FOREIGN LANGUAGES AT THE POST OFFICE.
[To THE EDITOR OF TUE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I think I can cap the story which " Canonicus " tells in the Spectator of January 17th; and show, too, that whatever may be the case in regard to French, the attainments of the General Post Office do not yet extend to German. Last spring I was in comspondence With my Tyrolese .guide, making arrangements for the summer. From one of his letters I gathered that a previous one had failed to reach
me; and when we met later on, he produced the missing document. This was addressed in a most elegant German hand (not, alas ! my friend's own), and quite correctly, save that " Weybridge " was written " Weibridge." " Not known at Huddersfield," was inscribed on it, in English. As there seemed nothing to explain why I should or might be expected to be known at Huddersfield, I sent it to the General Post Office, with inquiries ; and, after the usual delay, received a few lines on a scrap of paper from the Weybridge postmaster —who I should have thought had taken as little of a hand in the game as any one —to the effect that it had "not unnaturally been sent to Milnbridge," I have been used to receiving letters from abroad, yid Wadebridge ; but until this one, I never remember to have missed any altogether. I fear the good tradition of "To my son John in London" must be quite forgotten at St. Martin's-
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