The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"ILLINOIS, U.S. "Mr Postmaster if you would be so kind as to seek for us work as we are two colored young men of ---- Illinois, and would like to come to England and get work as Coachmen or race horse trainers, as we have been experance for twelve years practicesing training--if any further information about it we can be reckemend to any one that wish to hire us, pleas to advertise it in the papers for us." The two letters of inquiry for situations which follow are rather amusing, owing to their mode of expression, being written by foreigners not having a command of the English idiom; and they will mirror to our own countrymen what sort of figures they must sometimes cut in the eyes of our neighbours across the Channel, when airing their "dictionary French" in the metropolis of fashion:-- "SIR,--I have the honour of coming to solicit of your goodwill of telling me if I could not to pass into the English Telegraphic Administration, and, in the affirmative, what I would must make for that. I have undergone here all the examens demanded by the French Administration; I am now surnumerary, and in a few months I shall be named clerck. I know completely the two Breguet's and Morse machines, and I have begun the 'Hughes.' But, as I am now in a little office where that last is not employed, I cannot improve me actually. I have also some knowledge of the English language. I have kept the last year the post of ---- during several months.