The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-26 00:00:00

amount is charged for going 84 miles from the metro-
p us the whole distance, 95.

INDIAN LINES.
(From the Overland Delhi. Gazette.)
RAILWAY TRAFFIC. —We have been favoured %hit a
detailed table, giving the actual traffic on the greed
trunk road, near Cawepere. The results are, briefly, a
daily overage for the month of September, of 67-2
hackeries, laden and unladen ; 13 8 camels, ditto ;
14 2 bullock and ponies, ditto ; 9.4 coolies and banghies,
ditto; 1 3 carriages ; 1.5.9 native bailees ; 1.2 palkees ;
1.1 doolees ; 04 elephants ; 94 0 horses ; 1.022.2 foot
passengers.
There is, perhaps, no country in the world, with any
pretence to civilisation, in which there is such an im
leen e mass of unprteluctive labour, as in India, and,
stranger still to bay; in that species of labour, the cur-
rying trade, if we may so 0 rm it, which, above all others,
entails a constantly recurring expense. Out of 4,032
hackeries which rassed over the Cita npore Trunk- road,
from the Ist to the 30th of September, inclusive, 3,228
were laden, and 804, or one-fifth of the whole number
unladen. "We could scarcely have selected a more strik-
ing instance in proof of our hypothesis. The fact itself
is sufficiently illustrative of the carrying trade, and of
the expense of carriage generally—for the unproductive
labour must somehow be paid for ; and what process so
simple, we do not say so expedient, as that which
compels the owners of goods to pay at the rate of
tons of goods for every ton thus carried ; and yet such
is the system in practice generally in India, and such,
perhaps, it must necessarily be with such lumbering and
crazy conveyances as' we see daily passing before us.
The same remark applies, and, pethaps, with will greater
accuracy, to the transit of smaller parcels as effected by
coolies and banghies. The proportion of unproductive
labour must be, in this instance, still lamentably greater,
and serves to show how backward this country is in its
several, and even in its peculiar, modes of transit.
With these preliminary remarks we may proceed to
examine the valuable registry of traffic already noticed,
at the same time premising that such information as we
may glean from the statistical details of one month must
necessarily be very imperfect, and more especially when
that one month happens to be, as in the present instance
the most unfavourable month for traffic in the year.
Our acquaintance, moreover, with that particular dis
trict is not sufficiently intimate to enable us to draw
any definite conclusion from the traffic on any one par-
ticular line of road, as that from east to west, as to what
it may be also from north to south. Taking the usual

loads as undermentioned—for a four•bullcck hackery,
20 maunds ; an elephant, 20 ; camel, 6 ; bullock, 2i ;
pony, ; coolie, i—and, making due allowance
for such conveyances as passed unladen, we find,.
with that safe proviso, errors excepted, that the
average daily amount of goods exceeded in weight 43
tons. On the principle that money makes money, and
that railways create traffic, this amount would be consi-
derably increased, and there would be, supposing the
charge not very exorbitant, at least 60 tons of goods
available for dispatch daily, and as the average weight
of a Manchester and Liverpool train is, if we recollect
rightly, about 47 tons, there would be a sufficient supply,
under any circumstances, for a daily train up and down
in one isolated district.
The average cost for conveyance of goods by land
carriage in India may be estimated at 30 rupees per ton
(27-4- maunds) every 100 miles. By a railway at the or-
dinary rate of 2'BB pence per ton per mile, at the ave-
rage velocity, it would be 13 rupees per ton per 100
miles. Here, then, there would be an actual saving, in

