The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

Only those who have been present at one of these Congresses can fully realise how much they make for the results hoped for by Sir Spencer Walpole. It is a revelation of the community of interest which is shared by all the nations of the world in the matter of international intercourse. And of course the effect on other departments of life is wide-reaching. In order to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Universal Postal Union a monument was unveiled at Berne in October 1910. The sculptor is M. René de Saint Marceaux of Paris. On a ledge of a rock whose broad base is solidly embedded in the earth, and from the foot of which flows a small spring, is seated a woman whose delicate hand rests on the escutcheon of the town of Berne. On the summit of the rock a bank of clouds, which seems to glide in space, bears up a sphere round which float five female figures, symbols of the five continents of the world. The figures are passing a letter from hand to hand, illustrating the activity of the universal post. Always moving, regardless of obstruction or frontiers, it carries to the utmost limits of the world the messages of joy or mourning which are entrusted to its care. The monument is an additional ornament to the beautiful city of Berne: it is also an abiding memory of the success of the greatest of modern efforts to bring under one banner all the nations of the earth.