Such was Demosthenes, the Man, the Statesman, and the Orator. If what we have written from impressions made upon us by a long and rather intimate conversation with the great original, should be found, as we flatter ourselves it will, to place some things in his history and character in a new or more striking light, to the general reader, we shall be most amply rewarded for the pains we have been put to in writing this article. In conclusion, we give it in as our experience, that the trouble (certainly not inconsiderable) of acquiring a competent knowledge of Greek for that purpose, is far more than compensated by the single privilege of reading Demosthenes.

The remarks we proposed making on the Epimetrum of M. Westermann, and Lord Brougham's admiration for the spurious speeches, are, for want of space, necessarily omitted here.

ART. II.-Report of George Plitt, Special Agent of the PostOffice Department, February 3, 1841. Ordered to be printed by the Senate of the United States, Twenty-sixth Congress, Second Session.

THE post, in common with other great agents of civilization, has attracted much attention within the last half century. The main object of this vast institution-peculiar to our own race if we consider it in its great perfection, as now seen among several modern nations, is the transmission of letters or facilitating the communication between persons who are distant from one another. This communication is the more perfect, the more rapid, safe, cheap, and general it is made. Despatch, safety, cheapness, and the most general possible ramifications of the post establishment, have, therefore, received the greatest attention. Some nations are far more favorably situated, to attain a high degree of perfection with regard to all these points, than others. Great Britain, for instance, with a comparatively small, yet thickly-settled territory, in which the number of letters to be transmitted is very great in proportion to the extent of mail route to be travelled over, can effect cheapness, safety, and an extensive ramification, far more casily than Russia or the United States,

with their vast and thinly-peopled territories. The peculiar form of government, with its various powers and police regulations, and a variety of other circumstances, may, likewise, greatly aid or impede a rapid development of this important institution. Nations less favorably situated in regard to these peculiar points, or which, upon the whole, attain advantages far greater, by the absence of one or the other agent, which, nevertheless, may have been of essential service in carrying the post establishment to a high degree of perfection with other nations, do well, therefore, to follow in this, as in all other cases, the wise maxim, " Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," so as to reap the fruits which civilization may have borne in other regions, without necessarily incurring the same risks or sacrifices. Civilization is a great and common cause, which requires to be ever watchful, never disdainful to observe and learn with zeal and attention, and to adapt and modify with caution and wisdom. Mr. Kendall, therefore, acted wisely when post-master general, in sending Mr. Plitt to Europe, as we learn from the report whose title we have placed at the head of this article, "for the purpose of collecting and reporting useful information in relation to the mail arrangements, which long experience, as well as modern improvements, have introduced into the post-office establishments of the principal nations on that continent." Mr. Plitt, who had practically prepared himself for this mission by a service of seven years in our post department, left New York in the month of June, 1839, and returned in August, 1840, after having "visited the postoffice departments of England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Saxony, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Wirtemberg, Baden, and the free Hanseatic cities of Frankfort, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck."

Mr. Plitt, as was to be expected, was every where liberally and kindly furnished with all possible information, and enabled to make, in the month of November, 1840, his valuable report, containing the chief regulations and organization of the most important post establishments, with many interesting statistics relating to the communication by letters of civilized man. It concludes with some remarks of Mr. Plitt's referring to the abolition of certain abuses, and with some propositions of improvements in our post establishment, which, brief, as they are, [they occupy but five pages,] seem to us fully to deserve the attention of our legislators.

We refer to them with the greatest satisfaction, as, in regard to most of them, we had come to the same conclusion before we had the judicious report before us. To others we could not but readily assent at once; from a few we feel bound partly to dissent.

It was natural that Mr. Plitt should treat of the mail arrangements alone; in other words, that the mechanical transportation of letters and papers should form the only subject of his report. Such were his instructions, and, had he done otherwise, he would have exposed himself to censure for improperly travelling beyond the limits which his instructions, as well as his position, distinctly prescribed to him. It behooves us, however, as citizens deeply interested in the welfare of this great country, to consider the post establishment, also, in a different aspect.

