The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-04-16 00:00:00

MAILS BY STEAM TO AUSTRALIA,

The columns of several of our cotemporaries have
for a considerable time past teemed with most fallacious
and erroneous statements regarding the quickest, the
best, and most advantageous route to Australia, for the
conveyance of mails and passengers. As this is a subject
of great importance, both to those great colonies and the
public, the writer of this, who has taken great pains
with the subject, and is well acquainted with it, in all
its details, considers it his duty to place the following
correct statements and details before the public, in order
that neither it nor the colonies may be any farther mis-
led on these important matters :
The distance in geometrical miles from Southampton
to Sydney, by Alexandria and Aden, &e., stands thus :

les
Southampton to Alexandria.......
. .
Alexandria to Suez.
•• l7O
Suez to Aden
Aden to Diego Gracia .. .. . 2,180
Diego Gracia to Albany (St. George's Sound)... 3,118
Albany to Melbourne . .. ...... . ...
Melbourne to Sydney 550

11,704
But the Isthmus is equal to 500 miles, sea distant?,
therefore add 330

Total, this route.

Now the post-office official list shows that the time—
take, for example, the mail of the Bth Jan. last from
Calcutta—from the post-office Aden to the post-office
London, by overland route, is 21 days, and by the
Mediterranean route 25 days (10 days in the one case, and
15 days in the other from Alexandria), varying at times
a day more or less by each route. But let us take it at
the rate of speed per day as fixed by the Australian
association; then from Aden to Sydney the time will
stand thus :

London by overland route to Aden, and clearing it . Da2ly s.
Aden to Sydney, by Diego Gracia, 7,223 miles, at 240, is.. 30*
Stoppages. coals at Diego Gracia and Albany, and one day
at Melbourne .

London to Sydney, overland route [not 44 as stJted] s6}
Stop at Sydney ..
Sydney to London, return by same route.....

Totßl out:, ards and inwards ll5l
Or 5 days within 4 months for course of post.
By sea route, Gibraltar, &c to Aden .
Aden to Sydney, as above
gel

Total sea route
Stop at Sydney
Sydney to London, same route

Total outwards and inwards ....
Or three days beyond four mouths as the course of post.
The last Indian mail received was 20 days overland from
Aden, and 21 days from that place by the Mediterranean.
To perform and secure the speed stated would require
ships (paddle-wheel) of 600 horse power. Their con-
sumption of coals would be, say, 58 tons daily. It is
therefore clear they could not be coaled at either Diego
Gracia or St. George's Sound (Albany) in less than two
days at each place, and most probably more time would
be necessary. Five ships at least would be necessary.
Average expenditure for each, yearly, will be 40,000/.
Moreover, while the mails from India and China are
regulated as those at present are, and, as it is believed,
cannot be altered, the mails from Sydney and Melbourne,
&c., could never reach Aden in the rate and time men-
tioned to meet the India and China mails at that place.
The latter would be gone three or four days before the
former came up, and the mails, passengers, and cargo,
whatever that is, be detained eleven or twelve days, till
the next India mails came up. And admitting they could
meet exactly at Aden, still on every occasion the passen.
gers, or a great number of those from Australia, would
not find accommodation in the steamers from India.
The association unfairly take, and without any explana-
tion, direct lines when it suits their purpose, but throw
them overboard, or misstate them in others, when it suits
their purpose. Thus, they assert that the distance from
England to Sydney, by the Cape, is 13,367 miles. Now
this is not correct. Taking the direct sea lines by the
Cape, the distance is only 12,350 miles, or only 300 miles
more than their pet route. The correct distance from
England to Sydney by Teneriffe, St. Helena, the Cape,
Mauritius, Albany, &c., &c., is 13,530 geographical miles.
The distance can be run, and is offered to be run, in 54
days, (53 to Melbourne,) including all stoppages, and in
the same ship throughout, a convenience of great import-
ance. At the same time, and at the same expense,
it gives a regular communication with all the important
places last mentioned ; while the line by Diego
Gracia cuts of the Cape and Mauritius, and con-
fers no benefit whatever .on any British commercial
position from Australia to Egypt. With three days'
stoppage at Sydney, the course of post between that
place and London iviil be 111 days, or nearly 10 days
within four months. The association's pet route, Diego
Gracia and Overland, brings it to 1151- days, and this
only for a small portion of the mails ; and 1231 for the
heavy portion thereof and passengers, &c. This,
alone, is considered conclusive against the plan proposed
by the Australian association. Besides, the whole route
by the Cape of Good Hope is worked under the British
flag, while theirs may be interrupted and some day cut
off, being under a foreign power. The bugbear started,
of fearful tempests about Mauritius, is unworthy of
notice. Every part of the ocean is more or less subject to
storms ; but in no portions thereof does fierce tempests
and heavy seas prevail so much as in the North Atlantic,
and yet the whole mail vessels on that station do their
work so as scarcely to vary above one day in a winter
voyage.—Sun, April 14, 1856.

BANKRUPTCY COURT.-YESTERDAY
(BEFORE MR. COMMISSIONER PERRY.)

IMPORTANT COMMERCIAL CASE.
RE DEANE, YOULE AND CO.—Thii was a dividend meet-
ing. Mr. Lewndes appeared for the assignees under the
bankruptcy. The creditors were represented by the
following professional gentlemen :—Mr. Upton and Mr.
Freshfield, of London; Messrs. Hall, Rymer, Simpson,
Bardeswell, Shackleton, Anderson, Duncan, and Haigh,
each belonging to firms of, this town. The bankrupts
were merchants in Liverpool, and also carried on business
in conjunction with other partners at Pernambuco and
Bahia. The question raised at this dividend meeting was
one of the greatest importance to the mercantile com-
munity, not alone of Liverpool, but to the whole kingdom.
In the preSent case a proof of debts was involved to the
amount of no less than ,£25,000. Several of the creditors
had proved their debts on the Pernambuco and Bahia
branches of the trade on bills of exchange held by them,
but drawn on the house at Liverpool. What the Liver-
pool creditors contended on the present occasion was
that they were entitled to have double proof, inasmuch as
that the trades, as they alleged, carried on at Pernambuco
and Bahia were distinct and separate trades from that
carried on in Liverpool. The case was argued at con-
siderable length by the legal gentlemen, and numerous
authorities bearing on the point were cited, after which
the case was adjourned for his Honour to give judgment.
As this is a case of considerable importance to the com-
mercial community, we understand that whatever may be
the judgment of the learned commissioner, the case will
alternately be taken into a superior court, as it is thought
to be most desirable that the law on so important a point
should be clearly defined and settled.

THE NEW IRISH JUDGE.-ThQ ,Right Hon. Wm. Keogh
has been sworn in before the Lord Chancellor as one of her
Majesty's Justices of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland.
It is stated that he is by several years the youngest judge who
has ever sat on the bench in this country, R. C. M'Nevin,
Esq., has been appointed his registrar.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL SHELTED.—The Times urges the
noble lord the member for the City of London to accept a
peerage. " That assembly in which Lord Chatham and
Sir Robert Walpole sought repose at 'the end of their
stormy political career might surely perform the same
good office for Lord John Russell, and in his person a
title ever memorable in the political history of England
might be revived, - • i