Ok, As an afterthought it occurred to me that to look at the telegraph v. postal mail in Victorian times might map in some interesting ways to the internet v. postal mail in the 21st century. Because the real possibility of multi-modality of communication strategies were then available (for possibly the first time) during Victorian whereas . . . now it's text, phone, email, chat etc. While it is well off your topic, I have heard anecdotally that parents are having good luck with their teenagers through text vs. other communicative devices. I can see we certainly got Michael going here! Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html