CANADIAN POSTAGE RATES.
(TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—A correspondent discussed recently in your columns the prohibition of any extensive circulation of English news- papers in Canada that the high rate of postage involves, and he contrasted this with the other fact that newspapers from the United States are .sent to Canada at domestic rates of postage, so that they can be sold here at the publisher's price. Will you let me illustrate his point by a concrete instance ? I have just been to a stationer's to order a London penny weekly, and to my amazement the stationer told me that he , could not afford to sell English penny papers here for less than eight cents (fourpence), with one or two exceptions, which, presumably because of the large quantities ordered, be could sell for five cents (twopence halfpenny) a copy. No one likes to pay an extravagant price, even if he can afford. it, and, obviously, there are few here who will pay fourpence for what Londoners get for a penny. Connected not remotely with the tax on English, and the free circulation of American, periodicals is the rapid Americanisation of our collegiate life. Some twenty jeers ago, when I was an undergraduate here, we called things collegiate by terms in use in England. Now nearly every one speaks of sophomores, seniors, juniors, &o. (terms of which, I venture to think, few of your readers will know the academic meaning), and the American system of Greek letter societies, with separate dwelling-places for each society, is advancing so rapidly as to make College residence on the English model almost an impossibility. I do not dis- cuss whether this is a good or a bad thing ; it is debatable ; but one chief cause of it is that English periodical literature is not read here because it is too dear, and in consequence English modes of thought are not before the minds of our
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