The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-18 00:00:00

SEA-BORNE MAILS.

When the new ocean mail contracts into which the
Government has recently entered come into opera-
tion, the whole cost to the nation for conveying
its sea-borne correspondence will amount to nearly
a million sterling per annum. The ocean mil
packet lines nerved by this country will then be
about 60,000 miles in length; and the number of miles
which the British mail packets will traverse annually
will be nearly 2 500,000 miles. The number of letters
which these packets will carry in tke course of a year,
at the present postal packet rates, will be about thirty
millions.

The relative importance of different parts of the world
with this country may be estimated by the frequency of
the mail packet communication with them. Thus, the
communication with France will be twice daily ; with
Belgium, once daily ; with Holland and Hamburg!),
twice weekly ; with America, weekly ; with the East
Indies and the Peninsula, three times monthly ; with
the Cape of Good Hope, five times every two months ;
with the West Indies, China, the west coast of Africa,
Central America, Chili, Peru, and the Spanish Main,
twice monthly ; and with Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and
Buenos Ayres, monthly.
The principal steam packet companies who have con-
tracts with the Government are: the Pacific, the British
and American, the West India, and the Peninsular and
Oriental Companies.
The Pacific Steam Navigation Company has hitherto
confined its operations to the south-western coast of
America, between Panama and Valparaiso. It will most
probably extend its enterprise to California, and mate-
rially assist in the navigation of the Pacific Ocean, and
in establishing a western communication with Australia.
The British and American Steam Packet Company is
distinguished for the success with which it has navi-
gated the North Atlantic Ocean. It has been in ad-
vance of all the other steam-packet companies, as far as
the perfection of its vessels is concerned; and in taking
immediate advantage of every discovery in the improve-
ment of steamers. Its ship-building career has been
one continued triumph, each of its packets having sur-
passed its predecessor in magnitude and speed. The
operations of thia company have consisted almost ex-
clusively in running packets between England and the
United States, and British North America. When
California was discovered, it was expected that the
British and American Company would have extended
its enterprise southward from New York, in order to
share the immense traffic that would arise on that route.
It has not, however, seen fit to do so, and has allowed
the American people to monopolise the whole of the
sea traffic between New York and San Francisco.

The Royal West India Mail Packet Company differs
from all other companies in having commenced its exis-
tence as a great company, and in undertaking at the
outset of its career a vast and magnificent ocean mail
packet scheme. It has been more unfortunate than all
the other companies put together, having lost, in the
space of 10 years, a splendid fleet of steamers, the de-
struction of which has caused some of the most terrible
and heartrending calamities recorded in the history of
ocean navigation. It is singular that from the first mail
packet scheme, projected by this company, there would
seem to have been anticipated some great discovery in
the Pacific in connexion with the United States, since it
comprehended a communication between the Darien
Gulf and New York. It is curious to observe, also, the
changes which this company's mail route scheme has
undergone. In the first instance, of so little importance
were the North and South American ports in the
Pacific considered, that Chagres was never visited until
the northern Antilles had been served, and then only
by a branch steamer, once a month, from Jamaica.
As for Grey Town, it was not even mentioned in
their scheme. Now, however, there is a direct com-
munication between England, and Chagres, and
Grey Town, once every fourteen days. The great policy
of the Royal Mail Company, at present, is to prevent
the riches and traffic, originating on the eastern shores
of the Pacific, from passing to this country by way of
New York; and to draw it to England, by a direct
north-easterly course, from the Isthmus of Panama.
To accomplish this gigantic steamers are running
between St. Thomas and their home station; the
packetsnurn-
e with
Mexico
iccoomtopabney pisarttioalblye
augmented, r.aendknitisal trad
sacrificed.

