It is quite right, it is absolutely necessary in the interests of the community at large, that, inasmuch as railways are the public highways of the land, the right of postal transmission upon them shall be secured in the most complete, prompt, and absolute manner that law can enforce. There must be no doubt or hesitation upon this point; but that limit passed, the postal department is, notwithstanding that its officials are of “Her Majesty’s service,” nothing more than, as a whole, an extremely well-organised, efficient _trading_ establishment, protected, as a monopoly, by many Acts of Parliament. The railways have never shown themselves otherwise than ready, it might rather be said anxious, to serve the Post Office; but in this land of trade and commerce, their managers look for proper remuneration for services rendered. No more is asked, and no more is expected. The law and practice have very wisely instituted a distinction between the manner in which ocean and railway mail contracts shall be entered into. Because the ocean highway is open to all, tenders for conveyance upon it are invited from all; on the other hand, with railways it has been very properly decided that they shall convey the mails, whether they like to do so or not; but the same law that has enacted this compulsion, has also prescribed the manner by which a just and reasonable remuneration shall, in case of difference, be obtained. Others than the lawfully-constituted monopolists of St. Martin’s-le-Grand would long since have been satisfied. Unhappily, however, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra[52] have lashed them into _furor_. Cannot the _crème? de la crème_ of the gods, the uppermost crust of society in Cælestia, invent or discover a Townsend’s Sarsaparilla to purify their bloods; a Soothing Syrup—a Dalby’s Carminative—a Balm of Gilead that can assuage their anguish? Or, if the gods fail, might not a dose or two of Holloway’s Ointment, taken internally, be tried? In former days, the Earl of Aldborough, then in the flesh, but now, alas, only of “glorious, pious,” and pillular memory, was wont to testify of it, as a wonderful remedy in _the cure of ulcers_.
RAILWAY RECEIPTS, WORKING EXPENSES, AND PROFITS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM—DELAYS AND ACCIDENTS.