Great as have been recent improvements in our postal service, we
have yet to learn something from the Parisians, whose system of
Card-telegrams is worthy of notice. The cards are of two kinds—namely,
yellow similar to our own, and blue, which, when secrecy is desired,
may be closed. By dropping the card into the Card Telegram Box at the
nearest telegraph office, it is shot through one of the pneumatic tubes
which are now being extended all over Paris, and is delivered at its
destination within half an hour. Fifty to seventy words can be written
on the card, the cost of which is threepence. It is further intended
to permit of cards being dropped into the boxes up to fifteen minutes
of the departure of the mail-trains, a boon which merchants in Great
Britain may well envy.