The Peninsular and Oriental Company was the most
insignificant of all the picket companies, and has become
the greate-st of any. It first possessed, as a foreign
packet company, two or three steamers only, which
were employed in coasting in the Bay of Biscay.
and it now possesses a fleet of which a nation might
be proud. In a few months its fleet will consist of
upwards of 30 steamers, which will cover a sea and
ocean line 15,000 miles in length. The operations
of this company have been spreading eastward with
marvellous rapidity. The company has now secured the
principal traffic of the eastern world, which will scarcely
be interfered with, even when a western communication
with Australia is established. Trading with the richest
and most populous countries on the globe, with no great
ocean to cross, have made the Peninsular and Oriental
Company the wealthiest and most fortunate steam-
packet company in the world.
The mail steam packet service of this country is one
of its crowning achievements, and will leave more last-
ing and beneficial traces of its greatness than any monu-
ment existing of the most celebrated nations of anti-
qwui
liltyb;e
feolertebnydietds aogveenrci the English name and language
t-he civilized world; and the fame
of England will rest on commerce and not on conquest.
There can be little doubt that if a uniform foreign
postal rate, sufficiently low in amount, prepaid by
stamps, were substituted for the present charges, the
oversea correspondence of this country would pro-
bably increase from thirty millions of letters a year
to three hundred milliteas, without any additional ex-
pense to the Government. In consequence of the intro-
postage the inland correspondence
douf ctthioisn
coofutnhte peryinnneyreased
from 90 millions of letters a
year to 400 millions. If increased facilities for trade and
commerce had not arisen in the country a few years since,
the penny, postage could not have caused such an in-
crease in the number of letters; and even if it had, no
means would have existed for its conveyance without the
assistance of railroads. Thus the cause of increase
affirded facilities for its existence. In like manner the
extension of railway and steam navigation all over the
world increases foreign trade and international inter-
course, and this extension would cause a vast addition
of our foreign correspondence, and would afford the
requisite facilities for its conveyance and existence.
It is the peculiar privilege of England to be the ocean
mail carriers for almost the whole world. Her mail
packet system extends, in Europe and Africa, from
Hamburgh to the Cape of Good Hope ; in America,
the River Plate ; and from the
Panama Gulf to the southernmost limit of Chili ;
and in it is comprehended the whole of the sea
from Halifax to
coast of Asia. The Dutch and the Spaniards are
indebted to her for conveying their mails to and from
Java and the Philippines; and she carries the corre-
spondence of every maritime power in Europe which
has dependencies in the west. Her power to do
good by means of cheap foreign postage is enor-
mous. By it she could materially advance civi-
lizetion, encourage international peace and amity, assist
emigration, and augment the commerce of the world.
By refusing to bestow the boon of cheap foreign
postage, she will neglect her high mission, and incur
an unenviable responsibility. No one who has
ever seen a foreign mail arrive at or leave this coun-
try could fail to have been struck with the ludi-
crous disproportion existing between its bulk,
the
magnitude of the steamers appointed to carry it,
and the enormous sums paid to the packet companies
for its conveyance ; and yet this mail contains literally
the seaborne correspondence of one portion of the world
with the other.
Great Britain, by acting generously, and reducing her
high packet rates of postage,
may claim the homage and
the gratitude of all nations; but by keeping up her im-
politic charges and contracting international correspond.
nee within narrow limits she will deservedly incur their
censure.

ellsse rded in the
GATHERING OF THE VINE,
The ancient types and figures descriptive of the
vintage are still literally true. The march of agri-
cultural
improvement seems never to have set foot
amid the vines. As it was with the patriarchs
In the East, so it is with the modern children of
men. The goaded ox still bears house the high-
grape too, and
theie e feet
w h i
eohf the
m ak e
t h treader
gle d
theare
Pstri
heartpurple
juice
of man. The scene is at once full of beauty,
an
and of tender and even sacred associations. The
songs of the vintagers, frequently chorussed from one
part of the field to the other, ring blithely into the
bright summer air, pealing out above the rough
jokes and hearty peals of laughter shouted hither and
thither. All the green jungle is alive with the moving
figures of men and women, stooping among the vines, or
bearing pairs and basketfuls of grapes out to the grass-
grown cross roads, along which the labouring oxen
drag the rough vintage carts, groaning and cracking as
they stagger along beneath their weight of purple
tubs heaped high with the tumbling masses of luscious
fruit. The congregation of every age and both sexes, and
the careless variety of costume, add additional features
of picturesqueness to the scene. Tho white haired old
man labours with shaking hands to fill the basket
which his black eyed imp a grandchild carries rejoic-
wily oway,. gwout b 1.9 od-k) amMe d $4 MY aucl fely hos

—handkerchiefs twisted like turbans over straggling elf
locks—swarthy skins tanned to an olive brown—black
hashing eyes—and hands and feet stained in the abound-
ing juices of the precious fruit—all these southern pecu-
liarities of costume and appearance supply the vintage
with its peasant characteristics. The clatter of
tongues is incessent. A fire of jokes and jeers, of
saucy questions and more saucy retorts—of what
in fact, in the humble and unpoetic but expressive ver-
nacular, is called " chaff"—is kept up with a vigour
which seldom filgß, except now and then, when the
butt•end of a song, or the twanging close of a chorus
strikes the general fancy, and procures for the morceau
a lusty encore.—Reache's Claret and Olives.