heads to him, or to his military representative in Boston. He was in express haste for them, but they were never way-billed.

Another of the local Expresses runs to the still venerated home of the great statesman, where there lay, one cold day, upon the greensward in front of his own simple mansion, the still colder form of Daniel Webster, clad in the suit traditionally his favorite (a blue broadcloth dress-coat with brass buttons, a buff vest, and dark pants), and around the body a group of mourners. At a little distance a multitude of sympathizing friends and admirers of the weighty utterances of those once eloquent lips, now forever silent, were standing in a semi-circle, eager for a closer view of the majestic countenance and form, long regarded by some idolators as more than mortal. Above the voice of the clergyman rose the moan of the ocean, whose surf beats against Marshfield, year in and year out. There had been a sort of fellowship, some said, between this man and it. Certainly, he had been all his life-long fond of the sea, and, in his later years, found about the only recreation that he allowed himself in boating and fishing in its waters. These occasions were frequent, but he craved no company except that of an "old salt," who had served well as his skipper, many a time and oft, and (besides knowing just where to find the best fish, and how to cook them, better than any other man, except himself, over a fire made by the two on the sea beach) could tell and enjoy a good joke.

Several of these expressmen ply between the city and the beaches, and they can tell you of the beauties of Rye, in New Hampshire, and the lovely villas at Martha's Vineyard, and numerous other marine resorts in Massachusetts, especially Nantucket.

The expressman carries either joy or sorrow to many a home, every week that he operates. The mail and telegraph are bearers of both, but it is only the intelligence. The expressman carries the thing itself. The box may contain a welcome present, or purchase; or it may enclose the lifeless form of some dear one-a terrible confirmation of the sad news of a bereavement not fully realized before.

Ex. gr., recently, there lay in the Adams Express freightyard two groups of ominous looking boxes, such as caskets

and coffins are often enclosed in when in transitu. All were more or less leaky. Three in one group contained the remains of a mother and her two half-grown children, killed in the collision of freight cars with a passenger train. It was a sad sight; and the other group was almost as much so. They were a portion of Death's harvest of fifteen or more lives, lost at that time through a freight engineer's disregard of a standing order.

The following is a list of the "Adams" men in Hartford and New Haven at this writing:

In Hartford-R. P. Reed, C. W. Howe, G. R. Hills, W. Dodge, J. H. Preston, L. H. Colton, G. W. Prentice, E. H. Fox, and our old friend, W. Locke Crane, who is an agent there.

In New Haven-F. Barton, C. W. Gould, F. H. Allen, S. M. Brewster, T. F. Rawson, P. Conroy, W. Bradley, B. F. Baber, and W. C. Poor.

In Bridgeport are J. C. Curtis, F. H. Atherton, and J. S. Doty.

E. P. Slocum, favorably known to our craft for a great many years, is still agent in Norwich. He is assisted by J. Tucker, Jr.

J. T. Bryant, E. T. Smith, T. S. Fuller, J. S. Wheeler, and W. L. Nichols are in the Worcester office, and W. L. Stone, L. L. Brown, and W. Williams at Providence. Our ancient expressman, E. M. Hardy, is agent at Waterbury. C. B. Cooley heads the New London force.

The company has about 150 employees in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, exclusive of Boston, where the number of its servitors seems small compared with the proceeds of its operations, but that is because its large money business is so compact and easily manipulated.

The United States Express Company has no operation east of New York, but there is in New England, with its headquarters in Boston (what is sometimes mistaken for another form of it), called the UNITED STATES AND CANADA EXPRESS. It is advertised to deliver Express matter at points on the following named railroads: The Concord, N. H.; Northern; Vermont Central; Conn. and Pas. River; Vermont and Can

ada; Ogdensburgh; Con. and Mon. River; B. C. & W. River; Fitchburg; Cheshire; Monadnock; Sullivan; Peterboro' and Hillsboro'; Manchester and N. Weare; Rutland and Burlington, Worcester and Nashua; Boston, Clinton and Fitchburg; Vermont and Mass.; and B., Barre and Gardner; Troy and Greenfield; Troy and Boston; and via Hoosac Tunnel to Saratoga Springs. The United States and Canada performs much the largest share of all the Express business done between Boston and Vermont, as is the case with the Adams in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and the American in Maine.

WELLS, FARGO & Co.'s CALIFORNIA AND EUROPEAN EXPRESS and Exchange business, a feature in Boston, is done at the office of the American, No. 244 Washington street. Through its connection with the American, the agent at this point forwards express matter, overland, to the Territories and California daily; also by steamers from New York to California, Kingston, Aspinwall, Panama, South America, Central America, China, Japan, Sandwich Islands, Australia, Great Britain and the Continent.

