, the Slave Trade, and Treaties and Conventions with Foreign
States. Last of all, as volume sixty of the set, we have the
_Numerical List and General Index_, itself a goodly tome of nearly 200
pages, compiled with immense care, and arranged so perspicuously as to
afford the utmost facilities for reference.

These papers, as we have said, differ greatly in size. Some consist of
but a single page, others swell up to volumes two or three inches
thick, and of perhaps 2000 pages. As to the contents, the majority
display a mixture of letterpress with tabular matter; and while some
are wholly letterpress, others present an alarming and endless array
of figures--filing along, page after page, in irresistible battalions.
In many, valuable maps and plans are incorporated, with occasional
designs for public works, &c.

Besides these returns and papers of permanent value, there are daily
issued during the session programmes of the business of the day,
entitled _Votes and Proceedings_, and containing a list of the
subjects, the motions, petitions, bills, &c., that are to be brought
before the House, according to 'the orders of the day.' These, and all
the other papers issued by parliament, may be obtained regularly
through 'all the booksellers,' by any person desiring to have them.
Their prices are fixed; and in the case of the larger papers, the
price is printed on the back of each. Copies of bills and returns may
be had separately, on payment of these affixed prices; and indeed few
parties require complete sets. Some public libraries take them, as do
most of the London, and one or two provincial newspapers, by which the
gentlemen of the press are enabled to compile the numerous articles
and paragraphs with which all newspaper readers are familiar, and
which usually begin: 'By a return just issued, we learn,' &c.; or:
'From a parliamentary paper recently printed, it appears,' &c. The
public is often considerably indebted to the labours of newspaper men
in regard to these papers, for the exigence of space, and the
necessity of beating everything into a readable shape, require them to
condense the voluminous details of the returns; and their sum and
substance is thus given without any encumbering extraneous matter.

The cost of complete series of the papers varies from session to
session, according to the number issued, ranging usually about L.12 or
L.14.

LIGHTS FOR THE NIGHT.

Unquestionably, darkness is disagreeable.