the mere cost of conveyance, of nearly 200 per cent.,
and this saving, in addition to the other unnumbered ad-
vantages which increased speed affords, would act more
powerfully to bring into action the productive resources
of India than any legislative enactment or any system
of bolstering privileges whatever. In the registry
of traffic on which these remarks are founded
are not included, we have retvon to infer,
any returns of Government stores, which are
constantly passing through the country. These latter,
we understand, except in time of war, or when thei.e is
any unu-ual emergency, are forwarded by river transit,
when such is available, and must therefore have been
overlooked when the statement of traffic was being pre-
pared. But as the railway companies may reckon with
every confidence on the employment which Government
c.in furnish, we have only to add the amount of those
stores to the general traffic of the country, and we shall
form by no means a disheartening estimate of the
amount of goods available for transit.
It would be difficult, or p,rhaps next to impossible, to
form even any approximate guess of the number of tra-
vellers who could afford to pay the fare, however low it
may be, for railway travelling. The table under con-
sideration furnishes us with a sufficiently distinct view
of the number of travellers on that particular road. The
total is somewhat startling ; more than 1,200 are daily
passing on that road, and yet how few of these could
afford to pay even at the rate of a pice per mile. The
number passing daily in carriages and native convey.
ances, palkees and doolies, at the lowest average, exceeds
48, and of these perhaps 20 could afford to pay for a seat
in a train. The number passing on horses and ponies is
placed at 94, and of these perhaps a fifth part would give
up the horse for the rail. We have at this rate, without
including any from the foot- passenger class, about 35
travellers daily likely to avail themselves of the accom-
modation thus offered. If the charge for third-class
passengers be sufficiently low, something slightly in
excess of that charged for goods, we might multiply this
number by ten, and give the result as the average daily
amount of railway passengers. We have to add to this
the charge for conveyance of the mails and Government
servants, and shall even then,fortn a very inadequate idea
of the extent of travelling which railways would create.
We have only to multiply these results by ten—per-
haps by a hundred—in order to gain a more correct
estimate of the amount of traffic in a single section of
the country. The railway system, like the human
frame, is wonderful and complex in all its parts ; and
if the system be healthy, all its movements are regu-
lated with unerring precision. As it is impossible to
guess from the infant in arms whether he may turn out
eventually a giant or a pigmy in stature and strength,
so is it impossible to guess, especially under circum-
stances so novel and in such an immense breadth of
country, whether a railway can ever here possibly
present those gigantic combinations which elsewhere
it has confessedly displayed. A raily may be easily
projected, and, as far as the difficulties of engineer-
ing are concerned, as easily made ; but it can only
thrive by unremitting vigilance on the part of its
conductors, and by the line having been so judiciously
selected as to embrace the requirements of the country,
and to unite its main arteries. A railway, so we are
told, now connects the Falls of Niagra with the re-
motest parts of Albany, and what was formerly a
fatiguing tour of many weeks, may now be passed over
with ease at the rate of sixteen miles an hour. Cities
containing a population of 20,000 souls now occupy
sites on which, about twenty-five years ago. long cabins
were constructed. The extremes of civilisation may be
there said to meet, for groups of Indians, lately the un-
profitable owners of the broad lands around, assemble to
offer for sale at the various station houses their simple
trinkets, and gaze at the ponderous machine as it rushes
forward to its destination. And why may not the same
results be anticipated in a country like India, in which
everything is in ana infinniiote.elyd',hiignhst-ureshtaatne
elifiandevnattice
advance-
ment, and which h
ands
f security?an
proofs
are
de-
gree, so long an
report of the railwaydirectors
e registry of
required,
e commented, proves likewise
interval
s e
3nf r
epsrto proves,
traffic, cn which we hav _
far transit; and thus
the feasibility of railways. Th
that there is a sufficiency of gods
has the first pebble been thrown, which, in due time,
by the zeal of t assers by, will be converted into a
mountain.

--""."-------=2---7-'--------'—:
aprAopkelae.A RUING FIRES.—ThHTSday night a fire, nearly at-
tendedb with fatal consequences to a mother and infant,
Borough, in the Occupation
days, was
4,VictoriaUnionstreet,lo
d been confined only a
itirnatesrth';
back, when
mflgewwfi
the bed set it in flames.
parent much
d from trouble,
I, y and alighting on
brought the other inmates The screains of the poor woman
nmhd
te”sreev infant:rraalt e , i n t
neighboursthe fi first s tt
o floort
h o
room,
the infant and its
who, atter
engines quit kly attendt succeeded
destruction. The brigade
that part of the premises i and the fire was confined to
in rescuing
fortunately the occupier wial which it commenced. Un-
broke out at 12; Dover place, uninsured. A second fire
pro-
perty of Mr. J. Hepburn. It
originated
Kent-road, the
manner to the above. The Lai driginated in a similar
engines promptly attended, zda tt,baend %Vest of England
fire was soon ex-
tinguished, the dams_ e done not bein
Fortunately Mr Hepburn was insured viyy considerable.
the
San-office.
At the fire that broke out yesterday
Edward street, Portland-plece, the escapemorning, in
the Royal Society for the Protection of Litefrom belonging to
stationed in Great Portland-street, was the means Fire'
saving the lives of seven or eight persons. Thefi of
had obtained such a firm hold of the premises beforeare"
discovery was made, that had it not been for the the
timely
been
assistance afforded, all these persona must have burnt
to death.
TELEGRAPHS IN ITALY.—A line of telegraphs is
about to be established along the coast of the Adriatic,
between Venice and Trieste. The distance is 26 Ger-
man miles, or about 119 English, and there will be 22
stations, the expense of which is estimated at 98,000
florins (2,8001.) At the time of the French domination
in Italy, a line of telegraphs existed from Ancona to
Brindisi and Naples, which, though on an inferior scale.
was of great service to the French, in signalising the
movements of the English fleet.
THE WORCESTER GUARDIAN.—This journal was
published, for the last time, yesterday, after ably
and faithfully fighting the battles of Conservatism, in
the districts through which it circulated, for upwards
of twelve years. The proprietors of its ve-
teran ally, Benow's Worcester Journal (esta-
blished in the year 1709), some time since
purchased the copyright, types, &c., of the Guardian,
and, in discontinuing its publication, announce, " That
they have added its circulation and business to that
of the Journal, assuring their numerous patrons
that the same independent course which has
guided the conduct of the Journal, and raised
it to the high estimation in which it is held amongst all
classes of the community, will be pursued with renewed
vigour, the conductors of the paper trusting, by the zealous
and faithful discharge of their duties, to maintain for
the Journal the proud position which it has held in the
city and county of Worcester for a period of nearly one
hundred and forty years."

We learn from Rome, on the 14th instant, that the
preparatory works for the railroad from Rome to the
frontier of Naples and Civita•Vecchia had already com-
menced.— Galignani.

PROVISION 8 FROM THE 'UNWED STATES.—The
Rozcius and Victoria, from New York, wnich arrivt d at
Liverpool on the 23d instant, brings 19,000 bushels of
wheat, 1,000 barrels of flour, 32,426 bushels of Indian
corn, 10 barrels corn meal, 111 barrels and 34 packages
of peas, 603 boxes of cheese, 40 firkins butter, 896 kegs
lard, 32 casks bacon, and 1,980 hams.