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A STATE PARCEL POST. 329
the country by hrge retail or even wholesale houses. Already
it is quite common to obtain tea by parco1 from some wellknown
large tea-dealer, calicoes and linens from a largo draper,
seeds and garden requisites from the London, Edinburgh, or
Reading seedsmen ; small-mares here, iroumongery there,
biscuits and cakes somewhere elsc. To cultivate their distant
customers, those largo houses often promise tu send tho parcel
curriaye paid, but they carefully specify (( to any railway
station in the United Kingdom." Thy arc too well acquainted
with the cost and uncertaintics of delivery to t&o that burdon
on themselves. And as regards the railwity charges, they
seldom pay the extortionate tariff given further on, but, if in a
large enough way, have a special contract wit,ll sonlo railway.
For this modo of retail trade thcrc is an imrnenso future,
only retarded by the want of the parccl post. By degrees all
t,he more ordinary household supplies might LC obtained in
parcels direct from the ports or places of production. In
many branches of trade the expenses of the rniddlcmnn might
be saved almost entirely. JVeekly or even &lily parcels of
butter, bread, cakes, Devonshiro cream, sud all kinds of
delicacies might be looked for. The rich would especially
profit, as they usually manage to do. The vineries, hot-houses,
and gardens of their country houses would bo brought, as it
were, close to their town houses. Already tJ1e railway traffic
managers have displayed their usual cleverness by offering
specially low terms for parcels of vegetables, game, etc., thus
regularly transmitted to a rich man's house. Even a daily
bottle of milk, hermetically sealed according to the new
American invention, and thus perfectly preserved from fever
germs, might be sent from the country to the town house at a
cost distinctly below the prices of Belgrsviau dairies.
Literature would benefit immensely. The most remote
country house might be as well supplied with Mudie's books
88 are the members of the London Book Society, or the
dwellers near a Smith's bookstall. Tho utility of lending
libraries, such as the London Library, the London Institution,
the several music lending libraries, etc., would be developed to
the utmost. Magazines, weekly papers, provincial papers,
would more or less experience an increase of circulation ;