The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-26 00:00:00

ght enartog.

MAILS
The esa gsr Ape, Oporto, Whoa, Ifedeire, Cadiz, egg 0
wig ha stage up ea Use morning of the 27th January.
The malls for British North Aroaries, Bennads aad Bvyl
Age, will be mode up to the ewes* of the 2Stli Lowery.
tiew South Wales Yea Disoen's Laud, sae jaw
Iselead will be Wade up us the males of the Iles humary.
The sags foe the West Coast of Afro' sad Madeira will be waft
up on the evening of the 314 fast.
The West lade Kale, inelwilne Bermuda, Neese, Rm..,
Roodurea, New Weems Vera Crux, Tampico, and Porto Rico,
excluding shots for Madan, Jardnel, Carthagena, yyym.a.
cures rename, Weet Comet of death America, end yt, 3
Nicaragua, will be made op on the ntornieg of the Ind Pebre.,,
The overland smile for Gibraltu, Malta, Grew, the loom
MtAdes, Ceylon, ladle, Hong. Kong, and chtua,
made up as time morning of the 3rd February.
The mails for the !knells, the Inver Plate, Monte Video, Parma
asps,
(Ma Bahia, Made
4 ire,
mud Bums Ayres, will be made op es the
n of the♦th Pebruary.
The overland eland malls, see Mareeilles, to the Mediterream,
!gm, Aden. Caplees, Haag Koss, will be made up no tag
moms of the TN February.

TO CORRESPONDENT,.
• Ittß•ll2/I•Mt, I Mewled ea " 7ee Lemu." teed..
e
be et the cam Boymeteeereet. by Two ♦yf dock as bite tt:rer4

HIGH WATII AT lAMIDON
Tate Day—Noral4A mi. ben It LAIIMML 51 WITH 4.
Te-bloasew—ltsmia& a WA. boa 4 & w• 444.11 MA's.'