In whatever light we may view this institution, it presents itself as a subject of the highest interest. Whether we consider it in a historical point of view, from the exclusive royal messengers in Persia, mentioned by Herodotus, to the grant of the post establishment, as an imperial fief, made by Charles V. to the princely family of Thurn and Taxis, and from that period down to the passing of the British penny-postage act; or, as the most striking example of the immense effects produced by the division and union of labor; or, whether we view it as but a division and chapter in the great history of the communion of men, and in connection with the history of roads and navigation, of writing and printing; or, as a striking evidence of growing mutual good-will among nations, and as one of the many blessings of their peaceful intercourse, and of international law; or, in its cheapness and regularity, as a peculiar index of modern popular politics; whether we contemplate the incalculable assistance it renders to commerce, the multiplied power and utility it gives to capital, the rapid exchange and consequent increase of knowledge, the immense effect, for weal or wo, which it lends to the press, and the fact, that by the assistance of a general postsystem alone, free governments, over large countries, can be made durable; or, on the other hand, the difficulties which arise for the cause of freedom from the vast additions of dependent functionaries, which an extensive post establishment makes indispensable, and the ready conveyance it offers to the party in power for the dissemination of its own party a means of which the opposition is deprived;

statements

or, whether we weigh it as one of the most efficient powers which promote emigration-the modern and peaceful substitution for the ancient and violent migration of nations ;* or, lastly, whether we look at the freedom which it affords to the tenderest affections of friends separated by mountains and oceans-in short, whether we consider the post establishment in point of history, political economy, politics, ethics, or as the truest handmaid of writing and printing, it will always offer itself as one of the most deeply-interesting subjects to our reflection. A simple letter taken out of the postoffice of some obscure place in Iowa, say by an emigrant, and which had been dropped into the letter box, perhaps at a little town in Wirtemberg, does it not, as the emigrant holds it in his hands, with its many post-marks in different languages, and the numbers written upon it, indicating the different nations and governments standing in account with one another, actually form a symbol of modern civilization? A letter an object so small that not unfrequently it is mislaid in our common household affairs, is dropped into a letterbox, unprotected by the two directly interested persons, and carried thousands of miles, by one nation after another, until, at last, it reaches an humble individual, known but to a few neighbors around him. What order, what a chain of trust and confidence in one another, what degree of international good-will, how vast and systematic an arrangement-indeed, how gigantic must not an institution be to bring about such an effect, and which, extending over whole families of nations, is nevertheless able to carry its blessings into the meanest cottage!

Agreeable as the task might be to treat of it in every variety of aspect, we are necessarily obliged to confine ourselves to a few remarks. We dismiss all considerations except

It is not the information given by newspapers only which induces people to emigrate. Indeed, we doubt whether the newspapers contribute much towards it. It is private correspondence, sent by the emigrant to his former home, and there read by hundreds, that chiefly induces people to follow those that have preceded them. We happen to know numerous instances, and remember, at this moment, the effect which a letter from Indiana produced upon a large number of hearers in a Swiss tavern, where we had sought shelter, on one of our pedestrian journeys many years ago. The eagerness with which all listened, the desire of nearly all to be allowed to carry home the letter, the universal stir in the village, showed us at once, in a striking manner, that here we beheld one of the elements of history in active operation. We know but very few emigrant families who, in the course of a few years, have not drawn more or less near relations or other friends after them.

those which refer to the political bearing of the institution, indispensably acquired by the great number of functionaries and other employed persons, without whom it cannot obtain the object for which alone it is established.

The two most energetic mechanical agents in the advancement of civilization are, the art of printing and the institution of the post, because they are the most active and efficient aids of communication between the absent and between the many. Both are, in their essential character, purely social, and not political. The art of printing is intensely active, without any particular protection or assistance on the part of government. The post establishment forms, indeed, in all civilized countries, a branch of government; but this is not owing to its inherent character. We might easily imagine it to be carried on by a private association, without its changing in any degree its essential character. This is actually the case in England, France, and, on a less extensive scale, with ourselves, in regard to the regular transmission of parcels, which, in many other countries, belongs exclusively to the post-office department. The post establishment, then, although carried on by government, differs from the purely political agents for instance, the administration of justice, which ceases to be such the moment that it is no longer executed in the name of the state. Although there should be annually but a very few cases to be tried in a nation of several millions of individuals, still it would be indispensable to maintain the judicial branch of government; because trials by any other persons than public judges, established by the law of the land and acting in the name of the state, would be nothing more than private redress, revenge, violence, and oppression, and essentially not justice. The same is the case with respect to the collection of taxes or the whole legislative branch. Although there were but a single law to be passed during a session of the legislature, yet it would be necessary to convoke it, and to incur all the attending expenses, because an ordinance, pretending to be a law, but not made by the State through its public authorities, is not law.

No necessity, however, would exist of maintaining a post establishment, if there were but very few letters to be carried. If a post establishment did not support itself, and the people were not convinced of its importance, it would be right to abolish it altogether; yet that state would have lost none of its essential attributes as a state. There are indeed