classes of people everywhere is illustrated in the application of the modern rotary registering lock to the single article of mail bags. Formerly it was not unusual that losses by theft of mail matter were due in part to the extraction of a portion of the mail matter by unlocking or removing the lock and then restoring it in place.

The United States, with its 76,000,000 of people, found it necessary to use in its mail service hundreds of thousands of mail pouches, having locks for securing packages of valuable matter. But these locks are of such character that it is impossible for anyone to break into the bag and conceal the evidence of his crime. The unfortunate thief is reduced to the necessity of stealing the whole pouch. Losses under this system have grown so small "as to be almost incapable of mathematical calculation."

Safe and convenient locks for so very many purposes are now so common, even to prevent the unauthorised use of an umbrella, or the unfriendly taking away of a bicycle or other vehicle, that notwithstanding the nineteenth century dynamite with which burglars still continue to blow open the best constructed safes and vaults, still a universal sense of greater security in such matters is beginning to manifest itself; and not only the loss of valuables by fire and theft is becoming the exception, but the temptation to steal is being gradually removed.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CARRYING MACHINES.

THE reflecting observer delights occasionally to shift the scenes of the present stage and bring to the front the processions of the past. That famous triumphal one, for instance, of Ptolemy of Philadelphus, at Alexandria, about 270 B. C., then in the midst of his power and glory, in which there were chariots and cumbrous wagons drawn by elephants and goats, antelopes, oryxes, buffaloes, ostriches, gnus and zebras; then a tribe of the Scythians, when with many scores of oxen they were shifting their light, big round houses, made of felt cloth and mounted on road carts, to a new camping place; next a wild, mad dash of the Roman charioteers around the amphitheatre, or a triumphal march with chariots of carved ivory bearing aloft the ensigns of victory; and now an army of the ancient Britons driving through these same charioteers of Cæsar with their own rude chariots, having sharp hooks and crooked iron blades extending from their axles; now a "Lady's Chair" of the fourteenth century-the state carriage of the time-with a long, wooden-roofed and windowed body, having a door at each end, resting on a cumbrous frame without springs, and the axles united rigidly to a long reach; next comes a line of imposing clumsy state coaches of the sixteenth century, with bodies provided with pillars to support the roof, and adorned with curtains of cloth and leather,

but still destitute of springs; and here in stately approach comes a line of more curious and more comfortable "royal coaches" of the seventeenth century, when springs were for the first time introduced; and now rumbles forward a line of those famous old English stage coaches originated in the seventeenth century, which were two days flying from Oxford to London, a distance of fifty-five miles; but a scene in the next century shows these ponderous vehicles greatly improved, and the modern English stage mail-coaches of Palmer in line. Referring to Palmer's coaches, Knight says: "Palmer, according to De Quincey, was twice as great a man as Galileo, because he not only invented mail-coaches (of more general practical utility than Jupiter's satellites), but married the daughter of a duke, and succeeded in getting the postoffice to use them. This revolutionised the whole business." The coaches were built with steel springs, windows of great strength and lightness combined, boots for the baggage, seats for a few outside passengers, and a guard with a grand uniform, to protect the mail and stand for the dignity of his majesty's government.

By the system of changing horses frequently great speed was attained, and the distance from Edinburgh to London, 400 miles, was made in 40 hours. Other lines of coaches, arranged to carry double the number of passengers outside than in, fourteen to six, were made heavier, and took the road more leisurely.

The carts and conveyances of the poor were cumbrous, heavy contrivances, without springs, mostly two-wheel, heavy carts.

The middle classes at that time were not seen riding in coaches of their own, but generally on horseback, as the coaches of the rich were too expensive,

and the conveyances of the poor were too rude in construction, and too painful in operation.

Let the observer now pass to the largest and most varied exhibition of the best types of modern vehicles of every description that the world had ever seen, the International Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, and behold what wonderful changes art, science, invention, and mechanical skill had wrought in this domain. Here were the carriages of the rich, constructed of the finest and most appropriate woods that science and experience had found best adapted for the various parts, requiring the combination of strength and lightness, the best steel for the springs, embodying in themselves a world of invention and discovery, and splendid finish and polish in all parts unknown to former generations.

Here, too, were found vehicles of a great variety for the comfort and convenience of every family, from the smallest to the largest means.

The farmer and the truckman were especially provided for. One establishment making an exhibition at that time, employed some six hundred or seven hundred hands, four hundred horse-power of steam, turning out sixty wagons a day, or one in every ten minutes of each working day in the year.

Here England showed her victoria, her broughams, landaus, phaætons, sporting-carts, wagonettes, drays and dog-carts; Canada her splendid sleighs; France her superb barouches, carriages, double-top sociables, the celebrated Collinge patent axle-trees and springs; Germany the best carriage axles, springs and gears; Russia its famous low-wheeled fast-running carriages; Norway its carryalls, or sulkies, and sleighs strongly built, and made of wood from those vast forests that ever abound in strength

and beauty. One ancient sleigh there was, demurely standing by its modern companions, said to have been built in 1625, and it was still good. America stood foremost in carriage wheels of best materials and beautiful workmanship, bent rims, turned and finished spokes, mortised hubs, steel tires, business and farm wagons, carts and baby carriages. Each trade and field of labour had its own especially adapted complete and finished vehicle. There were hay wagons and hearses; beer wagons and ice carts; doctors' buggies, express wagons, drays, package delivery wagons; peddlers' wagons with all the shelves and compartments of a miniature store, skeleton wagons, and sportsmen's, and light and graceful two and four "wheelers." Beautiful displays of bent and polished woods, a splendid array of artistic, elegant, and useful harnesses, and all the traps that go to make modern means of conveyance by animal power so cheap, convenient, strong and attractive that civilisation seemed to have reached a stop in principles of construction of vehicles and in their materials, and since contents itself in improving details.

To this century is due the development of that class of carriages, the generic term for which is Velocipedes a word which would imply a vehicle propelled by the feet, although it has been applied to vehicles propelled by the hands and steered by the feet. This name originated with the French, and several Frenchmen patented velocipedes from 1800 to 1821.

Tricycles having three wheels, propelled by the hands and steered with the feet, were also invented in the early part of the century.

The term Bicycle does not appear to have been used until about 1869.