Even the gum on the United States postage-stamps
is apt to be ineffectual. When you are stamping letters in hot haste
to catch the European mail, you are as likely as not to find that
the head of President Grant has curled up and refuses--most
uncharacteristically--to stick to its post.
The conveniences of the express system, again, are, in my judgment,
greatly overrated. It is often slow and always expensive. It seems to
have been devised by the makers of Saratoga trunks, for it puts a
premium upon huge packages and a tax upon those of moderate size. I
speak feelingly, for I have just paid, eight shillings for the
conveyance of five packages from my room to the wharf, a distance of
about a mile and a half. A London growler would have taken them and
myself to boot for eighteenpence, three of the packages going outside,
and two, with their owner, inside. It is true that had I packed all my
belongings in one huge box the same company would have conveyed them to
the steamer for one and eightpence, which is the regular charge per
package. But I could not have taken this box into my state-room; I must
in any case have had a cabin trunk; and for an ocean voyage, a bundle of
rugs is, to say the least of it, advisable.
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