity of the officers of the Post-Office by leaving out some essential part of the address of a letter, but very seldom writing too much. We once saw a letter addressed as follows:--"Mary H----, a tall woman with two children," and giving the name of a large town in the West of England. The Scotch people, as a rule, attain the golden mean, and exhibit the greatest care in such matters. Nor can we wonder at this. The poorer classes are certainly better educated, and whilst seldom profuse on their letters, they are cautious enough not to leave anything of consequence unwritten. The statistics of the Dead Letter Offices of the three countries confirm, to some considerable extent, our rough generalizations.