THE CANADIAN EXPRESS, as its name implies, does business almost exclusively in Her Majesty's Dominion, but has an office in Boston.

It seems only a few years since the wealthy and influential city, nicknamed "The Hub," could be traversed by a long-legged pedestrian from its extreme northern to its southern boundary (Boston Neck) in forty minutes. Now, that it has incorporated with it what were once its beautiful suburbs, its area is very large, and its population nearly half a million. Hartford is now a fine city, and New Haven, Lowell, Lawrence, Providence, Worcester, and many other communities, of very limited size when Harnden lived, have become populous and important.

In truth, the growth of nearly all of the cities and towns. of New England, during the last twenty years, notwithstanding the long period of depression bore so hard and universally upon her multifarious industries (more notably, perhaps, upon her thousand factories), has been very remarkable. It may

not be so apparent to her permanent residents, who have had current opportunity to observe all new improvements, but the fact impresses every one who revisits those localities after so long an absence. It is more especially apparent in the increase of small manufacturing settlements, and little villages built up (many of them in very uniform architecture, if so big a word can be applicable to so small a matter), to serve as homes for the operatives employed in adjacent factories and machine shops; also in the enlargement of nameless rural suburban neighborhoods, occupied by a few isolated residences for rich city people, into populated precincts, regularly laid out, with a system of streets, salutary sewage, good gravel or paved roadways, nice sidewalks, and gaslight when wanted, together with some claim to ornate architecture, arboriculture and fine lawns or gardens. Express communication being so frequent and inexpensive between these places and the contiguous city, many merchants, bankers, lawyers, &c., find such suburban residences almost as convenient, and much more healthy, than homes in closer proximity to their offices. Expressmen have done much more than is appreciated to encourage this manner of life. Express facilities cost money, but what would the people do without them? To complain of express charges is much like grumbling against taxation for public improvements. The citizens demand good sidewalks, well-paved streets, and the many other things which help to make town life tolerable and the municipality a blessing; but when the mechanics or contractors send in their accounts, and the inevitable tax bill has to be met, the real estate owner grunts or groans his discontent. The city householder, long used to certain indispensable conveniences, conventionally known in our well-appointed residences as "modern improvements," does not know how to prize them until he comes to sojourn in a country town, where water-closets and the woodpile are neither in the dwelling, nor in all cases close to it (a matter of some importance at all times, but especially to persons in delicate health, or to any other member of the family, in inclement weather); nevertheless, he will not fail to utter some objurgations upon seeing the gas-fitters' and plumbers' charges for repairs. Naturally, such people inveigh against the charges in our business.

Nowhere more than in Yankee-land are the Expresses a public blessing, and almost as indispensable as the sunshine, or as salubrious air. They are ubiquitous everywhere, and everywhere useful, traveling telephones. In a hundred ways much better, for they carry not only the message, but the matter. Secure in the enjoyment of their invaluable service, the people underrate it, but if the Expresses should be blotted out of existence to-day, what would be the condition of things, especially in all of the marts and avenues of trade, to-morrow?

Some readers, bright enough in most things but ignorant in this, will reply, that the railroad companies are entirely competent substitutes. If the intelligent horses which draw the Express wagons could laugh, they would indulge in that healthy process upon hearing such answer. They know better; and every sensible and honest railroad manager must be conscious that his company cannot do this work in all of its ten thousand petty details and its many necessary precautions against mistakes and losses by robbery and fraud. In the indulgence of some personal animosity, or to revenge some thwarted effort to blackmail the Express proprietors for his own benefit, a railroad chief may persuade the potentates who employ him, that they ought to own the express business on their route, and, with their consent (though knowing little or nothing, and caring less, about the details of the service), may attempt to carry on the work, of which he has arbitrarily dispossessed the Express Company; but, if he does not "rob Peter to pay Paul "-if he does not steal from the usual freight receipts of the road to swell his Express receipts-his experiment will bring heavy loss upon the shareholders, and the monthly exhibit of the railroad company, if bona fide and accurate, will demonstrate the fact beyond cavil.

Unfortunately, railroad directors are for the most part too busy with other affairs to look into this, and, hence, are easily deceived in regard to it by some more active manager, or subordinate, who has some selfish end in view.

In a recent number of the Expressman's Monthly, a writer reports "one of the sharpest and far-sighted railroad managers in the country" as having said in his hearing, in regard to