THE POST OFFICE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO.
vocation, or to assume it, the parting from parents and sisters is no longer what it was, from the sense of separation being so much lessened. Formerly, the monthly or fortnightly letter—a stated expense, to be incurred only with regularity, and the communication itself confined to a single sheet—had nothing of the familiarity of correspondence. At present, when on any occasion, on the slightest prompting of inclination, the youth can pour out his mind to his best friends—no sudden check upon family confidence being imposed, and no barrier becoming gradually erected by infrequency of intercourse—the moral dangers of a young man's entrance upon life are incalculably lessened.
In the preservation of access to parents and home, many thousands of young men are provided with a safeguard, for want of which many thousands formerly became aliens from family interests, and thereby outcasts from the innocence and confidence of home.
The State has the closest interest in the rectitude and purity of its rising citizens, and therefore the public gratitude is due to a measure which promotes them; but when it is considered that the general sense of access to home which young men now carry abroad puts new valour into the heart of the brave—new reliance into that of the timid—that it encourages the enterprising, rouses the indolent, and, in short, brings all the best influences of the old life to bear upon the new, it is clear that the State must be better served in proportion to the improved power and comfort of its rising race of men.
Not less certain is the benefit to the daughters of the industrious classes. If the governesses of this country (in whose hands rest much of the moral destiny of another generation) could speak of the influence of this reform upon their lot, what should we not hear of the blessing of access to home? We should hear of parents' advice and sympathy obtained when needed most; of a daily sense of support from the scarcely ideal presence of mother or brother; of nights of sleep obtained by the disburdening of cares; of relief from the worst experience of poverty (however small the actual means may be) while expense is no longer the irritating hindrance of speech, the infliction which makes the listening parent deaf, and the full-hearted daughter dumb. When we look somewhat lower, and regard the classes which furnish hundreds of thousands of workwomen, of dressmakers, of shop-45