LONDON, W EDNESDAY, JAN, 26.
BY that peculiar and pertinacious infelicity of eon.
trivauce which has so long distinguished most of the
arrangements connected with the Indian mail, the de-
spatches which we laid before our readers on Monday
included only a portion of the intelligence which the
Calcutta mail of the 7th Dec. was expected to bring,
For several months past the outward and inward
bound steamers, at both extremities of the route, have
kept up an admirably systematic game of mom
purposes. The vessel from Suez has been
telegraphed up the Hooghly as the homeward
despatches have been clearing the 1
pilot-ground.
and in London we have so ofteu received our Indiae
i letters on the day after the departure of the Indian
mail, that the merchants are beginning to conaidee
these tantalising disappointments as part of the use.
manent programme. How long so discreditable a
system is to continue we do not pretend to say, bat it
is quite clear that there is no hope of redress, es loog
as the Treasury are content to accept any excuse, and
the Peninsular Company can venture to presume
upon their monopoly.
The mail just arrived is a most pertinent illustra-
tion in point. It was delivered in London about
three hours before the last outward post of the month
was made up, and it brought most imperfect informs.
lien, because the inward mail at Calcutta arrived
scarcely in time to afford the same interval for trans.
mitting answers by the steamer then on the point of
starting.
The advice' actually come to hand put us in poe-
session of the events which had taken place at Cal.
cutta in consequence of the gloomy tidings conveyed
by the English mail of the 7th of October last. Them
events are of course of a distressing nature. That
was inevitable. But there is not that wholesale des.
truction of firms, that utter and sudden extinction of
ordinary confidence, nor that paralysis of all the opera.
tions of commerce, which the calculations of many and
the timidity of more had led them to expect. So farths
actual suepensions are confined to nine houses, not
more than a third of which can be placed in the fink
rank of commercial eminence. The joint-stock com-
panies, insurance companies, sugar companies, and so
on whose drafts were, in several instances, compro-
mised by the failure of their London agents, appear
to have entered into prompt and satisfactory arrange-
ments for the payment of their creditors without any
interruption to the ordinary course of their business.
So far all is comparatively well, and the evil
does not equal the anticipation. We must not expect,
however, that we have seen the end of it. The crisis
will scarcely be appeased with nine victims, and it
would be exceedingly presumptuous not to expect a
farther list of disasters—probably not a very formid-
able list in any sense—by the next or the ensuing
packet.
We strongly incline to the opinion, that while there
is every motive for commiseration with the sufferers
by these reverses, there is also great reason to regret
them, as painful illustrations: of certain great prin-
ciples of prudence and political economy. We
point to no individual instances, but we describe
a system, when we say, that a. considerable
portion of the trade to the East Indies has been for
several years past gradually degenerating into a
licence of credit and a temerity of speculation reeling
upon most inadequate resources of bona Ale capital,
such as no branch of commerce nor description of en-
terprise was ever yet able to sustain without ultimate
damage. The tardiness of the passage round the
of
Ce for merchandise has given a pretext for the in-
dulgenceto the Indian trader of a longer term
credit than has been enjoyed by almost
any other class of merchants since the war.
The system of " ten months' bills," and the
extraordinary facilities which prevailed in the London
money, market from 1842 to 1845, we have no doubt
were the means of tempting many men into depar-
tures from sound policy, and we will add, from ob.
vions duty, out of which have gradually risen up a
host of subsequent embarrassments. These unwise
and reprehensible proceedings are now becoming
manifest in their real character ; and while we have
no desire to make these Calcutta insolvencies the
pretext for a homily on the perverseness and folly d
human nature, we should certainly fail in stating the
whole truth if we did not remind those upon whoa
the disaster has fallen, that at least they did net
scruple to invite its approach.
We are gratified to learn that correction, even at
Calcutta, does not always fail to produce amendment.
For along with the news of bankrupt proceedings we
read the most appropriate comment they can revive,
in the form of a resolution by the Chamber of Com-
merce, that no more 10 months' bills shall be recog-
nised in the Bengal Presidency. This is, at all events,
a first step in a career of reform, which we shall
watch with some solicitude.
In one important respect the present dark day,
in the experience of the Indian community, contrasts
most favourably with the great crash, which sixteen
years ago spread dismay and beggary through every
rank and class of the Anglo-Indian public. Ths
failure of the five great houses—the utter insolvency
—for several of them have hardly yielded a dividend—
of those princely establishments at Calcutta, which
were considered to be as solid and immovable, as
the hon. company itself, was an event, which, for
several generations, will form the subject of a gloomy
tradition among the highest and the lowest of
those who were then connected with our Indian
territories. These gigantic concerns were, at once
the savings banks and the agents of nearly
every officer and widow and orphan, in any way
concerned in the two services ; and we do sincerely
believe that the extent and the degree of suffering
and privation which has been occasioned by the lose
of the twelve millions of property, which formed
their liabilities, has never been exceeded by any
series of similar calamities in the history of any
people. On the present occasion there is happily no
repetition of this deplorable state of things, or at least
it is confined within limits so narrow as not to consti-
tute a prominent feature of the misfortune. The men,
who endure the perils and the expatriation of Indian
service from an honourable desire to accumu-
late out of the lavish emoluments of that country
a competent independence to be enjoyed at home,
have learned not to trust their funds so far out of
their reach. We cannot say that they are quite cured
of their propensity for mercantile epeculatioss with
which they have properly no concern, but at least, as
a body, they have had the good sense not to expose
themselves to the casualties of commerce without any
means either of estimating its risks or avoiding its

dangers.
Returning again for a moment to the immediate
circumstances of the present time, it is a most
tunate circumstance that severe derangement in the
money-market of Calcutta has not been added to the
interruptions occasioned by the occurrence of so mueh
distredit. The rates of the Bank of Bengal indicate
no degree of unusual pressure, nor, if we are rightly
informed, is there any such tendency among the
native shroffs of the Bazaar. The predictions, there-
fore, of trade being reduced to a state of stagnation,
for the want of credit and capital to carry on the
business of exports and imports, will scarcely be
fulfilled. The low rate of exchange is much more
likely to induce people of substance and standing to
become shippers, and thus aid the profit of a rate of
conversion almost without precedent to the retainable
gains of a sound mercantile adventure.

IN 1839 Mr. Row Latin Wu. expressed a confident
anticipation that the effect of his penny postage would
be to woman the number of letters transmitted by